A Little News

So, what does a photographer do on vacation? Shoot pictures, of course. Just not photojournalism. Now some of you may not consider driving 1,200 miles one way with wife and five of the eight kids anything like a vacation. I happen to enjoy my wife and kids; although, I admit that there are times when it can get a little testy when everyone is all cooped up like that. Makes one wish for a motor home except for the diesel prices. I also really enjoy driving and seeing the country. Probably I would have made a good over the road truck driver if things had turned out differently.

Any trip to New York to visit my wife’s family involves copious amounts of food. I packed on somewhere between three and five pounds and enjoyed every morsel. And this wasn’t even a big feast trip like some have been. Then, during the cold months, there is usually snow. For a boy born and raised in the South, snow is a rarity that I can savor and enjoy for a week then drive away from. It is a bit like playing with someone else’s kids. I can have a good time with them but at the end of the day they go home to momma and I just go home. Cool!

The other part of the New York visits is the chance to soak up the wonderful landscape that central New York state presents. I suppose the mountains are part of the Adirondacks and the area is absolutely beautiful. The landscape gets down in my soul like nothing in Alabama ever has. I guess I would feel differently living there but it certainly is refreshing just for a visit. I had the rare opportunity to spend some time alone in the snowy woods, just me, my camera and God. Let me tell you, two out of three ain’t bad. I think I was the bad part in the equation.

On this trip, for the first time in my life, the portion of Psalm 23 that says, “He restores my soul,” became a reality to me. Those walks in the woods either by myself or with my children were refreshing in ways that I cannot even begin to explain. But, when the last evening of vacation rolled around and I began to reflect on those quiet times, I began to realize how badly I had needed to have the batteries recharged. It made me thankful for a trip that at first glance didn’t seem like something I wanted to do.

The one thing in photography that has always appealed to me without fail is the natural world. I love to shoot nature. I love to shoot landscape both small and great and I love to shoot animals. Oops, I mean, photograph animals! I guess I keep going back to food. Kind of a one track mind, or stomach. Back to photography, my first magazine published image was many years ago in Popular Photography. I won second place in a contest for a picture I took at a natural spring along the Natchez Trace Parkway not too far from my home. Now, whenever I need a good refreshing, I get out into the woods for a good photo adventure.

This post may seem to be a bit off topic for a photojournalism blog but let me tell you, photojournalism has a way of wearing you down from the inside out. Whatever you do to get refreshed is as important to your career as any piece of equipment you will ever own. So chill out, take a hike or do whatever makes you happy and get a good soul restoration

About the photos: I found this beautiful little patch of ice along a creek bank in Russell Park in Ilion, NY. The creek ran beside a cross country ski trail which I was hiking with three of my little kids. I shot the photo with a Canon EOS 5D (love that camera!) and a 24-70mm f2.8 lens. The other photo is from a marsh that is right behind my sister in law’s home on Route 5 in Frankfort, NY. It was shot with the 5D and a 70-200 f2.8 with a 1.4x teleconverter. For more photos, check out my Flickr page by clicking the link in the right column.

Photo copyright Gary Cosby Jr. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Having compassion is not all about entering into someone’s misery; although, this is a core component of compassion. There are many faces of compassion that we express visually. The photos in this post show three people with major, even life-threatening, problems yet, in the middle of their suffering, there is joy. So much of life is both bitter and sweet and you can have sweetness in the middle of the darkest night. If you are ignoring this aspect of compassion you are missing a major portion of the picture.

Finding these moments is a combination of timing, patience and an understanding of the nature and character of the person and the situation. Some people will never show joy even in the most joyful times of their lives. Others will seldom show any negative emotion because they are naturally upbeat people. Most of society is somewhere between these two extremes. In any situation of life you will find both good and bad.

I am frequently amazed at how people react in tragic circumstances. From my days in a volunteer fire department until now, as a photojournalist, I have observed the reactions of people under stress. It seems to me the worse the scope of a disaster, the more hope you seem to find. Conversely, the more personal the tragedy the harder people seem to take it. Let me give you an example. Some of the greatest hope I have ever witnessed comes out of the most horrific tornadoes I have covered. People just sense the scope the disaster and determine that the circumstance will not beat them and they resolve to move on. Most of these folks seem to be very positive. On the other hand, someone who experiences the unexpected loss of a loved one seems to be the most stricken.

