Although I'm no veteran of the business, one thing I've come to
realize through experience is this: People in a creative profession
need at least one day per week where they don't have to be creative.
Last
week, I worked all seven days, but at the end of the week, I barely had
a photo I was proud to call mine. So when Sunday hit, I put down my
camera. I left it sit, safe and sound, on my living room floor. It was
time to relax. Bye bye camera ...
Call it Murphy's Law ... call
it Just Plain Unlucky ... but here's what happens when you put down
your camera: You see the impossible. You see the photo that editors say
will never happen. You have an "Oh S***" moment.
"We'd like to
do a story on wild coyotes in Brookfield." Riiight, say the
photographers. How would you ever illustrate that? Maybe we could stake
out and wait for a coyote to stroll down Bluemound?
Sunday
afternoon, my boyfriend and I were driving through Brookfield. And we
saw a coyote, less than 10 yards from the side of the road. "Now THOSE
are the types of photos I like," he said, looking in his backseat to
see if I had my camera along. "Now THOSE are the types of photos my
EDITOR would like!" I replied. Cars were stopping on the road to check
out the animal. I stared at the coyote and he stared back at me. It's
almost as if he knew I was a photojournalist. I think he even laughed
at me.
Soooo,
I'm sorry to say, the photo of the suburban coyote
is well-embedded into my mind, but that's about the extent of it. It
happens.
Instead, here's a photo from last week that made me smile. I felt about
the same as Daniel (below) when I saw the coyote. I'll appease myself
by saying ... maybe it was just an ugly dog?
Nikon D2H, 17 mm, 500 ISO, f2.8, 1/80, Manual
Daniel Bonin (center), 7, practices a self-defense move Tuesday,
Feb. 12, 2008, during "Self Defense for Children," a class put on by
the New Berlin Recreation Department. During this weekly class, kids
learn methods of escape from various holds, along with verbal and
physical skills to avoid attack.
