It's Outta Here!

Friday night I covered MLB Home Run Derby X, an event where four teams of 4 players, each team including one former MLB veteran, see how many home runs they can hit from what looks like a giant inflatable bouncy-house in the middle of the infield of Dunkin’ Donuts Park.

I was escorted to the “media section,” a no-man’s land along the third base line from where I could almost see what was going on. A charming spot, the only thing missing was a 1972 Chevy that had been stripped for parts.

Things were progressing slowly. My deadline was 7:30, and I believe there were introductions happening around 7:10, though it was hard to see from the bunker, as they were facing the crowd and behind some equipment…their backs to me.

Finally around 7:20, just after the National Anthem, the crowd looks up, I follow, and see two large aircraft approaching at about 11 o’clock. They were coming in fast, and my camera at hand had my 300 2.8 on it. My other camera was in my bag farther down the bunker. No time. I grab my phone, get some shots of the planes coming in over the stadium, and just as quickly they’re gone.

Edit in my phone, then ran around asking anyone I could find, “Where were those planes from? Were they C-130’s? I need caption info, dammit!”

No one knew anything.

Finally found a guy who said they were Air National Guard C-130’s. That sounded right, and he had quite the military bearing. I did a quick comparison online between my shot and existing photos of C-130’s, went with it and filed at 7:29.

Shot the rest of the event, the highlight being when a ball went into the crowd and fans either cowered, waved their arms around, just stood and stared, or in rare cases made an attempt to catch it.

I left thinking, “That was chaotic and not what I was expecting.” But to prove that you never go wrong doing the best you can despite the circumstances, I ended-up with a nice gallery and a full-page on Sunday.

As my fellow photog Scotty Keeler used to say back in the day, “Stanley-Boy…looks like you made a silk purse from a sow’s ear.”

News photographers do it all the time…it’s our specialty...

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some experiences humble you forever...

Forty-six -years-ago on April 30th, 1975 the Vietnam War ended with North Vietnamese troops entering Saigon and accepting the surrender of South Vietnam.

Ten years and 7-days later, there was a ticker-tape parade in New York City honoring American Vietnam War Veterans and the over 58,000 servicemen and 8 service women who died there.

© Stan Godlewski

I was 28-years-old for that, and had been in high school when the war ended, growing-up with the Vietnam War always in the background. 

At 12, I watched the first televised draft lottery. At 14, my cousin sent me a hand grenade pin from basic training. At 18, I pumped gas starting at 6:00 AM weekend mornings with a Vietnam War vet, and sometimes when it was still dark and quiet, he’d sit on the metal folding chair in the garage doorway, and tell fragments of war stories. I’d try to think of something to say and then realize it was my job to just keep quiet and listen.

Relatives and neighbors had gone to the war, relatives and neighbors also had long hair and peace signs on their denim jackets and protested against it.

The war dominated the headlines. Every front page, every day. Every nightly newscast. Body counts on the screen like some depraved sports scorecard. 

© Stan Godlewski

When the war finally ended it was like there was one long sigh of relief, but it was too uncomfortable to take a deep breath in again.

Ten years and seven days later, it was like we were all given permission to breath freely, and I wanted to be there.

It was May 7, 1985, a Tuesday in New York, cloudy with temperatures in the low 60’s.

They were there in their tens-of thousands, marching across the Brooklyn Bridge and along Broadway in the largest parade in the history of the city. They wore what remained of their uniforms and jungle boots, with ribbons and medals and tears and smiles of joy and recognition, as they came upon comrades they hadn’t seen since their time in Vietnam.

At a particularly poignant moment, I turned to the photographer beside me and said, “Damn, it’s hard to shoot with tears in your eyes,” and then realized it was David Burnett. 

© Stan Godlewski

There are a handful of assignments that, when I think of them, I remember viscerally. I can feel them, hear them, remember exactly how I felt being in the middle of them.

The Vietnam Veterans Parade was a human wave of joy and sadness and grief and release. It was an outpouring of emotion ten-years in the making, and although I was standing in the middle of it, that was as close as I could ever get. 

What those men felt that morning as they marched, and hugged, and cried, they felt for each other, and for their brothers that couldn’t be there with them. And it was painfully obvious that the rest of us were outsiders, whose job was to listen and watch and pay our respects.

Some experiences humble you forever.

© Stan Godlewski

30 seconds, please...

So, I’ve had this little chip on my shoulder for a long time, and at this point I think it’s here to stay. It gets bigger and heavier when I do things like watch a youtube video about how some photographer accomplished one of his favorite images, or attend a workshop aimed at journalists listed as, “It’s Easy to Make Better Video.”

Here’s why.

In the youtube vid, the photographer inevitably says something like, “So as the crew packed the gear, and I went out to the equipment truck…”  and I’m like…”Wait…wait…wait…Equipment truck?  Crew?…What kind of freakish, drug-induced fantasy is this?”

I don’t know any photographers who have new shoes and an assistant on the same day, much less an “equipment truck” and a “crew.” 

Our photog may as well continue, “My subject that day appeared to me to be a little tense, and it’s important for my subject to be comfortable if I’m to get the emotion and connection that I desire. So I sent one assistant out for lattes, and the other, who is also a trained masseuse, began to help my subject relax by incorporating reflexology and aromatherapy, and then softly playing the harp we bring with us everywhere.”

I think it’s great that some photogs have this kind of support. Carrying your own gear is so déclassé, and I don’t know about you, but my beret has a wandering mind of it’s own. If I don’t have an accomplished beret-minder, well…I might as well wear a navy-blue watchcap. But are the rest of us actually supposed to compare ourselves to this? 

And the journalism conferences…like the last one I ever went to actually…will have a lecture titled something like, “Improving Your Short Videos.” You know what I expected, help with those videos you have to knock-out on the Memorial Day Parade, or the office building implosion, or the opening of Little League…all on the same day, while you shoot your jpgs and get names. 