Another group I am always amazed at are the terminally ill. Many of the people I have encountered with terminal illness have made their peace with the act of dying and have passed over the darkness into something akin to hope. The friends and family they are leaving behind will usually be far more glum than the one who is actually ill. I went the long way around the mountain with this one to say you can find many different ways that people deal with the situations of life and death. Some will laugh, others will cry. Compassion allows you to enter in, if only for a few moments, to their lives and translate what they are feeling into photographs.

The best way to capture these moments that really translate into photographs of emotion and intimacy is to go into the situation fully prepared. Are you going to have to light the room? Are you going to shoot available light? What is the best lens? What are the best angles? Make the preparations and then be ready for the moment. There is nothing worse than being in the middle of a lens change when the key moment occurs.

It usually helps to talk to your subjects for a few minutes. It will help you gain a better understanding of their situation and helps you find the key place to enter in to their lives, especially if your time on the assignment is limited. You can set your lights while you talk or you can be scoping out your angles and doing all your mental prep while carrying on the conversation. When you start to shoot you will probably be better off shooting a few frames while allowing your subject to get used to the idea of being in front of a camera. It usually takes a while for the subject to lose their “camera consciousness” and just start to be normal. Now when the moment comes, you are ready, your subject is acclimated to you and the camera allowing a “real” moment can emerge.

About the photos: The first photo is from a first time reunion of guys who served together in the U.S. Army during the Viet Nam conflict. The man in bed was dying and his old buddies payed a visit. This was a situation I had to light and decided on a single strobe placed on a dresser at the end of the bed. The light was contrast but the approach felt right. The middle photo shows a lady getting a Bible and the keys to her new Habitat for Humanity house. Out of her poverty came this priceless moment of joy and just maybe, a turning of the tide in her life. The final photo shows a little girl in her backyard. The normally joyful shot of a child swinging is tempered by the fact that she is suffering from leukemia, a disease which may have been caused by fuel leaking from an underground tank at the gas station behind her house.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

In my first post on Things I Never Learned In School, I said you will run across people who really don’t want you there. For my money, this is the worst part of the job because, to tell the whole truth, most of the time when people don’t want me around I would really rather not be there either. The trouble is you don’t know when or where you will run across these people. There are some obvious situations such as tragic death or people in legal trouble but it doesn’t stop there. Many times public figures get themselves into jams and we have to be there to show the mess to the public. I have even had police officers who were just flat out mean and all I was doing was my job. You will get into all kinds of difficult and uncomfortable situations in your career so be ready.

I remember covering a fatal accident several years back and the police were keeping everyone away from the accident while the bodies were extracted. A state police officer was walking near the media and a TV reporter asked him a question which he graciously answered. I attempted to ask him a question and he just looked at me and barked “I’m not talking to you!” And that is a mild situation.

I covered the arrest of a young man who was charged in the beating death of a child. Being a father myself, this just infuriated me. I photographed the guy being escorted from a police cruiser to the jail and a TV journalist was also there and shouted a couple of really brutal questions at the guy. He just hung his head, scowled and walked on without comment. About a year later he was cleared of all charges. The child had been beaten before being brought to his house where he was to babysit. The child died while at his residence. Guess who was called upon to photograph his release from jail and his homecoming. I had no idea whether he would even remember me but I certainly remembered the feelings I had at his arrest. I was extremely uncomfortable until we had a chance to talk after he got home.

Three or four years ago I had an editor to tell me to get a photo of a guy coming out of court but he was really mean and was probably a murder suspect and I should hide in the bushes to get his picture. Really, that is what I was told to do. Frankly, I am not a hide in the bushes/ambush kind of guy. I decided that I had to have a photo so I went to court and waited for the guy to come out. It was a traffic court situation and when he exited I asked him if I could have a word. I told him where I worked and who I was and that I needed to get a photo of him for a story we were doing. He initially agreed then thought it over and declined. I told him that I had to shoot something of him and explained that it was just the nature of the job. He understood that and we negotiated an acceptable solution to both of us. I got a picture of him getting in his car to go and he didn’t feel intruded upon.

