Haiti and Me...

I'm often asked if I miss being a news photographer in Washington, or if I wish I was covering a particularly exciting story, like the Obama inauguration. The answer is almost always: No.

An inauguration -- to take an easy example -- is a giant, complicated and generally uncomfortable affair. Security is high, and the access to almost every aspect of the event is very limited and extremely controlled. The chances of making a picture of interest or importance, let alone one that could be considered in some way unique, are microscopically slim. Covering a Big Story, especially in Washington, is almost always long, tiring, frustrating and futile. No, I don't miss it at all. As a matter of fact, I can often be found comfortably seated before the TV in my Lexington home, chuckling at the pack of photographers when they appear in cutaways.

However, now and again, there's a story I do wish I was on. Usually it's unexpected, exciting and quickly breaking. I find myself obsessively collecting information and details -- the internet is a great resource for this, the dealer to my information crack habit -- though I have no outlet whatsoever, and I imagine how I would cover it, what gear I would use, even what it would be like to be there.

Right now, the Haiti earthquake is that story, a perfectly agonizing combination of the Big Story -- the top headline in every outlet -- with the fact that I have some experience with and knowledge of the place. I ache to go down there and be the journalist of my fantasies...

I was in Haiti just over a year ago, in November of 2008. It was the first chance a group from St. Patrick church had to go to our twin parish in Fond Pierre since the political and security systems completely broke down some four years earlier.

While I had some pictures of Port-au-Prince, it wasn't the focus of our journey, just a way station on the way into the mountains to the east. The only picture I found in my computer from there -- digitized from film shot on an old Rollei twin-lens reflex camera -- was of the dog at Matthew 25 house, "Boss."

He is of an unspecified breed -- tan and sleek, with those pointed ears. I don't think I saw another type throughout the trip. He ruled comfortably at the house in its Port-au-Prince neighborhood.

An email to Josh Harvey, chairman of the Haiti committee at St. Patrick, said that Matthew 25 survived with minimal damage, and its collection of supplies as well as neighboring soccer field made it a central collection point for locals needing medical help. NBC stumbled upon them a couple of days after the quake struck.

We spent only one night in Matthew 25 after arriving, getting up the next morning for the day-long drive into the mountains. It's a journey that, in linear miles, would take only a couple hours in the US, and is notable now for the improved condition (at least before the earthquake) of the main highway, under construction to deserve that name thanks to EU support.

Any distance out of the city (and in many neighborhoods in the city), construction quickly reduces to cobbled-together wood frame structures. These are generally one or two-room homes for entire extended families. When our four-wheel-drive vehicle became mired down in the deep ruts in the road, just outside of Fond Pierre (fortunately), I paused to make a picture of this house overlooking the scene. It is a typical home.

Given the opportunity -- an opportunity few get -- building does step up to a cinderblock-like construction, covered with plaster. The church at Fond Pierre, being rebuilt when we visited after the old church's roof threatened to fall in without benefit of earthquake -- shows how it was done. Here we see two of the workers with their diesel generator, used to power an arc welder with which they joined metal beams to attach the new roof.

Behind you can see the concrete and block construction, typical of the buildings in Haiti. This is what was asked to survive the 7.0 quake. Frankly, I'm surprised as much survived as it did -- I would have expected virtually everything in Port-au-Prince to collapse like a castle built of children's blocks.

I include the above picture -- aside from the fact that I just like it -- to show the finished, plastered wall of the school that stands adjacent to the church. (Both do still stand essentially undamaged, according to Fr. Jean Louis Malherbe, the parish priest.) The school serves over 300 children, and thanks to the efforts of the Rockbridge-Haiti Medical Alliance now has a nurse and small clinic.

Medical services, especially in the countryside, are virtually nonexistant in Haiti in the best of times. Statistically, there are only 2.5 doctors for every 10,000 Haitians. (Yeah, read that again, and remember that most of them are concentrated in urban areas.) In Fond Pierre, it was a day's walk to the most meagre medical facility.

Also, I wanted to show -- and I originally shot the picture to capture -- those chairs. Oddly graceful, with a charming, handmade coarseness, they seem to summarize so much about Haiti. They're cobbled together from whatever is at hand, but assembled with a certain care and love, especially those tiny, child-sized ones. I both wanted to figure out how to get one and bring it home and how to get a consistent supply, as I am convinced they would sell well and expensively in artsy shops in America.