I kid you not, this is what we heard, “…and this is a portion of a video we did on the encroachment of industrialization on indigenous peoples of Brazil. Our producer, sound engineer, fixer, and myself were there for 5 weeks…and after we returned there was about another 3 weeks of post-production. I think the project turned-out rather well.”

I was there hoping to get some tips like, “How to Edit Video While Eating a Burger and Explaining to your Spouse Why You’ll be Late Again,” or “Shooting Video of Yourself Getting Arrested While Continuing to Make Top-Notch Riot Images.”

But no, I learned that flying first-class is a big plus because you get to check more gear.

I think my issue is that so many of these videos, lectures, classes, etc. aren’t designed to help the 99% of us that slug-it-out every day. Intentionally or not, they feature the lucky few showing the rest of us how good they’ve got it. It might help if they were based more on the reality of what the average shooter deals with every day, instead of what can be done with seemingly unlimited resources.

Here’s one for you, and this is true. I was in Manhattan shooting a business portrait of some high-powered lawyer/businessman/Master of the Universe. His plane was late, he was late, and he breezed past me with a “Sorry…no can do,” and headed straight into the board meeting. 

I was like, “Really, man? And I wore my blue blazer and everything…”

So I grabbed a piece of paper, wrote, “30 seconds…please…” on it and gave it to one of his assistants when they came back with the Perrier or Cristal or whatever.

To my relief, (because no editor cares why you didn’t get the picture, they just remember that it was YOU who didn’t get the picture) he came out of the conference room, handed the note back to me, stood in front of the windows, looked at his watch, and said, “Go”…and I spent 12 seconds positioning him and then tore through about a foot and a half of Ektachrome.

I think that project turned-out rather well, actually.

I’d like to attend a seminar dealing with that.

get lit...

Is it me? Or does it seem photographers, particularly in newspapers, don’t light photos the way we used to when film made more demands of us.

Back in the analog days, when a good weather shot could include a brontosaurus, there wasn’t much choice. You lugged a case big enough to hold your editor’s body to a shoot, loaded your camera with Ektachrome or Sensia, and pulled out a set of Dyna-Lites,  Monolites, Comets, or whatever you had that could light the place up.

If it was really important you’d shoot a Polaroid or two to make sure the light was good, and away you’d go. A couple of rolls later you’d pack everything up again, umbrellas or a light box, power pack, a scrim or a snoot, maybe some barn doors, and you were out of there.

Lately, even the most basic lighting often seems to be a lost art. Outside shots that could have benefitted form even a hint of fill don’t have it. Portraits are flat, interiors uneven. 

There’s absolutely a place for photography that’s strictly available light. Sensitive news shoots, sports, courtroom assignments, funerals. But I don’t get this idea that shooting digital equals a license to shoot available.

I understand why some photographers do it, especially the younger ones. They never had to shoot transparency film, where being off a stop was real trouble and not lighting at all could mean the photo looked like you made it in a fish tank. But I don’t understand why photo editors tolerate it. Especially today.

Lights are smaller, smarter and more powerful than ever. You can boost or cut a background fill with the spin of a dial and never even have to look up. And yet I’ll go through the paper on Sunday and see stuff that obviously had no lighting at all. 

I’m not saying this is epidemic, there are plenty of interesting, well-lit images out there. But I remember photo editors telling me on the phone or as I headed-out the door, “Light it! It’s a feature!” You were a pro, knowing the basics was a given, and really working the composition and the lighting was expected. Two lights were the absolute minimum, preferably three. 

That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, and I don’t know why. Maybe that’s the look photo editors want, something raw and “honest.” Or perhaps it’s just become more normal, or even fashionable, and I’m not fashionable anymore.

But I do know that people know a good photo when they see one, even if they aren’t sure exactly why. And very often, the “why” is the lighting.

Portrait of a Carthusian, 1446 by Petrus Christus Netherlandish, at the Met

I love the Hollywood lighting of the 1930’s and ‘40’s, and sometimes I’ll use just the modeling lights on my DynaLites because I like that feel so much. Granted, I’m not going to my next CEO shoot, sticking a fedora on his head and a lit cigarette in his hand and light him like he’s Humphrey Bogart, sweetheart. But I can do something to remind people why they hire a pro, why having Donny in receiving do the shot with his cell-phone or Canon Rebel just isn’t the best idea.

In the end though, how expensive the equipment is won’t make the difference, how much time is spent or how many digital captures are made, or how many assistants come along won’t matter much either. 

Whether it was Petrus Christus in 1446 (right) or George Hurrell in 1938 (at top), it’s the awareness of and management of light that makes an image special. And that’s something that won’t change, no matter how pixels we’re packin’.

Bring a little bit of Christus and Hurrell along next time, they were pretty good.

a second chance…

A few weeks ago I did the numbers regarding my photo business, and one of those numbers related to how my income for the 4th quarter of 2020 compared to the 4th quarter of 2019.

And that number told me that my receivables were down…a lot.

Not a good number, in fact if it was much worse, it would almost be like being out of business.

And if I was out of business, I thought, I’d have to start over.

And with a clap of thunder and a 1000 watt second flash of light, starting over suddenly sounded like a great idea.

Almost every marketing project has been put-off, every sporting event postponed or played in an empty arena, every convention, fund-raiser, awards ceremony cancelled.

But things are going to come back, and I realized that when they do, it will be a phenomenal opportunity to be there for my old clients and get myself in front of new ones. 

There’s a back-log of work waiting to be done, and people are going to be enthusiastic about hiring photographers and writers and graphic designers to help them do it.

I think there will be an avalanche of productivity once life starts to get back to normal, and as independent contractors, we need to wax our skis and check our bindings in anticipation.

Update the website now, start a new promotion campaign now, get your equipment cleaned and checked now. 

We have all been forced to hibernate to varying degrees the past year. But when the figurative Springtime arrives, and we all come out of our caves squinting in the sunlight, we have to be ready to perform, get back on our feet, and explore new territory.

Personally, I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in a long time. I’ve re-arranged and cleaned my office, edited, scanned and then thrown away wastebaskets-full of transparencies from another era, and come-up and implemented ways to organize.