I had a right to shoot any kind of picture I wanted to because the person was in public and on public property. I felt for reasons of personal safety it was far better to be upfront about it than to “hide in the bushes.” Uncomfortable, yes but I did get my picture. I think the key to dealing with people in uncomfortable situations is to be upfront and honest in your approach. Don’t hide in the bushes either literally or figuratively. I think people can deal with you honestly getting a picture of them far better than you using deception or ambushes to do the same thing.

There are situations where people will be threatening and abusive especially if they are in a state of high emotion when you are photographing them. You are the only person who can determine if making the picture is safe or not. Your editor may scream and yell but I have not heard of an editor beating a photographer over not shooting a photo. Kenny Rogers has a song you have all heard with this line, “You’ve got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em. Know when to walk away and know when to run.” You might want to remember that sometime. There is an appropriate time to just walk away and, yes, there is an appropriate time to run.

About the photograph: This photo was taken outside a courtroom moments after the verdict was read acquitting an officer in a fatal shooting of a relative of this lady. It was an uncomfortable scene but a relatively easy and safe one to shoot even though it is apparent the woman did not want to be photographed at that moment. The situation itself was tense with the officer who was white charged with killing a young black man. Other situations may be tougher when you are not in a public place or when you are alone.

Photo copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

I once took my brother to assist me at a Division I college football game. It was a big game and I felt I could use the help and my brother wanted to go. Now he was not a sideline novice. He had pulled cable for ESPN during several Div II National Championship games so he actually knew what he was doing. On this day, and I have no idea how this happened, my brother and I were standing behind the end zone in the proper place for photogs and out of the blue the school’s SID walks over to me and picks my brother and I out of the swarm of journalists on the sidelines and starts giving us the fifth degree. My brother, even though he was properly credentialed, had to the leave the sidelines and wait in the photo work room. I got a letter of reprimand from the school and my boss, who had given me permission to take my brother to begin with, gave me a good talking to. To this day, I have no idea how the guy picked my brother out of that crowd.

Maybe the best title for this post should be something else, like “Act Like You Belong There.” By this I mean that any person in official capacity such as a police officer or firefighter or even a PR guy can smell out people who don’t belong somewhere. If you look like a professional and act like a professional you will be treated like a professional. If, however, you walk into a scene looking like a lost sheep you will likely be given some grief or even asked to leave. I have been to many emergency scenes and been able to get right in and start working because I behaved like I belonged there.

I didn’t start out this way. When I began my photojournalism career I was very timid about getting into position at assignments even when I was definitely supposed to be there. I hated to move in front of people at an event to get into position to shoot something on stage like a speaker or a presentation. That sounds ridiculous but I felt like I needed to be invited to do that. I didn’t realize at first that everyone in the house expected me to get in front of them to get the picture I needed. I remember approaching my first traffic accident scene and feeling like a thief. I was absolutely terrified. I think I shot the whole thing with the longest lens in my bag and still felt like I was intruding. It took some time for me to get over this timidity.

Back then, when I would go up to an emergency scene I always wanted to ask someone’s permission to approach. It took me being told to wait right there while the officer checked about once or twice before I learned my lesson. I have found the problem is that no one at the scene wants to get into trouble with a superior officer so they will err on the side of caution if you give them a chance. The best thing to do is just approach the scene like you are supposed to be there and offer an explanation only if you are stopped. I know this sounds obvious to some of you and foreign to some others of you. When I was a volunteer firefighter my dad was the town fire chief. He used to tell me that when he was on a scene he was in charge of that scene so I developed a respect for that authority. When I became a journalist I still felt I needed approval from some authority to do my job.

