Just for laughs

Just a bit of a true story that still gets laughs from fellow news photographers. Maybe you’ll get to chuckle a bit:

News photographers can be a funny bunch. We experience the “hurry up and wait” situation more times than we’d care to admit. We arrive at news conferences, concerts or other events at, or a little before the designated time, which is not always the time it starts. So, we are made to wait and sometimes use that time to talk amongst ourselves to kill time. Various topics come up. Maybe we’ll talk about politics, the news industry or we’ll talk about waiting.

One story I’ll tell is about the time I was assigned to photograph a man attempting to break the world record for lifting a small aircraft. If I remember correctly, there were five print news photographers, and maybe a couple of broadcast guys at the event. There wasn’t much in the way of vantage point options, so I laid on the ground and composed the shot. Another photographer laid next to me, and before I knew it, we were all lying in a row with lenses pointed in the same direction.

We all knew each other, and the guy next to me, a friend of mine, said “So, do you think this will break the record?” My wit was sharp that day. I responded saying “what, how many photographers can take the same picture?”

That is all.

Advertisement