I have financial tables, I painted my office, I can see the top of my desk!

It’s time to stop looking back at how bad things have been business-wise, and begin looking ahead to what could be.

When I left my newspaper job as chief photographer/photo editor all those years ago, I knew that I could shoot, but I knew nothing about running a business. 

Now I feel that same enthusiasm as when I took that leap, but without the terror. I know how to do this, and this unwelcome interlude has made me realize I’d been slipping into complacency, acting like I’d be able to do this forever.

I’ve looked back over my career and thought about whether I’ve accomplished all I could have…and I definitely have not. I could have done better.

But when we come-through this pandemic, it will be like getting a glorious second-chance,and I’m starting now to make sure it doesn’t slip away.

campaign blues...

Covering a big political campaign is like covering a news/sports/feature assignment with a riot and a rock concert thrown-in for kicks.

Senator Richard Blumenthal running through the rain, and for re-election.

It’s arriving stupidly early, jockeying for a good position and then protecting it for a few hours waiting for the candidate to arrive.

And then you and everyone else are photographing the same candidate from practically the same position at the same time, and the best image comes down to who had the slightly better angle at any particular moment, and a few hundredths of a second.

Timing is the difference between the perfect amount of confetti in the air, the width of a smile, or whether or not you get stuck with the blink. Timing and keeping your head on a swivel so maybe you see something no one else has noticed yet.

Regardless, someone is going to get the best shot of the event, and I always want it to be me.

I’m often disappointed

My first Presidential campaign stop was Ronald Reagan in Hackensack, New Jersey.

Ronald Reagan campaigning in Hackensack, NJ.

I was in my very early twenties, and thought getting my Secret Service clearance was some kind of accomplishment. “They checked me out and they found NUTHIN! And now I have this cool little pin!!”

I remember showing up early with my cameras and a bunch of film, wearing some cheap sport coat from the GAP to help me along. Two Secret Service agents stopped me at the entrance, probably thinking I was looking for my mom, and asked me what I was doing there.

I’m here to pick up my credential,” I stammered…and then, nodding toward my equipment, uttered the unbelievably stupid phrase, “I’m here to shoot the President.”

They looked at each other, back at me, leaned in, and said, “What?!”

I thought about what I’d just said, and realized I had just insured my place at that evening’s cocktail hour conversation. “And then he said, get this, he said, ’I’m here to shoot the President!’”

Senator John McCain campaigning for President in Fairfield, CT.

“Photograph him…photograph the President, I mean…obviously not shoot…well shoot but as in photograph, you know…”

They broke into big grins, realizing I was about to either collapse or wet myself or both, and said something like, “OK, we know, just choose your words a little more carefully,” and I was like, “Yes sirs…sorry…absolutely…so stupid…sorry…”

Bill Clinton, campaigning for somebody, he was born to campaign.

(Saying stupid stuff didn’t end just because I got older. While flying to Riyadh in a C-130 during the first Gulf War, the communications officer asked me if I wanted 15 minutes with some General who was up in the cockpit. I thought he meant for photos but he meant for an interview, and I probably sounded like, “Hiya General…how are ya’? How’s everything goin’ so far? You look good…nice ribbons…I’ve got a pen here somewhere…”)

Anyway, I miss the campaigning this time around. Trump has his rallies but it’s not the same, it looks more like covering a circus fire than a Presidential campaign. Biden is not having events that draw crowds. Even local races are under the radar, especially in Connecticut. 

Perhaps on election night there will be something to cover, but it won’t be a mass of people packed into a hotel ballroom, united in their euphoria at winning or their gloominess at not. There won’t be that searching the sea of faces for the one that sums-up the night. The tears-in-the eyes of, “We came up short,” or the smiles and hugs after a win.

Hey guys, Alan Colmes was as liberal as it gets on FOX.

But most of all I miss the camaraderie, socially but also the experience of being with a group of people who are strictly observers at what is an emotional, historic event. It’s a different experience watching from the risers, it’s more anthropological than political, like you’ve spent too much time hanging-out with Ken Burns and life is a documentary.

Campaign events are massive, calculated events that only look chaotic, and they effect everything from traffic to hotel bookings to the number of yard signs popping-up in the areas they visit. In the last 10 weeks of the 2016 Presidential campaigns, the candidates made over 175 stops between them. That’s a lot of voter involvement, and a lot of local journalists getting to dress-up and go to the ball. 

That didn’t happen this time around…and I really like having to be home by midnight.

Ned Lamont leaves the podium after making his concession speech. Lamont lost the Senate race to Joe Lieberman in 2006.

yeah...but what are they REALLy like?

No one ever asks how a celebrity shoot actually went. They don’t ask if you knocked anything over, or took an $8 Coke from the minibar, or if you walked up to Robert DeNiro and said, “You talkin’ to ME?” (ummmmm…no) They just wanna hear, “What are they REALLY like?”

Natasha Richardson

And generally I can give them a little insight. Matt Damon isn’t really like Jason Bourne, I mean, he didn’t try to kill me with a toothbrush, or anything. He’s actually really nice, even pretty quiet. And Scarlett Johannson was much nicer to me than I expected. And P Diddy is much less brash and self-confident than you’d think…almost kind of reserved.

But some celebrities…some celebrities are exactly what you’d think.

I have to admit I am most familiar with Natasha Richardson from the 23 times I watched “The Parent Trap” with my kids. She seemed kind, fun, at-ease, and was of course, beautiful. I photographed her when she was playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret, and when we met she made me feel like I was the only person in her world at that moment, the kind of person who’s a brand-new old friend. She made it easy, like taking a photo of a sunrise, it’s there and you take the photo. She laughed and smiled and was completely engaged. Such a loss.

Lauren Graham at Sardi’s, her caricature is over her right shoulder.