I have the right to have the same access the public does to an emergency scene because I stand as a representative of the public. That I get better access than the public is often just a professional courtesy extended by the police or fire department if they are even aware of my presence. Most of the time they simply don’t pay any attention to me as long as I am not creating a problem and am behaving like a professional. I usually have to approach a fire or police officer to gain some information during the course of an incident and I will try to pick a time when the officer is not overly busy. Although obvious, don’t interrupt a firefighter or police officer to get an id or information while they are busy. You can always call a fire station or police supervisor later to get that kind of stuff.

There is a kind of running joke I have with the State Troopers. I know without having to ask that they are not going to release any information at the scene of an accident; however, it is my job to ask so I ask. We usually turn the situation into a laugh and both go on about our business. At large scenes like major fires, bank robberies, shootings and natural disasters there will be a department spokesman to help with information. This is a two edged sword because at these really big events you will probably have much more restricted access to the actual site.

You will find that young police officers will be the ones who give you the most trouble when it comes to access. This is partly due to inexperience and partly due to fear of screwing up. If they stop you and say you can’t approach an accident scene you can usually ask them very politely to contact their supervisor for permission. In some cases you will simply be denied access until they are ready to let you in. You may also encounter trouble with emergency officials in smaller communities who are not accustomed to dealing with the news media. You really can’t do much about it at that moment. Later, when things have cooled down, you can talk to the town’s police or fire chief and let them know what you are about and ask them for better access in the future. Developing a relationship with emergency officials will pay dividends for years to come. Get to know these guys at least on a professional basis so when you need access or information they will at least know who you are. It may take some time but it will be well worth the effort.

About the photos: The top photo was a private property accident where a car crashed into a church office. I was able to gain excellent access by simply asking someone on the church staff if I could go in. The lower photo was a night fire where the police department had blocked several roads leading to the scene so people would not run over fire hoses. This also gives them a good excuse to keep people back. I parked away from the police cruisers and walked in to the scene through a couple of side lots. Once there I did my job and stayed out of the way of the firefighters but go excellent access.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

I went to church last night and my pastor said something that reminded me of photojournalism. He was telling a story about a guy who found a beautiful flower growing in a crack between a building and a sidewalk in a large city. The guy is amazed at finding such a flower in such a place and has a “discussion” with the flower about why it is growing there. The guy says the flower should be in a garden or a field or somewhere to really showcase its beauty rather than in that crack. The flower says to the guy that it doesn’t know where there are any gardens or fields so it is just blooming where it is planted. Other than the oddity of a man conversing with a flower, it is a pretty illustrative story.

What a great metaphor for photojournalism. We so frequently equate success with working in a big city at a large newspaper that we can easily get distracted with our final destination and fail to make the most out of where we are today. I have probably touched on this before and will probably do so again so just bear with me. Where you are is not nearly as important as who you are. From the same message last night, our pastor said that is doesn’t matter what you are doing if what you are doing doesn’t matter. In other words, are you doing what you were created to do? If you are then the location is far less important than actually doing what you were made to do. The reason I am saying this is because it took me so very long to get over not working in a large market and trotting around the globe, or at least around the country. I kept looking beyond today and not really making the most out of where I was.

As life has turned out, I have only had two jobs in photojournalism. I began my career at The Daily Advance in Elizabeth City, North Carolina in a beautiful community by the Pasquotank River and not too far from the beaches of the Outer Banks. My next job, and still my current job, is The Decatur Daily in Decatur, Alabama. At the paper’s high water mark it was only about a 30,000 circulation paper on Sunday and it has all the pitfalls of a small newspaper. It also has some very nice things. Among those nice things is the fact that Decatur, and Hartselle where I live, is a great place to live and raise a family. I have my baby laying in the floor beside me even now while I am typing. He is our eighth child and it would be tough to find a better place to have a family than here. So is where I work more important or is how I work more important?

I think you will find that the conditions of life are pretty similar all across America. You will find good, bad and ugly mixed in slightly different proportions in any city, town, village or county in the nation. Granted, they are more concentrated in big cities but so is the traffic and the cost of living is through the roof. The key to a happy life is to find a job you like working with people you like living in a community you like. Ambition is great just don’t let it drive you crazy. Be ambitious where you are and aggressively pursue your dream. You just never know what you will find around the next corner in your little corner of the world. If you get the opportunity to live and work in a big city by all means go for it. If you are in a smaller place, find the stories that make your town what it is and tell those stories. You will find that the people I report on in Decatur, Alabama are not all that different from people that the NY Times or Washington Post reports on.

