Lenslinger

TV News is a particularly callisthenic form of journalism, a strenuous medium in which a simple interview can mean trundling a bunch of heavy stuff upstairs.

So, NO, I can't help your Men's Club build their log cabin.

This whole Coldplay fracas reminds me of the many times I’ve taken a TV camera into a restaurant only to watch a couple ask for the check and quickly scramble away.

Probably shouldn’t have followed them out to their cars like that.

Sorry to interrupt, but did you know that every time you paw at that phone, a Television News photographer has to downgrade his drive-thru order? Won't you please put the damn thing down and go watch a newscast? Some dude who found community college too taxing will thank you.

Wait, that's me.

When I first got the chance to put a professional TV camera on my shoulder, something. just. clicked.

Turns out it was one of my vertebrae, but I took it as a good sign at the time.

I think perhaps the biggest thing that separates broadcast journalists from the population at large is our complete inability to resist posting “Twinsies!” photos, should either of us happen to show up to work wearing the same color.

I’m looking at you, cameraman in tan!

If I could give young TV News photogs any advice, it would be to find a community to uplift with that magical gadget sitting on your shoulder. Otherwise, you could be doomed to decades of pointing it at parked police cars and guessing to yourself what the trouble might be.

Hey, if you could rush on over to that thing we've known about for weeks, thatdbegreat - but do hurry 'cause by now you'll be lucky to beat the crowd. And when you're done there, call in. We may want you to swing by another thing we've been pretending wouldn't happen.

Get lunch!

Do me a solid: If I walk into a room with a TV camera, just breathe. If I set it up behind a houseplant, leave it be. If I’m leaning on a tripod at the back of a busy meeting hall, there’s no need to duck into a crouch as you walk by. Unless you’re wanted.

Move along, please…

Coming up on Friday's episode of Behind The Lens, STRESS and how your friendly neighborhood camera crew deals with it.

Strangely, I find yardwork helps.

Here’s to all the MMJ’s trying to make television out of their local fireworks show with their cameras set on Auto-Iris.

Good luck with that.

As Chief Photojournalist for a major market TV station, I help guide a crack squad of photogs, work with reporters to forge daily greatness and broker constant deals with the assignment desk.

Okay... so mostly I hand out batteries.

“Hey, if we could get some FRESH VIDEO of firefighters blowing a few fingers off some poor mannequin, I really think this newscast would be complete.”

If I can backpedal in front of shackled thugs on their way to prison, trade nods with bodyguards as I invade their clients’ space and stand like a sentry when the victim’s family crumbles…

Why am I so creeped out when the Oil Change lady spins the iPad around and stares at me in silent judgement?

How ‘photog’ am I?

When I cut my lawn, I’m careful not to break the axis.

My garage is a mess, but rest assured, the lighting is on point.

I bought a weed-eater solely because of the sound it makes.

And finally...

I can clean the gutters in the same outfit I wore to work.

To shoot TV news long term, you must accept the fact that no matter how much history you witness, no matter how much trauma you process, no matter how much of the world you come to understand, there will ALWAYS be some guy your kid’s age who wants to send you to a pedestrian ax.

Deal with it.

Only in TV News can you huddle with the Governor on a Monday morning, zoom in on spent shell casings on a Wednesday afternoon and not remember any of it by the end of the week.

Now, where was I?

Yesterday was one of those days when I had to remind myself how very cool the twelve year old me would think it would be to lead a swarthy band of television makers in the middle of a city…

Remind me to punch that kid.

I got a hang-up about the size of my glass and a funny way of walking when I close one eye. I got love for wide-angle lenses and a real narrow view of all politicians. I got hazy memories of shit other people would never forget and a lower back that recalls it all.

Whatchu got?

No one has a higher threshold for alledged calamity than a TV News Photographer:

“Fire at the Mall? It’s probably just some fry vat at the food court…”

“Bus full of orphans plunge into a lake? I’m sure they can swim…”

“Building collapse downtown? Parking’s gonna suck. Send someone closer…”

DEJA NEWS (de-JA nuz): the sinking realization that the stuttering woodchuck profile you're putting together for tonight's broadcast exactly mirrors the piece you did on those beatboxing meter maids five years ago...

Just with different pronouns.

Some personal news: Today I’ll be lamenting my teenage indifference to higher education as I go about fulfilling the duties of what my childhood acquaintances assure me is still ‘a really cool job’.

Clearly, they’ve never babysat a City Council meeting.

UP NEXT ON THE MIDNIGHT MOVIE: An amateur taxidermist rises from his swampy lair to take apart local TV photogs limb by— what’s that? It’s just WAVE-TV weirdo Marty Pearl slaying a day-turn?

I’d watch the hell outta that.

If you’ve never poured your heart and soul into a feature on street performers at a festival you were sent to - only to have it shelved so you go check out a drive-by shooting (that never makes air), then you don’t know as much about local TV News as you think you do.

Just sayin’.

Am I the only TV News photographer who cannot watch a Netflix crime documentary without offering constant commentary on the readiness, posture, wardrobe and tactics of the camera crews that pop up in all that file footage?

My wife would like to know.

See Dick (pretend to) edit.

See Dick wiggle out of helping an MMJ with a quick interview.

See Dick smirk.

See Dick get sent to breaking news on the far side of town.

See Dick provide a live picture from the scene until the nightside crew decides to show up.

Don’t be a Dick.

Signs I've been in TV news too long:

Corpses of clothespins in my light kit.

Once shot music video for Crimestoppers Telethon.

Seven layers of logos on my soul.

Recalls meeting other news crews for lunch.

Others my age buying boats. I'm into broken radios.

Bloopers on VHS.

Back for a third stab at Hip Hop greatness, Turbo and The Wordy One’s new release “It Takes One Dead Battery to Hold Us Back” falls flat. Turbo’s backbeats are catchy in a workmanlike way, but The Wordy One’s habit of scatting his favorite tweets over them quickly proves excruciating.

Most of what I know about life was learned with my right eye jammed into a plastic tunnel, the throb of a red 'RECORD' light torturing my cornea while an ever present deadline threatened to eclipse the sun.

Is it any wonder I twitch during newscasts?

Some men sketch out maps of conquests. Others seek solace in supercar silhouettes. I doodle Betacams.

We are not the same.

Live so that if your life was a vosot on a thrift store re-opening, producers would still be fighting each other to run it in their shows.