Another show I watched repeatedly with the kids was Gilmore Girls. The banter between Rory and Lorelai was a source of amusement in our house for years, and it still sneaks into our conversations. Lauren Graham played Lorelai, a kind of goofy, witty, single-mom raising a teenage daughter who was every bit as charming. Lorelai had a pretty specific set of mannerisms, looks, ways of walking and standing, voice inflections. I was looking forward to meeting her when I arrived at Sardi’s on West 44th., but when she arrived I was like…wait…what? She walked in dressed like Lorelai. She stood there for a second, put her hands in her back pockets and kind of rocked-up on her toes and back down…like Lorelai. She talked, looked, and gestured like…well, you know who. She’s played a dizzying number of roles over the years, but I think I identified with her so much as Loreli that it’s who I was expecting to walk into Sardis on that April morning. “Get this woman some coffee!!” If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to share Chinese food with Lauren Graham, just watch an episode of Gilmore Girls where she shares Chinese food with Rory. She’s every bit as fun, off-beat and charming. She has a caricature at Sardi’s, if you look closely you can see it over her right shoulder in the photo.

I’ve always thought that Robert DeNiro played Robert Deniro. In practically every movie, he pretty-much played the same gruff, no-nonsense, borderline sociopath that he played in the movie before. Mrs Doubtfire just isn’t going to work with DeNiro in the lead. “Life is like a box of chocolates” would never work if said by DeNiro, unless some scritpwriter changed it to, “Hey…life is like a box of f……n’ chocolates you little *#&*!”

I really don’t know what I was expecting when I showed up to photograph Deniro and Michelle Pfeiffer when they were both in the move, “The Family” (DeNiro playing a gangster,) but I think a part of me was hoping DeNiro would show-up in an expensive suit and a nice haircut. That he’d shake my hand, look me in the eye, say something like, “Nice to meet you,” and almost make me believe him. Michelle Pfeiffer was a sweatheart, more-or-less, DeNiro looked like he slept in the car on the way over and was pretty disinterested. I guess that’s why he’s so good at the roles he plays. He’s the perfect personality to play the steely-eyed, don’t give me any of your BS, tough-guy role, there’s no one like DeNiro. Though, I would love to see him take a crack at the lead in a re-make of Ghandi. (“You better be the f#@*’n change you wanna see in this world, or it’s not gonna go good for you, capisce?”) 

a real firecracker…

$135 a week may not sound like much today, but in 1979 it had me dancing in the streets of Ridgewood, New Jersey.

I was in college, studying English but majoring in the college newspaper and the college magazine, oddly enough, called The Magazine. 

We were a talented group, if we’d come together as a sports team we’d have gone undfeated.

But for us, fourth and long was racing out of the student center at 3:40 AM with the flats in a box, one-pont line stuck in our hair, to stumble through the doors of the printer and make our 4:00 AM deadline. Our idea of a swish was a headline about the U.S. head-count being, “America Come to Your Census.”  

But in the Summer of 1979, I just wanted a job in journalism, and even shooting at a paper that only published on Thursdays and Sundays had me getting up early and showing up on-time.  

There were four other photogs in the department, including two genuine old-timers who would cut through the parking lots to a bar in the back and have half a pack of cigarettes and three Manhattans with their Monte Cristo sandwiches every luchtime.

When they came back I’d be hovering over the enlarger, on my fourth try at getting a crappy negative to look like something. Dan would bump me out of the way, grumble about my wasting paper, and nail a perfect print on his first try. Maddening.

But what I want to write about is my very first day there. I got my oh-so-rookie assignment, a feature that was gong to run the week before the Fourth of July about a woman in her 90’s who was still part of the Yankee Doodle Dandies, a group that marched in the Ridgewood Fourth of July Parade with hats and canes and their best bad Jimmy Cagney impersonations.

Dan didn’t want me to go on my first shoot alone, he probably wanted to make sure I knew which side of the camera to look through, so we got into his ugly company Dodge Omni, destination…old lady.

We pulled-up outside a creaky house and Dan flipped me a roll of Tri-X and asked if I could load it by myself. Dan was the kind of guy who’d look at your work, and if he said, “Well, at least that doesn’t suck,” it was high praise.

He leaned-up against the car, lit his 23rd cigarette of the day, and watched as the old woman came-out onto the porch and down onto the front lawn. 

I wasn’t particularly good at small-talk then, and I didn’t want to blurt-out something like, “So…Jesus…how old are you, anyway?”

Instead, I did what has felt comfortable ever since. I thought of her as an old friend, took her hand, and told her how genuinely happy I was to get to photograph her, how thankful I was that she’d agreed. 

She smiled and pulled a cheap styrofoam hat with a red ribbon band from behind her back.

We exchanged pleasantries, and then I said something like, “Put on that hat…let’s see whatcha got!”

First she looked left, then right, then down, then at the kids sitting on their Sting-Rays watching from the street. 

I thought, “Uh-oh.”

And then, Bingo! She reached-up and tipped her hat, grabbed her dress and gave it a swish, and looked straight at me with a smile that seemed to be born of 90 splendid summers. 

She moved around for a bit, I burned through maybe half a roll, then Dan flicked his cigarette into the gutter and said bluntly, “OK, that should do it.”

I though we were just getting started, but for Dan, when you had the shot you had the shot, no point in making the 90-something woman dance around in the heat longer than you had to.

In the car I checked my settings because I wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened.

Everything looked good, except my shutter speed was a little slow at 125th, and it had me a bit worried. As it turned-out, that caught just a little motion in her dress. The shot wasn’t stagnant, it had some life, some energy.

I still have that print, mounted to the yellowing board that carried it into the New Jersey Press Photographers contest that year.

Honorable Mention for me, but gimme-a-break…it was all her.

She was a real firecracker, that one…

don’t it always seem to go…

I miss my old routine. There was no regular Spring college/prep school sports schedule this year. My regular hospital clients didn’t have much time for anything other than coping with Covid. My academic clients closed their books. I heard from my editorial clients occasionally, but the smaller magazines had a lot of “contributed” photos, and the newspaper work all but disappeared. 

Of course this hurt financially, but I’m surprised at how it hurt emotionally. I’m surprised I felt like I was going through a kind of withdrawal. 