I would like to think that I have the talent to move on to a bigger newspaper. I have not locked out the idea of moving on to another location and have even tried once or twice in the past few years. But I have learned a few things about community and friendships and family that make the location where I am working far less important than the fact that I am working in the job I was created to work in. For you guys who are students, get those internships, as many as possible at the best places possible and do all you can to get to your dream. For you guys who are like me and have worked for years in small newspapers just remember that you can do anything you want to do in photojournalism right where you are but it is really up to you to make the most out of your opportunities. Make friends, live your life and do your work keeping the main thing in focus in your life.

About the photo: I shot this very nice portrait of a lady and her mare on an assignment about the mare nursing an orphaned calf. The calf has become too aggressive for the mare and the lady now nurses the calf with a bottle. This photo didn’t fit the assignment and didn’t get published but it was really my favorite from the shoot. As it pertains to this post it is just an example of the excellent moments you can come across no matter where you are as long as you are looking for them.

Photo copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Photojournalism is a ticket into all kinds of situations. Some you will enjoy and some you will abhor. You are going to see stuff that will cause your stomach to turn. There are going to be things you photograph that stick in your head long after the actual incident has passed. You are going to see things that enrage you. You are going to see death up close and personal. You are going to feel the frustration and senseless loss of teenagers killed the first time they drive on their own. You will see little children suffering from killer diseases. You will sit in the homes of families trying to cope with the loss of a loved one. You will see and experience all kinds of things in your career and some of the stuff you see will be very difficult to deal with on an emotional level.

Before I came to the profession of photojournalism I had already been a volunteer firefighter for almost seven years. I had seen death and suffering from a point of view that most photojournalists simply won’t see. I remember the first dead body I had ever seen outside a funeral home. It was a man killed in a car wreck and the image of that guy is still etched in graphic detail in my mind. The older guys in the fire department helped me learn to use humor to deal with all the things I was seeing. Firefighters and emergency personnel of all types have a pretty bizarre, dark sense of humor and it becomes a defense mechanism for them and helps them deal with all the junk they see. Some departments even provide mental health assistance for their emergency workers. My newspaper does not.

As a photojournalist I have seen some pretty gruesome stuff. I have also seen some very disturbing stuff. As far as I know, there is no program to assist photojournalists trying to deal with the disturbing things they witness. There are images in my mind that will probably never go away, images of death and destruction and suffering. I have a bit of an advantage over most because of my background in emergency services. Still, there are things in my mental catalog that are truly disturbing, little details that stick with me and just won’t go away.

Not to be overly graphic but I remember walking into a traffic fatality scene where we had to be careful where we walked because the victim’s face was smashed and the pieces were all over the sidewalk. There is an image of a woman’s hair with glass and dirt tangled in it after she was killed in a crash with an 18 wheeler. A hand the color of old candle wax that had slipped from under the sheet at a traffic fatality. (Hollywood simply can’t simulate death.) There is the truly disturbing image of firefighters doing CPR on a pair of children killed in a car accident. I left that scene where four people died and I have never been more deeply affected in my life. Seeing those precious little children expiring right in front of me was just too much. I left there physically ill and have never wanted to be able to throw up more than on that day.

You are going to see some tough things and you will need a self-defense mechanism. The best advice I can give you is to hang around a fire station. It won’t take long until they start telling stories and trying to gross you out but they will always be laughing. The laughter is not out of disrespect for the victims it is just their way of handling the stress that would otherwise build up. I am sure soldiers also have a dark sense of humor relating to wounds and death. Laughter really is good medicine. Don’t dwell too long on the junk you see. Some of it will literally make you sick. Talk to emergency workers. They have people dying in their hands on a regular basis. See how they learn to deal with it. And don’t forget to laugh. Most of all, don’t dwell on the negative. Remain positive in your outlook and in your inlook, your thought life. Don’t dive too deeply into the dark thoughts that surround tragedy. The dead we cannot help. The living we must help. That is our mission and that is our answer. My pastor says you can go through hell, you just can’t stop there.

