alittlenews

You are on an assignment.  Someone is dead.  The friends and family are there.  Everyone is emotional.  Tears streaming down faces.  Anguish.  Distress.  And there you are with a camera and a decision to make.  Do you shoot?  Do you walk away?  Do you offer to help?  Is there anything you could do anyway?  This comes up over and over again in the course of your career so how do you know when to shoot, when to walk away, when to offer a shoulder to cry on or when to help?

Unfortunately, there is no single right answer.  What I want to do here is lay out some guidelines that I use.  The decision will still be agonizing but at least you will have some frame of reference to help you as you stand there wondering what to do.

Mourners outside a Decatur karate studio grieve over the murder of their instructor.

The first question you have to answer is, can I help.  If you are first on the scene, even before the rescuers, and you can lend a hand then lend a hand.  We are all members of the human race.  Help first.  Shoot second.  If there are already qualified responders on the scene then let them do their jobs and don’t get in the way but if you are there first, give what aid you can.  There will always be time for shooting pictures but there are moments when a life is on the line and you are the only one there.  Enough said.

Knowing when to shoot grief and when to lay the camera down is a different question.  There are some situations you walk into and you have an obvious choice due to the prevailing circumstances.  My basic guidelines are these.  First, is this tragedy a private tragedy or a public one?  By this I am not talking about where it happened.  I am asking myself is this tragedy of sufficient impact on the general public that they need to see someone weeping to accurately tell the story.  On the other hand, does a car crash that kills one person warrant me shooting a photo that is going to place a single family’s misery on the front page of the paper.

9/11 is a no brainer.  As a society we all shared in the grief that struck in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.  I would not hesitate to shoot someone mourning in relation to that event because we were all mourning.  On the other hand, it is a rare traffic accident where I would exploit the grief of another person for the sake of a photo.  I have noticed an interesting phenomenon over the years.  A guy can have his house burn down and be absolutely irate that I am there with a camera.  If the same guy lost his house to a tornado that swept away dozens or even hundreds of homes he would have no problem with my presence.  This begs the question is there such a thing as a private tragedy even if it happens in the public arena?  My answer has always been yes.  A person who is an average Joe, not a recognized public personality, has a right to have a private moment in a public place without my camera intruding on it.

No one died in this wreck and I had a chance to talk to the people before shooting their picture.

After the magnitude of the tragedy is considered, I usually look to the circumstances at the moment.  Some people project a hostility toward the media and you can tell that by making a photo you are going to make the situation worse.  I was with the some friends who shoot for TV and they were talking about being at the scene of a multiple homicide.  They were hanging back and giving the grieving family some room.  A reporter/photographer from another station went up to the family asking who was going to talk on camera.  The guys I was was talking to couldn’t believe what was going on.  There is an appropriate time to approach the family members but barging into the middle of their grieving is not it.  Back off and let the event play out.  A moment will come when you can approach without encroaching.  There will still be emotion but the family will have had an opportunity to brace themselves to face the media.  A little compassion goes a very long way.

Another factor for me has always been how invasive will it be to shoot the picture.  If it is at night I am going to have to pop a flash at the family members.  That is very tough.  I hate to do that because the act of taking a picture can be invasive enough.  Add a harsh, direct strobe and the situation just gets worse.  I have shot grief at night and used a strobe.  It is just a hard thing to do.  If I have to do it I am turning off the motor drive, getting a single frame or two and putting down the gear.  You have to remember that you can’t really make anything better for them but you can make it a whole lot worse.

There is a theory in photojournalism that you should shoot and let the editors decide.  By and large that is sound logic but there are some situations I don’t want to put into the hands of an editor.  I am the one who is there.  I am the one who is seeing the situation, not an editor back at the office.  I, in fact, am the first editor.   I have to decide to shoot or not to shoot.

This came up for me recently at a supposed drowning.  I was covering the search effort and three family members were clearly present.  One member of their party had gone under and never surfaced.  Turns out, the man had a heart attack and then went under.  Using my guidelines I quickly determined that there was nothing I could do to physically help the situation.  I also called this a personal tragedy that had very little impact beyond this family so I had no intention of photographing their misery.  I shot the rescuers in the water.  One member of the party kept walking near where I and the TV shooter were.  I kept seeing the pain in his eyes.  He finally came up just in front of the camera position and squatted down and was just crying.  I knew I had to do something so I laid down my cameras and went up and put an arm around him and offered to pray with him.

He was really glad to have someone there to give him comfort.  As I began to pray I felt a hand on my shoulder too and the TV journalist had joined me to pray for the man and his family.  It was a very difficult and emotional time.  I was wishing for a chaplain but there was not one to be had so I was the chaplain.  It goes back to the question, is there anything I can do to help.  I could not bring back the loved one but I could bring what comfort a prayer and a shoulder to cry on can bring.

My dad was a pastor and the fire chief in our town.  Many times I have seen him change from being the fire chief to being the pastor when someone had died.  I asked him once what you say.  He told me that it really doesn’t matter what you say, it matters that you are there to love them.  I have never forgotten that and when I don’t know what to say, at least I have some guidance on what to do.

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.