I’m accustomed to packing-up my gear and hitting a bunch of assignments a week...and I miss it. I miss the ritual of getting my stuff together the night before and leaving it by the front door. Of getting on the road and accomplishing the first major task of the day - getting wherever I’m going on-time. Of showing-up, actually shaking some hands, and thinking “I’ve got this,” even though the location is, “Whatever you think will work,” the time allotted has gone from 45-minues to about 20, and the first thing out of my subject’s mouth is, “I just want you to know I HATE having my picture taken!” (Yeah…you and everyone else. More about this in a future blog.)

There’s always a little rush, a little excitement and anxiety before any shoot…no matter what it is. Then there’s the bigger stuff. The hard-hit line-drive foul ball that went EXACTLY where I’d been set-up a minute ago. The lacrosse over-time where there will be one team celebrating and one team mourning and all I want is to get both in the same shot. The emotional news or feature assignment that, if it goes just right, will make someone pause when they see it.

I didn’t realize the intensity of the emotions I felt shooting all the time, of producing, and I certainly didn’t know how it would effect me when it up and vanished. 

But Covid brought normalcy to a screeching halt, and suddenly Covid was pretty-much the only story…and the story everyone was covering. But really, how many photos of nurses in masks can the market use? How many images does the world need of empty aisles where there used to be toilet paper? Covid was a huge story, but it’s difficult to cover from a financial and a safety standpoint. It isn’t an event that is happening in one place. It’s everywhere, and every local media around the world is covering it primarily on a local level.  

The George Floyd protests were another nationwide event that was heavily covered locally. Though I covered more than a few, I wasn’t about to delude myself that a photo from a relatively small protest in Connecticut was going to bump a photo of burning cars in Minneapolis or Los Angeles. So I was there out of a need to be there. To document what was happening not because I had a nice assignment, but because it’s what I do and I don’t want it happening without me. Yes it was intense at times, but somehow it’s not the same when I don’t have a photo editor somewhere checking-in and I’m eating a slice of pizza in my car while I edit and transmit on a deadline. I miss someone depending upon me to do my job.

I shot for my agency, but I’m not waiting for the cash to roll-in. Any photograper who’s ever gotten a check from their agency that included $1.13 from some Eastern European website knows what I’m talking about. 

So Covid continues, my phone is quiet, I’m working on some self-generated stuff, and I’m really tired of digging through and scanning film from 20 years ago.

But at least now there’s one thing I absolutely know for sure…the reason I never thoroughly cleaned and organized my office wasn’t because I didn’t have the time.

March for Tolerance, Hamden, CT; Black Lives Matter, New Haven, CT; Removal of Christopher Columbus statue, New Haven, CT. (C) 2020 Stan Godlewski

Self-generated story on Corona Cocktail soda.

What the world needed, another photo of shelves emptied of toilet paper. (C) 2020 Stan Godlewski

Class photo of graduating hospital residents (C) 2020 Stan Godlewski

Yes…everyone is inconvenienced and has something to howl about. (C) 2020 Stan Godlewski.

shooting night football…

Shooting any sport well is tough…shooting high school football under lights that seem to be powered by a bunch of D-cells taped together is tougher.

Many photographers start-out doing free-lance work for local papers, and that often involves local sports. So here are a few hints for when you find yourself on the sidelines some Friday night… some pitch-black, cold, rainy, Friday night.

• First and most obvious…raise that ISO…3200 works for me…go higher if you need to.

• Use a mono-pod if you like, you have to shoot at least 1/250 second but the less shake the better. Hopefully you have a fast lens.

• Fill the frame. On a perfect October afternoon under a clean blue sky you can shoot something that fills a quarter of the frame, and if it’s sharp chances are you’ll be able to crop it tight and be OK. Won’t happen at night. Save yourself some shutter-wear and wait until the action is close.

• Focus on something with a lot of contrast. A facemask, or a white number on a dark jersey. Autofocus relies on contrast, so try not to focus on a dark blue area of a jersey, your camera will be searching for something to lock onto.

• Avoid the dead spots. There will be some parts of the field that are just dark. Generally, the closer the action is to the sideline, the better lit it will be. The difference between the light midfield and the light at the edges is striking.

• Photograph players on the sideline. They’re not moving, the light is better, and you’re close. It’s a gimme and you need to come back with something usable. This is your insurance shot. You can tell the story of a game with a good sideline reaction shot as well as you can with an action shot. A player alone on the bench with their helmet in their hands as time runs-out shows they lost a close one. Get the scoreboard in the background and you’re a genius. A happy-face is self-explanatory.

• When shooting action, stick to the ground game. Remember first and second downs are more likely to be a run so plan for it. Be ready when a play comes towards you because that’s your best chance. A pass is more exciting, but a dark ball in a black sky disappears.

Be patient. The plays, the emotion, and the photos will be there. Capturing them is the tough part.

pithy...

My mother had many pithy little sayings. My dad did too…but I’d rather not offend anybody.

My absolute favorite was when Mom was in her 80’s, I was in my forties, and she gave me $100 like I was five and she was slipping me a quarter on the sly.

I said, “Thank you…I’ll put it in (her grand-daughter) Nina’s college fund.

“She rolled her eyes and spit, “Ohhhhh...F*** the college fund!! Life’s short…do something nice for yourself!”

But I digress.

Some of her others were “To each his own,” “God helps those who help themselves,” “What will be…will be…,” and “You want a fat lip?”

But the one that has rung true for me personally is: “If you want something done…give it to a busy person.”

Of course she didn’t make these up herself (except probably the college fund one)...but she found them helpful and thought she’d pass them on.

But back to me.

If I have three things to get done and all day to do them, I will take all day to do them.
If I have the same things to get done on a busy day, I’ll get them done almost without thinking.

Now, if I had nothing else to do today, I could spend the next 2 hours looking for an image to compliment this blog. But I have lots to do so we’ll just go pictureless, blog's done and it's time to move-on. See how that works?

Wouldn't want a client calling to ask about their images and me having to say they’re not ready.

They might respond with, “You want a fat lip?”

...where does he think HE's goin'?