I like to think that, if we can simply lift from their shoulders the crushing burdens of corruption and insecurity, grinding poverty and deforestation, just long enough to take a breath, the Haitians could do to their economy and infrastructure and lifestyle what they did, in a small scale, with those little chairs: pull together what they had at hand to make something useful and more comfortable and, in the end, truly beautiful.

Here we see a teacher using the under-construction church to get above the children after Mass (said in the open air of the school courtyard while work on the church continued). He holds a bag of candy -- leftover Halloween candy brought by a member of our group. Candy is not a rare treat there ... it just doesn't really come at all.

The children wear their school uniforms, which is why they all look alike. The uniform is the only "nice" clothes they generally have. A T-shirt and shorts, often without shoes, is daily wear. Smaller children are commonly seen with just the shirt, or nothing at all.

Again, note the construction technique, revealed before the plaster is put over it, and imagine a building like that receiving a good, sharp shake.

Above, the school's principal holds his 1-year-old daughter as they watch an amateur show of sorts that sprung up after Mass.

Below, we see children at Mass...

And some pictures from another day. I believe this was after a parish meeting, called for our benefit. In these pictures, you can see the homemade pews in the school courtyard, drawn up to make the temporary church.

I find the boy above particularly symbolic at this moment. Many children in my pictures have a curious, if uncertain, openness to them -- as seen with the girls to the left in the first picture -- while others are openly amused. (After all, remember that we were the first "blancs" to arrive in four years; it was as if the freak show had come to town.) But this boy seems deeply suspicious, as if working out what my angle was.*

I can imagine Haiti and the Haitians are metaphorically looking at the world this way. They're happy for the help, no doubt, and more than hopeful for more. And it is my opinion that we need to look at this not as emergency relief alone, but as the sudden, swift start of a long, hard haul to help bring Haiti up from its current state of grinding survival, staggering from moment to moment rather than in any way growing or improving.

But we should have no illusions that the Haitians will -- or should -- take our help and our "recommendations" and march forward as directed. As time goes on, we need to keep helping, but we need to do it with a certain understanding. Let us recall that this is the only slave nation to successfully rebel and become independent.

I hope to return to Haiti, and I hope to be of some help, as time goes on. The story right now, the story that gets a journalist all juiced up and ready to go, is the earthquake and its immediate effect and recovery. And, hell yes, I wish I was down there covering it, not because I revel in human misery or imagine some great glory, but because I'm at heart a journalist, and when things happen, newsworthy things, things that make people pause and look and wonder what happens next and what happened to cause it, I want to be there.

But most of all, I want to watch what happens next, after we move on to the next political race and the next troop movements in Afghanistan and the next Hollywood star breakdown, and the people of Port-au-Prince and Fond Pierre are left to their lot. And, maybe, in my little way, I can help...

*Well he should be suspicious, of me (for, let's face it, I'm all about getting good pictures, especially in the moment of making them) and of those like me, who arrive in his town announcing -- like in the old joke about Washington -- that we're here to help them.

Out Standing in My Field...

This probably falls under my "Welcome to My World" category, but I like putting the punchline before the story...

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...

Gawd help us Owl...

So, when on my commute, I will often scan through the FM radio stations before giving up (I inevitably give up, although one decent or intriguing song may slow me for a moment) and either turning on my iPod or pushing in a book on tape. However, lately I have come across a pop song called "Fireflies." This opens with what must be the sappiest lyric in musical history: "You would not believe your eyes/if ten thousand fireflies/lit up the world as you fell asleep." In went the book on tape.

Unfortunately, this is the hit song of the moment, and every experiment with the radio led back to "Fireflies," which only took me to the next, cringe-inducing lyric: "'Cause I'd get ten thousand hugs/from ten thousand lightening bugs." Quickly moving on to the next chapter in the book, I could only think of P.G. Wodehouse's Madeline Bassett, who believe the stars were God's daisy chain and "every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born." Who was the lyricist on this thing, a 12-year-old girl of unique naivete for our time, trapped in a crush on the middle school poet? (Advice to that girl: give it up; he's gay.)

Here's the killer: it's a really catchy tune. It drills into your brain and takes up residence there, to the point where you find yourself humming the chorus later that day.

But about that chorus ... the lyric work becomes somewhat less saccharine, but makes no more sense. "I like to make myself believe/the planet Earth turns slowly." (It kills me to admit it, but I'm singing along as I type that.) I couldn't resist. In a quiet moment at work that day, I did some quick algebra. The earth's circumference at the equator is roughly 29400 miles, and it takes 24 hours to rotate. Rate x Time = Distance. (And so to all you who said, like the character in "Peggy Sue Got Married," that high school math has no purpose. And I just did a search; hard to believe that scene's not on You Tube.) Anyway, quick, easy math shows us traveling at roughly 1,037 mph, due to the rotation of the Earth. I hate to think what quickly is to this guy.

