Lenslinger

Some of y’all have never worked all day to make a person you don’t like very much look like an expert on a subject neither of you know much about and it shows.

Next time you wanna show some citizen how to take better videos with their phone, just… don’t. I just got heckled by a buncha girl scouts for trying to explain the rule of thirds. Some of what they said was REALLY mean.

I’d watch it, if only for the photog banter.

Terrorist cell, virus lab, any Chuck E. Cheese… there’s a lotta places I'd rather NOT take a TV camera. But when the train carrying secret lunar juice crashes into the psycho ward and creates a new breed of murderous moon zombie, SOMEONE'S gotta shoot it. Holla when you wrap.

“Beware the Ides of March.” Also, take caution when lounging about the newsroom between assignments. Quickest way I know to get sent to a stabbing.

MECHANIC: "Is there anything I need to know about the car?" ME: "It's been to a thousand melees, idled for hours at the intersection of tripe and tragedy and is haunted by the souls of a dozen photogs." MECHANIC: "None of that's covered by the warranty." ME: "That's fair."

Had a repairman look at my sprinkler system. After 30 seconds, he said he was “pretty sure I wasn’t using it correctly”. I told him I was “pretty sure” the videos he shot with his phone were poorly composed and lacked a clear narrative. Pretty sure he’s gonna charge me extra.

I'm that rare TV News Photog who can produce compelling television from a pile of broken sticks, talk a rent-a-cop into giving me his car keys, parallel-park a live truck while cradling a chalupa - yet cannot comprehend basic algebraic formulas. Okay, so maybe I'm not that rare.

THE GREATEST TRICK THE DEVIL EVER PULLED was convincing TV News producers that a fresh head-nod was worth jeopardizing the live shot and possibly the package. Okay, he probably did more devilish stuff than that, but I’m just speaking from my own experience.

I was gonna follow the hour we lost with lavaliere microphone maintenance but instead I went with tangerine daydreaming. No surprise there, really.

If you’ll barge into a fancy ballroom so underdressed the wait staff gets offended, ask the keynote squeaker make himself available, then bebop outta there minutes into the official program, well, you’ve got the makings of a TV News photog. Extra points if ya park in a VIP spot.

You never really get to know a fellow photog until you edit his/her raw footage. By the way, is there a keyboard shortcut for “You should work in radio”?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been escorted into a hospital closet to jam a camera into the face of a man in a white coat so he can explain something so damn esoteric you’ll have to skip an unhealthy lunch to figure out how to best visualize it. Funny how the world works.

Some days I spring out of bed rip roarin' ready to use my TV News tools to profile the neglected, uplift the downtrodden and thwart the smug among us. Other days, I just wanna sit home and watch the Roomba bump into shit.

Shooter's Rue: The dawning realization that the ONE THING you didn't get enough video of will in fact be what your reporter plans to center her entire story around. Usually occurs in the car on the way back to the station.

In my experience, the longer the period of time between shoot and edit directly correlates with the amount of “what the hell was I thinking?”. Looking back, the sock puppets were a bad idea.

LITTLE KNOWN FACT: Many TV News Photojournalists also hold advanced degrees. I myself have a Bachelor’s in Breaking News, a Master’s in Appropriate Back-Light and a Doctorate in Not Stabbing Reporters Who Make TikToks When They Should Be Writing Scripts.

Great. Now they’re definitely gonna want a live shot…

Fancycams do strange things to people, including ME. Twenty minutes into most parties, I'm nudging the wife toward the door. Put a Sony on my shoulder and I'll scour a Cosmetology Expo until I find that one weirdo in the back selling toenails. 'Cause that's TV gold.

Self-driving taxis have made it to my city. What's next? Sentient drones hovering over courthouse doors? Flying backwards inches from defendant's faces? Gathering afterwards to beep and bitch and boop before zipping off to swarm around a flipped semi? Think of the promos...

Were I to deliver a Photog State of the Union Address, it would no doubt center on those missing microphone cubes, some upcoming weekend shifts that are still available and that odd odor coming from the streaming studio... Filibuster THAT.