On Assignment: Nashville, TN

I'm sitting at one of the traveling freelance photographer's favorite chain lunch spots -- Panera Bread (free wireless, lots of power plugs) -- near downtown Nashville after my assignment this morning for Newsweek. Honestly, there wouldn't be much to tell about this job normally to make it worthy of a whole post... but I had a special sort of energy going into trying to finish up this shoot today after a problem on another for Newsweek earlier this week in Orlando. Though the problem was not entirely my fault, it left me, as my girlfriend can attest to, feeling really shitty.

Going back in time to three days ago... I was hired by one of my favorite editors at the magazine to go up to Orlando and do a story related to the homeless population in the city. Orlando, as the home is Mickey et all, is very protective of its tourism industry and has taken steps to control homeless people's effect on business. The job was an open-ended open, which is to say that I was instructed to go check things out, spend at least a day, and see how much more time I wanted -- ie. there was an opportunity to make this into a longer piece and create a small essay. Now, let me stop right there. For those of you who may be starting out and thinking, "wow, that sounds about how it should be," well its not hardly ever. Hearing "see if you think you want to spend more time on this" is a fucking miracle. It's simply a beautiful, wonderful, and rare thing to hear from your editor, and I was excited at even the remote chance that I could take this story and run with it wherever it may lead. Ah, the set up for the fall to come... sigh.

I drove up to Orlando Monday morning -- it has been a long week and a half of 2-4 hour drives for several assignments, but it was nice to be behind the wheel instead of fighting my way through airports -- and met up with the writer on the story, who ended up being a very cool guy and good reporter despite being very young. The immediate plan was to meet up with a local ACLU activist and lawyer and get the low down on the city's homeless scene. We visited a couple of shelters and found some other areas of interest, including a remote camp of dozens of homeless living in the shadow of a downtown freeway overpass right along train tracks.

I don't think it will be that surprising to learn that I'm pretty sensitive to photographing situations that deal with people in difficult circumstances, such as homeless people living in squalor. What I try to do is take things slowly, pay respect and attention to the subjects, and make sure that they know I'm only there with their permission. I always make it a point of introducing myself directly, shaking hands, and then engaging with everyone that I meet. Only when the writer or I had been talking with them long enough for them to seem to accept us and open up, did I even broach the subject of photographing them. Even then I made it clear that I wanted their authorization before I would snap a frame and tried to present myself clearly, without lurking in some corner or trying to be coy about what I was doing and why I was there. In short, I treated the situation exactly as I would stepping into anyone else's home, and for the most part almost every person was fine with my presence.

But this approach takes time -- time that I thought I had. Basically the first part of our day was doing background while we waited for the main event later in the afternoon that brought us to town. I wanted to make some contacts and gain what trust I could, and then come back later to try and work more and dig in deeper photographically -- also, as always, I wanted to wait for better light. However, it turned out that there wasn't a later, and so I missed dozens of pictures that I could have shot but decided to wait on. Right now the pictures are still waiting there, but the story isn't.

As you probably have guessed, the main event turned sour. What was supposed to happen, what made the story visually compelling in a particular and newsworthy sense (and made our reason to choose Orlando specifically --there are homeless people everywhere, right? -- valid), just didn't happen at all. Instead, it went sideways... and sitting there watching it in disbelief, the writer and I sat both summed it up with a "well fuck." The story wasn't over, but it was no longer something that I thought had any legs, whatsoever, especially as far as the photographs were concerned. My job, basically, unless you greatly expanded the overall story to "homeless in Orlando" was pretty much over. I wasn't mad, because it happens sometimes. And because I thought I knew so well the sorry turn things had taken, I made a stupid mistake. I've set this up to be dramatic, but it isn't. I simply didn't pick up the phone, right then and there, and call my editor to tell them that things were looking ill.

That's it. I didn't send in an update, or at least I didn't until the next morning. What later got me so angry with myself about it was that I knew much better and felt like I had let down the editor who I have a good relationship with. It was emotional for me, quite honestly. I've talked about before how I really have a hard time dealing with coming up short on an assignment, especially when I could have done more. The lesson for anyone out there is that you have GOT to update your editors, and keep them in the loop constantly, good or bad, so that they are able to help you and direct the story. We all know this. I just forgot for 12 hours.

The next day there was nothing left to photograph, so I thought. I was right there too, but it wasn't my call, even if it was obvious. My editor didn't get my update via phone and e-mail until much later in the morning, while I was more than half of the way back driving home to Miami. He had arrived to work assuming everything was perfect. And what made things much worse (it probably wouldn't have even mattered otherwise) is that my editor's editor, who was updated by the rookie reporter, who was totally honest in saying that the shit hit the fan, decided that even though shit was everywhere, the story was in GREAT shape. So not only is my editor without the knowledge he should have been given, he has had his expectations amped up. Then comes my e-mail, and his call to me in total confusion. I explain what happened, and its all fine... what happened is what happened... but then he asks me why he didn't know this sooner. And that is that, folks. Fuck. Who is the rookie after all?

So now we can fast forward back to present tense. I've been shooting a lot for Newsweek lately and already had another job for a different editor at the magazine scheduled for 2 days after my botched shoot. Emotionally, I felt that I needed to hit a home run in Nashville, even if it was for a different Newsweek editor, just so that I felt like I was bringing my A game back into play. I really wanted to go way beyond the call of duty. I was asked to do 2 set-ups for this portrait in Nashville, of the same family that I shot at the beginning of the week in Naples. 2? I thought... nah, I'll do 6. So I hit the ground running in Tennessee, and by that I mean I practically ran from my gate to the rental car counter, plopped down my AMEX, and ran to my car. I made it to the assignment 20 minutes early, and spent twice that time looking around the house to find where I wanted to shoot.

Ultimately, I did as good of a job as I could on the Nashville job. It doesn't much show, because the assignment is not very visual, or at least not a job that I would ever hire me for (hint: it involves real estate.) I busted my ass and made the kids in this family grow to basically hate me, but the pictures are still only "solid." Not great... but I did everything I could. There is only so much you can do at a house that is preparing for a wedding in 2 days time, and is surrounded on 3 sides by GIANT white wedding tents. Yeah, giant.

The larger point for me is to point out that I very often am assigned to photograph things that in some ways I shouldn't be. Alternatively, I'm also almost never asked to shoot assignments that I feel would really showcase my strengths. It's not me in that case, though, its the industry. All you can do is make every job count. Some photo editors don't know that documentary photographers are really bad choices to shoot portraits on a white seamless (or at least a lot of them are.) Some of them do, but they like your work and know you can, at the very least, do a competent job and would rather throw some money the way of a photographer they like regardless. There are risks in this equation too -- namely that you can get pegged into sub-genres of photography that don't even interest you all that much, like business portraiture. You take what you can get early on, and even later if you are slow, and realize that you are running a business and the market is not something you can control. And all of this is why I was even more upset at myself about the Orlando job... here was an editor giving me a chance to do something with more heart and allowance for time than is normally on my plate. Hopefully next time I can push myself to make it work out.

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