Yesterday was another early morning at the station. I find myself (actually, quite contentedly) on a regular cycle of doing the editing for the Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning shows, requiring I get there a good couple of hours before they begin. These are the early morning shows -- you know, the ones that come on before the network's early morning show? So the workday starts at 6 a.m. on the weekend, and at a mind-numbing 4 a.m. on Monday. However, the set up here is to explain that, on the weekend, I then often go out and shoot a couple of stories in the afternoon to fill out my 8 hours. (You'll recall that, in the fall, it was on this shift that I became the festival king.)
Yesterday, after some snow and ice-induced quiet (more on that to come, when I get the pictures scanned), it came again: three stories. First, the declaration for city council by a candidate with a name even Dickens would have been embarrassed to make up: Goodpitch. (It's for real.) Then a swing by the Civic Center, where while it's under 20F outside, they're holding the Home and Garden Show -- some quick footage and a couple of interviews. And then -- and this is where I've been heading for two paragraphs -- a local county was to have a groundbreaking ceremony for a new Hospice building.
Hospice, for those of you fortunate enough not to know, helps people who are terminally ill at the very end. It's a great service, and even though I would have covered the event with dedication anyway, I did want to get this to help out.
However, by that time I was running about 15 minutes late, and was somewhat unfamiliar with its location. Luckily, I got a Garmin GPS unit for Christmas, and with a quick input of an address, I was off at high speed with a female voice telling me where to go. (And yes, that is a familiar state of things for me.)
Still 15 minutes behind, the GPS tells me, "Address at left," and it does look like what I expected: an empty field. However, there's something I don't expect. The field is totally empty. It is a barren landscape, not a soul in sight. No ceremony. No ceremony winding down. No confused and irritated hangers on telling me I missed it. Nothing.
Across the street (as the directions in the press release had said) was the sheriff's office. I pulled over there, parking in a spot on the end of a row of carefully reserved parking places, for various captains, lieutenants, investigators, etc. All empty. I thought I'd ask there; maybe the Hospice people had taken shelter from the cutting wind. But, while the outer door was open, the inner was locked. Did I mention all those reserved spaces were empty? Apparently the sheriff is closed Saturday.
Past the field (still empty) and down a cross street, at the bottom of a long, gentle slope, was the county nursing home. I drove down there. There were cars in their lot, but the door in was locked as well. I saw an old man dozing in a wheelchair through the glass, but the reception desk was clearly unattended.
At this moment, I think of a tradition I learned shooting stills that I call the "Editor's Frame." This is a picture you shoot that will never be used. It's usually a wide angle view of the event you're covering, meant to show the editor (who will later complain about your other pictures not being close enough, or not a good angle, or some such thing) just how horrific the situation was. As I walked back to the car, I decided to do the TV equivalent. If nothing else, I told myself, we would then have some stock footage of the location should someone want to do a story on the new Hospice.
I pulled out the camera and began to walk back up through the field, up that long, gentle slope. It was a longer trudge than I first thought, through the still gusting, icy wind, and this really was a big, empty field. Acres and acres of it. I shot long pans of the place, the only feature being short, crunchy, brown, dried grass for hundreds of yards, until that nursing home at one end and a line of scrubby trees marking the property line. It was like standing in the tundra, alone in that empty ground, me in my black duffle coat, giant Panasonic slowly swinging from side to side.
It was only when I was back in the car and driving to the station that I wished I had taken out my Leica and made a picture using the self-timer. (Though, I don't know where I might have set it.) It would have been a remarkable image, that flat open ground from frame edge to frame edge, my dark figure poking up in the center.
We left messages, but I don't know what ever happened to the ceremony. Welcome to my world...
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