Okay, at this point I'm being obtuse and picky. I know they're talking metaphorically, describing a wish rather than a reality, but now the lyrics are making me crazy. It reached the point where I positively looked forward to the one bright spot in the words, a description that reaches for a kind of American trash version of Asian poetry: "A fox trot above my head/A sock hop beneath my bed/A disco ball hanging by a thread." But then another unfortunate image popped up. Just before that delightfully post-apocalyptic (or perhaps pre-apocalyptic, depending on the state of that thread and the height of the disco ball above our protagonist) vision of the disco ball, my mind filled in an image of David Letterman's late, great Larry "Bud" Melman finishing the triptych with, "A party in my pants!"

By the end, even the lyricist is begging, "Please take me away from here," though I'm sure thousands of distraught teens, with parents who don't understand them and lives destroyed by some humiliating moment in the lunch room are singing along on their tear-stained pillows. But I am unfortunately hooked by the tune, and now actually listen to the whole damn thing when it comes on. Gawd help me ...

Welcome to My World (on the Interstate)...

So I stepped out at 3 am to a wet, thick, chilly fog, smelling of wood fires. I was on my way to the early shift, editing for the 5:30 morning news.

Usually, these days bring a quiet drive on the highway -- 45 minutes on Interstate 81 from Lexington to Roanoke -- plunging through the darkness pretty much alone. This is nice, soothing in its way, because I need only to worry about myself. The occasional roadkill, especially the dramatic scene of a deer recently obliterated by a semi, warns me to stay alert, but the whole thing often takes on a sort of Zen peace about it.

Not today.

Today, it's Thanksgiving, and the road was filled with dozens of frantic drivers, pressing on through the night to their holiday destinations, north and south. That thick fog unnerved many, already undoubtedly sleep-deprived and uncertain of their surroundings, making their speed erratic and uncertain. Others rushed toward the destination, crowding the cars in front of them in the blinding whiteness. I hung back at those clumps of cars, fearing the knot of crumpled steel a simple error (blissfully avoided during my trip) could bring.

The license plates seemed mostly from New York, though I do recall one from Massachusetts. It is only my adopted status as a Virginian (marked by the faint Canadian accent to my speech) that prevented me from grumbling about damn Yankees.

And so, I think, I am thankful first and foremost that my Thanksgiving is at home. My commute may be longish, but I am not caroming down an interstate, eight hours out and God knows how far to go, with red rimmed eyes and discontented kids in the back, white-knuckling my way through fog in an alien state, surrounded by drivers in worse shape and with less competence (at least, based on their behavior) than me.

Welcome to my world...

A Friend Told me...

A friend pointed me to this video, and he was right. It is hilarious:

Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

America, the deadbeat cousin...

The opening skit to SNL this week. I thought about putting it on Facebook, but it is (of course) rude, so decided that the hilarity should reside here.

Welcome to My (Election Day) World...

So the off-year election this year in Virginia -- involving the races for several state legislature seats and, most importantly, the governor -- got some national attention, as it as seen as a bellweather of everything from President Obama's popularity to the future of the Republican Party. At any rate, what it meant for me was getting up at 4 a.m. to drive to Millboro, Virginia, a small town in Bath County that happened to be the home of Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate for governor.

Deeds was to start his day by voting ... at 6:30 a.m. It was the first time he would be seen for a whirlwind day of appearances, the next not until 11 a.m. in Charlottesville, so as cable news and networks spoke about the election, the only footage available would be that early morning voting imagery. My imagery. Cool.

But that's not my story here. To jump to the end of the story of my experience, I got the pictures, drove back to WDBJ an hour and a half away (stopping to pick up additional footage of people voting in Lexington as I passed through) and sent it out on the feed. I owned the airwaves ... for a couple hours. Then the Charlottesville stuff came in, and then the final Richmond appearance, where Deeds again made himself available for a final round of interviews. My stuff disappeared, without so much as the last greasy bubble of a sinking ship, never to be seen again. "Remember," the slave would whisper into the victorious Roman general's ear, "All glory is fleeting."

