Tin Foil and Adrenalin

Daily assignments at a small Midwest newspaper can be boring with ribbon cuttings, Rotary Club elections and farmers tilling the soil. How interesting can you make a photo for a light bulb sale fundraiser? I embraced the challenge of trying. I reminded myself that what might seem mundane to me was someone else’s fifteen minutes of fame and I needed to treat it that way.

Sprinkled among the normal assignments were opportunities to do feature assignments of visiting artists, writers, musicians and politicians. These were my favorite assignments, when I was able to accompany a staff writer and get to know an interesting personality. On breaking news assignments I often had to be aggressive and get in close to get the needed shots. For features, I could be quiet, hang back and let the reporter do the work. I tried to be invisible as the subjects focused on the questions being asked them, preferring candid shots to staged ones. I loved studying through my camera lens the expressions that traveled their faces. The same curiosity that drew me to study psychology served me well in this job. Even now, I am more comfortable blending into the background and quietly observing when I have a camera with me. No better compliment can be paid than someone saying, “Oh, I forgot you were here.”

Outside the newspaper’s studio I did not have the luxury of controlling light so I had to learn through creative exposure and developing to come up with printable images. I always kept some white paperboard and a roll of aluminum foil in my car for emergencies when I needed to bounce some fill light into a scene. I often grabbed someone standing nearby to hold the foil covered board as I shot. If I didn’t have the opportunity to retrieve the foil or board, I wasn’t above seeking out someone with a white shirt and asking them to get in close to the subject, facing the brightest available light so they would act as the fill light. Anything was fair game when pressed for a photo and people were surprisingly accommodating.

Even in a small city we managed to have some excitement; fires, accidents, murders. When arriving at a chaotic scene­­ it was necessary to conduct photo triage. I assessed what was going on and decided how to best capture it to convey the story to viewers. It was not a conscious act, but rather instinct that kicked in instantly. If the managing editor was holding the presses waiting for a photo, I raced back, developed and printed with wet negatives. Adrenalin was a close friend on those occasions. There was a lot of praying going on when I dumped out the fix and opened the can to see if there was anything on the roll, a whoosh of relief when I saw images. I had the freedom of doing my own editing as I chose what images to pass on to the editor, no contact sheets involved. Working at a newspaper before the advent of digital photography was the most valuable training I have ever had and I got paid for it! I didn’t get paid much, but evidently eventually more than the janitor.

A lot of people would not function well with tight deadlines and stressful conditions but I seemed to thrive on the adrenalin rush. I loved that no two days were alike, that I never knew what each day would require of me. I remembered the days when I worked in a woolen mill during college summers and the monotony that had made mid-terms and finals weeks seem almost pleasant. I was happy to have this job where routine didn’t exist.