When you’re assigned to a heavily covered event and every photographer there is shooting from the same spot, it’s hard to say, “Know what?…What the hell, I’m going over there, where there’s absolutely nobody.”

It’s kind of like being an antelope, seeing a bunch of lions in the distance, and thinking, “I know those other 600 antelope are sticking together, but I think I’m just gonna hang-out over here, in the shade, by this tree…..alone.

Because those other photographers are probably in that spot for a very good reason.
And whatever happens, they all have an equal chance of getting the shot from there. You on the other hand will be off somewhere, looking for a better angle, some dramatic light, or getting yelled at to, “Get back where you belong.”

So why risk it?

After you do this for a while, getting the same shot as everyone else is no longer what you’re always after. If you’re shooting for an agency, the shooter from a different agency to the left of you will have basically the same shot at the wire photog to your right. And you’ll be in-between getting something very similar to both of them.

Best-case scenario, some photo editor somewhere looking for a shot from this event will just do an “Eeeny-meeenie-miney-moe” because all the shots are so similar. So why should they pick yours?

So the similar shot may not be that exciting, but it is safe, and the last thing you want to do is answer the question, “Everyone else got the shot of Trump ducking that thrown shoe…why didn’t you?”

And if you say, “Because I was off trying to get something different,” your photo editor won’t resist the opportunity to say something like, “Oh you got something different all right…you got crap!”

But I gotta tell ya’, almost every time I try this, it’s worth the risk.

There are usually 3 or 4 events going-on simultaneously at a gymnastics championship, as well as a nice elevated spot for the photographers that offers an overview of everything. But the images from there will have the same feel as the view everyone in the stands has had all day. So if you're willing to risk missing something on the vault, or the bars, or the floor, grab a long lens and head for the beam.  (C) Stan Godlewski

Now, I don’t do it with the super high-stakes stuff, that would be crazy. But I’ll do it when the odds are good that there’s something better to be found than what can be seen from the risers in the back of a hotel ballroom or almost any sports event.

Because everyone shooting together means they all probably get the same shot in front of them, and that if something happens out of view, they'll all miss it.

And that’s the allure of hanging-out in the shade, by this tree…alone. You get to see the hunt from a place other than the frenzy of the herd, and maybe bag a trophy shot no one else has.
If you don’t get eaten.

Chiller Theater...

I have three “on the job” ghost stories. One I’ll tell you in a moment. the other perhaps next year. And the third I rarely tell anyone because it was all too real, and I have a fondness, respect and a little bit of fear of that particular ghost.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             (C) Stan Godlewski

 

But the one I’m most OK with telling happened one autumn evening when I was working at an aging movie theater that did “Up All Night” or “Insomnia Theater” or something like that. But the gist was that you could catch a movie at like midnight, and if the film happened to be “Horror Hotel” well then, so much the better.

I was alone in the old projection room, a long narrow affair with two projectors, one set-up as you walk-in, and facing those vertical slots you can see when your in your seat below, and an old relic of a projector sitting dusty and abandoned at the other end of the room.

I was kneeling over my bag, waiting for the all-night projectionist to arrive in the robe and slippers I’d asked hime to wear, along with a cup of coffee and maybe a teddy bear.

A shadow or movement caught my right eye as I was setting-up, and I thought it strange to think that there had been someone with me in the room all this time and I hadn’t known it. I had just a glimpse, but there was someone in a light blue shirt and navy trousers, typical maintenance wear. He was bent over the old machine, with a red wooden toolbox at his side. A bit of a sepia glow surrounded him, as if he was lit from a tungsten bulb somewhere within the old machine.

I didn’t turn around right away, so he was there peripherally for a few seconds…choosing a tool, lowering his grey head and peering through his wire-framed glasses.

I put down my camera and turned to say hello, but there was just the old machine. No sepia glow, no toolbox, nothing.

I did the standard routine. Stood up…blinked a few times…smiled a “Go ON!!” kinda smile.

I leaned my head forward as if that extra inch and a half would make a difference, but one thing I didn’t do was walk the length of the room to get a closer look.

Instead I got very busy, placing a light, moving some junk out of the shot, whistling softly.

The projectionist arrived toting two ancient film cases, his coffee, teddy bear, robe and slippers.

He looked great. We introduced ourselves and got to work.

About 40 minutes later we were almost finished, and were making small talk about the old theater. He told me that this particular room wasn’t used anymore for anything much more than storage.

He looked through the dimness and the dust toward the old projector in the corner and said, "Upstairs there’s a state of the art room...with new equipment."

There was a pause while he repositioned the teddy bear, “But even if we need to just get a case of paper cups or something from this room, no one want to come in here alone.”

“Why is that? I asked.

He smiled a little and glanced around. "Well, even when we used this room all the time, everyone said it was haunted, ” he whispered.

sometimes, you just get lucky...

Sometimes when you’re having a particularly busy day, you hit the point where you’ll eat almost anything…anywhere.

Today I was in the backwaters of CT, passing through a town that looked like it had been a nice place to live once upon a time when the great brick mills were roaring. 

I stopped at a little Chinese place, in the basement of an old white clapboard house on a corner, the only splash of color in the front dirt yard was an old pink tricycle, with the stubs of those pastel streamers sticking from the handlebars.

The railings off the sidewalk needed to be painted since forever, and led down three or four steps into the place. To the right was a counter with the largest tip jar I’ve ever seen…like the size of a fish-tank. Straight-ahead was a table stacked high with cardboard boxes: fortune cookies, napkins, packets of duck sauce and soy sauce. To the left were two empty tables and a bunch of mismatched chairs. 

The young woman behind the counter was tall and slim, with long black hair pulled back into a ponytail. Pretty but forlorn, like at one time she'd wondered how she'd ended-up here, but was beyond caring now. Her daughter, about five, was skipping in a circle, her coloring book and stubby crayons on a little desk in the corner.

I ordered chicken and broccoli and a spring roll…a safe bet. She cooked it like I was a friend of the family who’d just stopped-by unannounced, and she was obliged to make me something to eat.