About The Photos: The top photo is from a soldier’s funeral I covered a year and a half ago. It was very emotional and it was easy to get caught up in the family’s grief. The bottom photo is from a fire where two volunteer firefighters died in a structural collapse. This hurt me too. Any time a firefighter dies in the line of duty it is hard to deal with. I was once a firefighter and my dad is still a firefighter. Once you get firefighting in your blood, it never leaves so when they suffer you suffer a little bit too.

Photos copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

I have been a photojournalist for 18 years now. In all those years of shooting I have found the toughest thing to do is infringe upon a person’s mourning with my camera. Technically the photo is usually pretty easy to shoot. That is not the issue. I simply can’t get excited about photographing someone mourning at accidents or fires or other traumatic situations. I have always held the philosophy that a person should be able to have a private moment even if it is happening in a public street. To be fair, not everyone holds this point of view but I don’t have to sleep at night with someone else’s philosophy, I have to sleep with mine.

I’m not trying to put on a halo here. I have photographed family members mourning the loss of someone in a wreck or fire and I will have to do so again. I wish I could tell you when to do this and when not to but I can’t. Much depends on who you are. I am not a person fond of situational ethics but there are times when shooting the picture feels right and there are times when it definitely does not. There are times when I have shot the photo and times I have walked away from it.

To be honest, some people put on a show for the camera. Other people are oblivious to the camera. Some others are conscious of the camera and are obviously trying to avoid being photographed. Every situation is different so there is no one set policy that says shoot in this situation but not in this one. Personally, I try to cover the story without infringing upon a person in a way that would cause them more pain. If I have a chance, I try and talk to them even before I shoot the photo. This allows them to know who I am and that I care about something other than the picture.

I remember covering a fire once and the home owner came over to me and a TV journalist and demanded that we leave and stop taking advantage of him. You will run into that. This man was very mad at us for just being there. We tried to explain our job but his emotion made him unreasonable. I had a friend who was attacked at the scene of a fatal accident when a family member literally assaulted him. Thankfully a deputy was nearby and came to his aide. I was shoved by a drunk and enraged family member while covering a house fire. I have been at other scenes when the family members were very accepting of my presence and understood what I was doing. There is just no way to predict how people will react under pressure.

Don’t forget that when you shoot a photo of someone, you also have to get their ID. That makes a tough job even tougher. (This makes me glad I am not a reporter!) People may have no problem with you shooting but may not even be willing to speak to you much less give you their names. On the other hand, I once had someone come up to me at a shooting and try to tell me the whole story. I finally realized they thought I was a police investigator and was able to point them to a real cop. To say these are fluid situations would be an understatement.

Whenever I walk into a situation like this I do a few things that may help you. First, I want to get a feel for the emotional atmosphere. In other words, how emotionally charged is the situation. This can be a red flag and you should pay extra attention when you walk into a high emotion situation. Journalists can be easy targets of aggression. Next, talk to bystanders. Neighbors of the victim can be an excellent source of information, including names. This allows you to shoot without having to further intrude on the situation. Sometimes this is a matter of logistics, sometimes a matter of courtesy. Either way, it may make your job easier just remember to verify all second hand information before you submit it for publication. Neighbors may also lead you to shots you would not ordinarily even know about. Third, and probably this should be first, put yourself in the person’s shoes you are about to photograph. If that were you out there crying over the loss of your child would you really want a photographer shooting your picture? You remember the old Sunday School golden rule? Do unto others the way you would have them do unto you. Pretty good advice. Finally, is the situation significant enough to intrude upon another person’s grief. That is the ultimate barometer. Grief can’t and shouldn’t be ignored but do be sensitive to the person you are shooting.

About this photo: I was assigned to shoot something at a karate studio following the murder of the popular instructor. I found some of his students outside the building crying with a few flowers on the doorstep. This was an entirely appropriate time to photograph grief. I believe this was done with a 17-35mm on an Nikon D1.

Photo copyright The Decatur Daily. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.