The shutter that still bugs me

I have been blessed throughout my many careers to have worked for a variety of bosses. Been under the tutelage of many good coaches as editors, advisors, fellow journalists and writers. More important, good leaders and cheerleaders, who have patiently suffered my myriad idiosyncrasies and encouraged me greatly. And who have taken a chance on me with the expectation that I had something to contribute.  

There  was this editor who took a chance on me long ago when I was hired a reporter the Mount Vernon Democrat, a small, aggressive daily due east of Evansville by about some 16 miles or so. He was looking for some eager would-be wordsmith willing to work for wages comparable to a salt mine worker and long, weird hours that would stagger a team of “manifest destiny” oxen. 

So, I joined a cadre of three other full-time general news reporters;  a “Family Living” editor; an intellectual well-read chap who headed up the newspaper’s Toy Department (sports); and a free-lance cartoonist.  I was thrown in head first to cover the city council, police beat and courts (we were a small river town with more violent crime than you might expect), the occasional murder, county council and commissioners, the Alcohol Beverage Commission hearings (we actually had an active Women’s Christian Temperance Union attending and opposing every liquor license application), zoning and school boards, business and so forth.

We also had community “stringers” whose homespund screed covered everything from funeral dinners, family homecomings, neighbors recovering after having gall bladders yanked, recipes and golden anniversaries. They worked for free and were rewarded by having their byline in boldface. One of the first hard lessons I learned is that you don’t edit little, old ladies’ copy; that adherence to the Associated Press Stylebook means nothing to feisty, blue-haired contributing columnists who considered their gossip sheets right up there with the Holy Scriptures and the Declaration of Independence,

Such was community journalism – sadly and sorely missed in much of today’s increasingly diminished newsprint and content. But alas, in this modern era we get our news from blogs, Twitter and and other nifty whirly-gigs zooming out there in that vast universe called cyberspace.

Even though we had a full-time part time photographer, we were expected to do our own shooting. We were expected to carry our carry our cameras on every assignment. Just in case “Photo Boy” was unavailable. More often than not, we souped our own film back at the newsroom and got it ready for half-tone reproduction. The sour smell of Dektol in the cramped darkroom. Negative strips hanging from a wire like tobacco in a barn.  “Dodging” and “burning” images as they were projected onto photo paper. 

One afternoon in our tobacco-stained newsroom, the police scanner seemed to go haywire. A story in the making loomed up Ind. 69, a rolling stretch of roadway connecting Mount Vernon with historic New Harmony – site of one of America’s first experiments in search of Utopia. The squawking on the scanner intensified. An ugly multiple vehicle accident needing ambulances, more cops, fire/rescue crews. And by the way, somebody better go over to the high school and let the social studies teacher/county coroner know about it. 

I immediately followed the red-light caravan to the scene with my trusty 35 millimeter in tow. In fact, I got there before many of the responders. I loaded my Cannon and prepared to shoot the scene. I fired off many frames until I got to one of the vehicles involved in the wreck. 

I was front and center of the sedan and saw the driver, a middle-aged woman mashed face-first against the windshield. Blood streaming from her brow to the dashboard. Alive, alert, and thank God, not seriously hurt. As I raised the camera we locked eyes for only a second or two. Her look clearly pleaded:  Please don’t!

But my right index finger wasn’t listening.

Click!

The perfect moment. The perfect shot.

Then I quickly went about interviewing the cops and others at the scene, jotting that scrawl of information into my nifty reporter’s notebook. Then I hurled my beat-up jalopy back to the newsroom to deliver my film and file the story.

I briefed my editor on the basics and immediately began to write the story. Gritty yet accurate details all. Our part-time shooter pitched in by processing the Tri-X film.

The verdict was swift. My perfect shot was blurry. Not artsy “soft focus.” The image was as distorted as an interpretation of the Affordable Care Act. Obviously not Pulitzer images on that black-and-white strip. So, a less-dramatic pic was chosen.

To this day, I harbor some slight regret about squeezing off that single frame. Not because it didn’t make it into the newspaper. Not because it was poorly executed and that its quality sucked more than a Rod McKuen anthology. Rather -- because I refused an honest plea from a victim and a small, still voice to balance my personal and professional instincts.

Had I been a better photographer, I suspect my regrets would have been even deeper. Today, thank God, I have a cell phone to take and edit my photos.