She brought it to me on a thin paper plate with a tiny plastic Barbie fork.

It didn’t taste like the Chinese food I’m accustomed to…it was kind of smokey, the spring roll tasting of jasmine.

A young blonde-haired shirtless guy came bounding down the stairs, wearing khaki cargo shorts, and a pair of ripped Converse sneakers. He grabbed a giant Pepsi from the rattling cooler, breathlessly said, “$2.75 right? I’ll leave it on the counter,” dumped down a pocketful of change and a crumpled dollar bill, and flew away.

I finished, paid, and dropped a few bucks into the fishtank. 

On the way out of town I stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts for a coffee. I asked the kid behind the counter if he’d ever eaten at “The Wall.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ve eaten there a bunch of times.”

“I just had lunch there,” I said, then after a long pause asked, “Am I gonna die?”

“No…NO…,” he said. “You ate at the good place! There are two Chinese places over there,” he said. “The one that’ll kill you is across the street!”

Sometimes you just get lucky.

A Pinch of Backlight...a dash of fill...

I treat food like people. Every person has a good side and a bad side. Everyone looks better in one kind of light than another. And the same is true for every plate of linguine in clam sauce, every grilled pork chop, every shish kabob and every bowl of Berry-Yogurt Pavlovas with Chamomile-Lavender Syrup that's ever come out of a kitchen. Just sayin'.

Food is one of my joys to shoot. It never complains. Never grows impatient. Never arrives late to a table, rolling its eyes and proclaiming, "I hate having my picture taken!" 

Every plate of food is a little work of art, waiting to be captured before it melts or runs or hardens or dries-out. It's a young beauty who won't live-out the day. 

So while the staff is scurrying around doing their get-ready thing, which is quite impressive actually, and the chef is cranking out the dishes from a kitchen in prep-mode, the doors are opening in 45 minutes.

Now the temptation is to lay the dish in the some window-light, shoot-away and be done with it and that's just criminal. Like the chef sprinkling some Mrs. Dash on your fillet and saying, "That's good enough" and sending it out. I mean....no.

This food is a thing of beauty. There is color and texture and light that we rarely get to actually see because, well...the average restaurant isn't terribly well-lit. They go for ambiance...for intimacy, and the poor food is all dressed-up and sitting in the dark.

But when photographing the food I want both. I want the intimacy, but I also want the food on the red carpet with a thousand flashes lighting it up...I want it to be the star. And this is where it gets a little tricky. Because I'm not usually shooting for powerhouse clients, the world doesn't stop when I arrive, in fact the world doesn't even spin a little more slowly. 

Now I've seen photographers come-in to shoot food with three assistants and monitors and a van full of equipment and a production schedule for cryin' out loud. And I'm like....Holy Tarragon! Who has time for that? Who pays for that? I just want the food to look good, I don't want to beat it to death. 

So I bring a few small lights and work fast. Strike-up a rapport, tell the salad a quick joke, ("Lettuce not be radicchio") thank the chef and the staff and get-out. 

Except for every once in a while.

Years ago I was shooting at a French restaurant in Greenwich, CT. It was a 10 am shoot...early for a restaurant. I arrived on time and by 10:16 the air was thick with Gauloises smoke and the first of a nice dry red was open. The dishes arrived and sat opposite me like old friends. An appetizer, a main course, a dessert...all looking fabulous. I approached them from many angles, gave them a dash of highlight and a pinch of backlight. I drew from my last Gauloises, finished my red, and as I left, the summer sidewalks were being freshly hosed-down, the geraniums watered, and the lunch specials written in chaulk on the blackboard. 

And I realized that this is the feeling I want in the photos. Not a product shot...not an overly-lit still life, but something to stir a memory. That late-night/early-morning, "Should we have one more? What the hell, of course we should," feeling. Because that's what great chefs and great restaurants are all about. Nights to remember, experiences to hold close, a taste you can close your eyes and recall.

Tough to distill down into a photo...but that's the flavor I want.

Through A Lens, Like...All The Time...

I’ve noticed that with or without a camera, I see the world as if through a lens. I can see through a 300mm telephoto or a 15mm wide angle. I can saturate or silhouette. I can freeze life with a “click” in my head. And I don’t do it on purpose, it’s just that after all these years of finding angles and noticing light, it’s the way I view the world now.

And I wonder if this is true with other professions.  Does a novelist pull-up next to someone at a stop light, look over, and instead of just seeing another car, think, “She gripped the wheel not at 10 and 2..not at 8 and 4, but at 11 and 1. She leaned forward, as if trying to gain an extra inch. Slightly biting her lower lip, late for something, the extra minute lost at this light was costly. As the light turned green, she put her foot to the floor, and promptly stalled.”

Do architects look at a house ripe for an addition and add it in their minds? Complete with skylights and rose covered trellis? Can interior designers walk into a room without re-arranging the furniture and painting the walls in their heads?  Was the sun square for the cubists? Is a train whistle more symphonic to a musician?

Probably, yeah. Lucky us.

At the gym I looked across the room, and through the glass saw late afternoon sun slanting across the water of the pool. I waited as someone swam into it, and in my head came the “Click…click…click” as they passed through.

Sunday I was sitting near the lobby at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Looking up, I saw a group of people standing at a railing above a sculpture. When all but one left, it was time, “Click…” 

This isn’t work, it’s isn’t even conscious. I think it’s just the way I see after decades of practice.

Which makes me realize that I have to be careful what I practice. If I practice being optimistic, patient and compassionate my picture of the world should be a very good one.

If I practice the opposite, my images of the world may not be worth sharing.

You have to be careful what you click on.

A Little Cold Ain't Nuthin'...

Every once in a while, I just don't feel like packing-up my gear and heading out the door. Especially on a Sunday morning. Early. When it's really cold outside. And I'm off to take pictures of people on a windy beach willingly plunge into water that, if it were 10 degrees colder, they could skate on.

But it was the "CT Brain Freeze" to raise money for and awareness about Brain Tumors, and right off the bat I could come-up with one very good reason why I should go, and why I should be downright pleased about doing so.

