Girl watching, or, just doing my job

I’ve often thought that a mean look really helps those in the journalism industry. Sure, you might initially make people uncomfortable, but it’ll nicely deal with any sort of 14-year-old image you may harbor. Look at my boyish face and tell me that’s not true.

I can handle being questioned if I’m from a student paper. It’s hard to tell the difference, even though the Bradley photographers rarely leave their campus. The problem starts when the public believes they can press me, make me fearful of them and hopefully make me give up. I’ve had it happen more than my fair share, from police officers to over-nosy soccer moms.

So imagine me at a high school baseball game about 30 minutes north of Peoria. I’m on assignment, capturing photos of their star pitcher and his major league scout dad. I shoot the kid with my 400mm lens, an intimidating piece of equipment larger than my thigh. Then I turn it on the crowd, hoping to get a nice clean shot of the dad using his radar gun to clock his son’s pitches.

This was fine for about 30 seconds. A small group of parents approach me, asking, “the game’s over there. what are you doing?” I just smile and keep shooting. Then they press harder. “Why are you shooting girls? You should be shooting the game, you know.” Hmm. Of course. I once again assured them that I’m not shooting any girls and keep making images. But they still aren’t satisfied. It’s time to turn on the passive-agressive switch. Faux whispering, pointing and the complete package. And that’s fine; I still got my assignment done. I’d rather stay mum about advance projects anyways.

May 11, 2006

Posted in cogitations.