State of the State

A lot of what I do tends to be sprung on me when I come into the office. That's just how a newsroom works. Whoever is around when something happens to come up is usually the first pick. Of course I might not have been the first pick, but I didn't hear anyone else get asked. Either way, a photographer suddenly became unable to shoot the State of the State speech at the capitol building in Lansing last night. Had I known how much time it would consume, I probably would have said no.

Shooting something like this is quite literally just an over-done speaker photo. Person at a podium, with hand in air. That's the standard and you're expected to get it. Of course there isn't much option for anything else when you're a college photographer with little push like someone from say The Detroit Free Press or the Lansing State Journal. They literally shuffle the press photo into the floor for less than 10 minutes. The first bit of the speech. You're given a good vantage point, but then again everyone has the same spot so the photos are the same. Oh, and did I mention that the light sucked! Yeah, there was basically no way to light it other than on camera flash. My least favorite thing on earth. The image above was shot at a high ISO and low shutter speed. This place was definitely not the best environment.

Needless to say I wasn't excited about stressfully shuffling around the capitol with a billion other reporters, photographers, and randoms. This whole event is a big handshaking opportunity.

You feel like you're watching people try to kiss ass up to the next level on the political ladder. And as journalists we have to make sure to get some kind of story out of this mess.

You can see in this image, taken at a rather low shutter speed with a telephoto from across the open air space below, that there was definately no lack of TV cameras. I'm pretty sure you could spot me shuffling by in the background on every news channel in the state. Not exactly something I'm proud of.

Well, The event in general was something neat to behold. I'm a new photographer and already, without a major internship, I have been able to shoot some interesting things with "press credentials".

A professor of mine told a class of mine the other day that we, as photographers/photojournalists, have to remember how cool our job can be. After you've shot the umpteenth speaker photo and the umpteenth portrait, you get tired of your job at times. However, it's good to remember that you're not sitting in a cubicle all day, you're not kissing someone's ass to get promoted, you're not getting someone else some coffee. You are performing your craft and you're doing so to bring other people the news. It's a great field to be in whether you make tons of money or not.

Next post: More on the Night of Louisiana