I wasn't one of the people who pledged to do it.  

So I get there and find a positive energy love-fest. Everyone's happy. Everyone's enthusiastic. Lots of people are dressed ridiculously. Grown men in orange tutus. Vikings. Bikinis for cryin' out loud. And into the icy waters of the Long Island Sound they go, bringing with them their memories of a friend or loved-one lost to this particular disease.

They shriek, they laugh, they splash, and they come out shivering, wrapping themselves in blankets and hugging each other. I guess when you've been through what many of these people have been through, your concept of what's hard-to-do changes. 

While I don't envy what they've been through, I kind of envy who they are now. Because it seems that despite what they've lost, they're joyous, and unafraid, and willing to rush forward exuberantly in an orange tutu no matter what lay ahead. 

What I would have missed had I stayed in bed this Sunday morning. 

Guilty of Looking FABulous!

Every now and then I get to play paparazzi. Not on Wilshire Blvd or outside some club at 2 a.m. Not hanging from a helicopter over an extravagant Hollywood wedding. It’s usually on the steps of one courthouse or another, waiting to grab a photo of some celebrity or politician who got themselves in trouble.

A long time ago I worked a lot in Union City NJ, and if I was sent to a courthouse, it was usually to photograph a mobster, a gangster, a tough-guy, see? 

And they’d come-out fast and walk right at me with a look that said, “I’m gonna remember your face kid…and I hope that someday we meet again…know what I mean?”

But to some people it’s a compliment to have the press waiting to take their picture when they have a court appearance, and by some people, I mean mostly former supermodels.

Stephanie Seymour was recently appearing in Stamford, and she stepped-out of a black Mercedes looking fantastic and walking toward the courthouse like she was on her way to a charity luncheon. Big dark sunglasses, black dress and coat, stylish hair, runway gait…all getting a murmur of approval from the waiting press….not a wasted morning, thank you very much.

Stephanie Seymour arrives at courthouse in Stamford, CT and looks smashing.

If I have to be hanging-around in front of a courthouse early in the morning, this is who I want to be waiting for. Not the victim of a horrible crime, not someone in shackles being brought in the back entrance, but someone I’ve seen in the Victoria’s Secret catalog a thousand times who had an extra glass of chardonnay and didn’t hurt anyone.

Oh, and the lawyers are fun to photograph too. They’re happy to be there no matter who they’re defending. They’re sharp dressers and know how to look at a camera. And they’ll talk long enough so you can get good stills AND good video.

Because really, no one wants to be photographed when they’re embarrassed and just want to be left alone, and I don’t know any photographers who enjoy doing that.

Unless you’re a true paparazzi, and you’ve stumbled upon Kanye West exiting Spago with toilet paper stuck to his shoe.

(C) 2016 Stan Godlewski

It Doesn't Smell Like Christmas

I used to be an event. I know I’m dating myself…but it’s true.

It used to be a big deal when I showed-up to do a shoot. Didn’t matter who it was, I was coming to take their photo and preparations had to be made. Time had to be set aside. This was going take a little-while.

It would also take several trips. Cameras, film, a case or two of lighting gear, all kinds of stuff. And there was no, “We were going to have Tommy down the hall take the shot…he’s got a camera,” because “Tommy Down the Hall” didn’t have a clue what half the stuff I just dragged in even was. I had stuff no one there had ever seen. I had large format cameras and lenses and Polaroid backs, all in brushed aluminum, combination locked Pelican cases that made me look like freakin’ James Bond.

So time was granted. Patience was extended. There was the acknowledgement that something special, something out of the ordinary, was happening.

Fujichrome. Ektachrome, tungsten, fluorescent gels and filters, $500 light meters, two Dynalight packs, four heads…there was no pretense, it was just, “I do this…and you don't, so let's not pretend that what you do with your Instamatic is comparable.”

If I did a Polaroid, everyone in the room would lean in to get a view of it, and more often than not nod approvingly, and say, “I love that smell, it reminds me of Christmas.”

Sadly, it’s not a big deal anymore. Chances are someone in the room has my camera or something better. And they’ll want to talk PhotoShop, or for the love of God…Pixel counts!  And they’ll look at the lights and think, “What does he need those for?”  People don’t seem to think it’s work to get a good photo anymore. They’ve seen too many ads of the guy in the top row of a football stadium with his Rebel, who clicks and the next thing you see a photo worthy of a Sports Illustrated cover. (As if!)  It’s easy now, what’s taking so long?

I have to admit, I miss the exclusivity. I miss the magic-act aspect of it all. I miss holding my over-sized light meter to someone’s face, pushing the button and saying, “He’s dead Jim,” and having people get the joke.

Photography is faster now. In many ways it’s easier, too. It’s certainly cheaper. And I suppose it’s more accessible. But although digital photography at first blush seemed like magic, it really isn’t. It’s kind of dry. It lacks mystery. It lacks romance. 

And it certainly doesn’t smell like Christmas.

Whistlin' Down the Wire...

Last week I drove to Maine to photograph a County Lineman, and yes...that Glen Campbell song was in my head the whole way:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp_Kakkm6U4

It was six hours up Sunday night, and six-hours back on Monday...and that comes-out to 12 hours of bliss.

Here's what I liked best: 

  (C) Stan Godlewski 2015

- Speed limit is 70 mph, and there are about 6 cops in the state to enforce it. 

- At night, if you drive fast enough up a long hill on the highway, you almost believe that when you crest it, you’ll drive off the edge of the planet.

- The commercial radio stations, they play whatever they want and I heard zero top forty.

- It’s ALMOST Canada

- I rolled down the windows just to see what the air smelled like. It was really good.

- If you go far enough north, there is never high-noon light, just morning and afternoon light.

- Everyone at the Howard Johnson's breakfast counter orders “The usual”

- My usual would be the western omelette, even if it was made by a guy in a Bruins hat.

- Gentleman next to me actually had a wife named Mabel. 

- Near the water there's a place to stay called the "Bait's Motel."

- It has an “International” Airport...because there’s a flight to Montreal.