No, the focus this story from my world that day is not me, but a young reporter/photographer from another local TV station who came skidding into the parking lot shortly before Deeds voted. He climbed out and began pulling equipment out of his aged, dark red hatchback, all arms and legs and and elbows and knees and lenses and wires. It looked like Roberto Begnini had been hired to do a comedy routine on a TV photographer. Nothing was in bags, the spindly tripod legs went in three different directions while his legs went in two others, his knees barely supporting what his hands couldn't hold. Microphone cables trailed out in tangled loops as he struggled over to me and the two still photographers (from AP and Getty) who waited outside the voting station. "Am I late?" He breathlessly asked. "Did I miss it?" We assured him all was well. There was plenty of time.

Off he went, and I heard the clatter and click as he struggled to pull everything together. There was a pause, and then he was at my shoulder. "Are you shooting P2?" He said, sotto voce.

It was a curious question. I was indeed shooting P2, Panasonic's digital video system that records the "footage" onto a largish memory card (available only from Panasonic at a fairly substantial cost) rather than onto tape or (as Sony's system does) a DVD. It's one of several systems currently in use, and one well suited to news gathering, but the question is one usually asked while standing, bored, after exhausting subjects like the weather and mutual acquaintances. "Uh," I said. "Yeah."

"Can I borrow a card?" I looked down at his camera. The little bay, which can hold up to five cards, was empty. He had left his office -- some two hours away -- without any media to record events. Put simply, he had just arrived after a long drive to a news event with the world's largest, heaviest, most complicated and expensive doorstop.

I had a dozen thoughts at once. This guy, I realized, was totally screwed. There was no time to go back and get a card, but without a card, he could do nothing. He might as well have not shown up. I knew well the feeling of sinking panic he was surely experiencing. But he was also the competition, and a moment from "The Apprentice" (of all things) flashed into my head. One of the competitors had won immunity, but was so confident of his later work on the show that he told Donald Trump he would wave the immunity. Trump fired him on the spot, explaining that passing up an advantage like that was just stupid. Cutthroat, but he had a point. If I refused, mine would be the only TV pictures of this event. How would the people back at the station feel about that? Were my bosses as cutthroat as Trump? And how would they feel about my blithely handing over a not inexpensive item to what in truth was a total stranger? Furthermore, what if I needed the card later? Sure, with the three cards I had in my camera, I had over two hours of available recording time, but it wasn't impossible that, between this event and my return to the station, something massive would happen. I could be trapped out in the field, frantically recording events and ... run out of memory because I had given a card away. Then I'd look as stupid as this guy, and over something far more important.

I looked at my card bay, its three cards nestled in their slots, and back at his, gaping and empty with its sliding door open ... and relented. I pulled out a card and handed it to him. Someday, I'd be trapped somewhere, hopeless and needing help (though hopefully not because I did something that stupid). At least, that's what I told myself as I pushed back all those questions and fears.

And so Creigh Deeds cast his vote. AP and Getty made stills. The other guy and I recorded it for TV. Deeds paused outside to talk with us, first interviewed by me, then the other guy, then chatted with his friends and supporters gathered in the parking lot before climbing into the limo (driven by state troopers, assigned that day to both candidates so as to be in place to protect the future governor) and leaving. After every news event like that, there is a pause, a moment to catch your breath, gather your equipment, perhaps socialize a moment with your colleagues, and head out.

The young reporter came to me. "I really appreciate your helping me out," he said, his camera still on its tripod about a dozen feet back. "You really saved my life..." And as he spoke, I saw the leg brake -- the thing you tighten on the extended tripod leg to keep it up -- begin to slip. I started to speak, but it was gone. The leg slid closed and his camera fell forward onto the ground, landing lens first.

Small pieces flew away on impact. The lens snapped away from its mounting, hanging from the camera only by the cable which connects the zoom control to the camera's power. We rushed to it and gently turned it over, like paramedics at an accident scene. I detached the lens cable, thinking it would do more damage for the lens to pull at the plug, and picked up the loose parts I had seen fly away. The lens mounting ring was sheared, the front plate of the camera pushed back by the impact. "Can it be fixed," He asked fearfully. "Yep," I answered. "But your day is over."

I flipped the body onto its side, revealing the card bay. As I expected (from my own camera falling experience) the card had been popped out of its slot by the impact, requiring me to force the door open. I removed the card and handed it to him. "Your footage should be fine, but you'll want to take care of this."

It was the icing on his bitter cake, simply the Worst Day Ever for a news cameraman. He mailed the card back to me in a couple of days, and my bosses were understanding. One colleague was actually quite supportive. "Good for you," he said when I told of handing over the card. "Pay it forward, man." But I shall always be thankful it wasn't me, while simultaneously dreading my Worst Day Ever. Welcome to my world...