alittlenews

I made a discovery not too long ago while out riding my bike.  You actually do forget how to ride a bike!  When I was a kid, riding the bike was effortless.  Somewhere along the way, riding a bike has become a real chore.  I am trying to get some cardio work in and I hate static machines so the bicycle is a natural outlet.  (I had forgotten about dogs!)  I was telling my wife about this after one ride the other day because I finally found something that worked pretty well.  I was telling her that I found a gear I could really work it in.  My route has a several small hills on it.  Well, they are small hills if you are in a car.  On a bike, for a 45 year old guy in marginal physical conditioning, they become monsters.  I found that I could work really hard on the down hill grades and in the flats and that enabled me to rest more on the uphill grades because my momentum earned in those easier times helped in the harder times.  My wife said there was probably a real spiritual lesson there too but I am not preaching.  I’m just saying!

If I do preach anything on this blog it is doing your best all the time, even on jobs that are not very appealing.  When you work hard and don’t cut corners on those “easy” but annoying jobs you will be more prepared to do well on the hard jobs that we all crave.  For instance, if you take your strobes and umbrellas in for a quick head shot instead of just popping a the on-camera strobe you will have done a really nice portrait on something that is not too, too important.  When you have to do a really important shoot, the momentum you have gained by going the extra mile on your every day stuff will actually help you rest more on the tougher job, therefore, doing a better job.  In other words, your strobes become a comfortable part of your work flow and you don’t dread pulling them out.  You simply do it because you have trained yourself to work hard on every job.

Yesterday, I shot a career expo for high school students.  Any of you guys ever done that assignment?  I have done several.  Let me tell you, I was dreading it.  The job was in a gymnasium that is on the border of being underlit.  It is still okay to shoot available but it is close.  The problem with lighting the thing is that I would be moving all over the place.  That means that strobing the entire gym with the gear on hand was out of the question.  So I am shooting available light.  I did have enough time to do the job well so I just jumped in there and started working it.  Overall shot first to get the crowd stuff out of the way.  Then I walked the floor to do some detail work.  I like J.R.R. Tolkien’s books and in one of them there is a statement something like this; there is nothing like looking if you want to find something.  The longer I stayed and looked, the more stuff I found.  Finally, I found a real nice photo of the lady sitting behind her sign.  That was the photo of the day for me.  It was not going to be a photo we used in print but it did make the Internet so I am pleased.

Whenever you go into a situation like this, shoot for story first that way, if you have to leave, you will have done what is required of you.  If you can stay a little longer, shoot for moments.  Sometimes the two are the same thing but, if you work for a daily newspaper, you know there are times when the two never cross and you have to settle for one or another.  When you can leave a job with both then you can say you have earned your money that day.  In my case, shooting for story meant getting photos with kids in them, preferably as many kids as possible.  Finding the lady with the sign was gravy.  So take a little advice from Tolkien and look for something if you want to find it and try to remember how to ride that bicycle you put away all those years ago.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.