(00:00:00) Well, I had cameras. First of all, I really hate cameras. There are glass metal plastic and they get in the way. I mean, you have a capacity to see something as a human being and as a photographer and as soon as you see it you then have to throw this mass of metal and Machinery in front of your face and it it takes you away from the scene people. Stop relating to you as a human being they begin to relate to the camera and it's a very mechanical process. So for all their their glitter and shine, I really hate cameras. It's having an external Observer. Not participate in the event and yet be there very very close to it. It's It's both delightful and and Terror filled on many days. I don't mean Terror in the sense of I'm about to be killed but Terror in the sense of responsibility to to be honest and accurate and to be able to use mechanical Tools in a way that will show somebody else what they couldn't be there or didn't have the time or the money or the expertise and not distorted not presented in such a way that it's not easily seen and it's difficult some days people often say you're there and you see what's going on. It must be easy for you to decide who's right and wrong and what you learn of course is that it's not right or wrong and with there aren't two sides, but there are perhaps Five sides or 17 sides or 93 sides and what you have is a chance to observe all of this going on and then you have to decide now of all these what shall I say dominated? What shall I say really happened? Who shall I say was the most important and you do that with a camera with words you can embroider and you can you can you can allow a certain mellowness to kind of occur. You can soften or strengthened but a photograph exists. It's the reality transferred to a page and it's very difficult to soften or enhance without changing the meaning and that's the last thing we want to do is to change the meaning Reggie. What about this business keeps you going and keeps you in it Mike articulated the job from a journalistic perspective, but there's also a lot of things for myself that are quite personal such as a chance to be part of what is happening chance to be able to go. Isn't see things and to for time being and granted it is just such a short time but to be part of an ongoing as ongoing history and I think I think that's what can get me out into 40 below zero weather and a hundred and five degree weather and put me in situations where I wouldn't say. My life is in Jeopardy, but certainly my safety might be in Jeopardy. There are a lot of things that happen that I would say normally why am I doing this and I come up with the answers because you're being part of something. Are you ever disappointed when you come back to the lab and you develop film having been in the middle of something that was full of the sites, but also the smells and the sounds and being disappointed with just this piece of paper that can happen and they and when that happens, it's generally indicative of the photographer becoming involved in the situation and Sometimes you're overwhelmed by what is happening and you forget to take pictures and in a way photographer has to remain objective not only to the issues involved but objective to being drawn into what is happening because as soon as that happens you no longer can take pictures you're reacting to the situation and you come back and you're going to be disappointed because what you saw you never recorded and there is a for example there was a car accident and that's a very difficult situation photograph to begin with because there's a lot of things happening even if it isn't involving a death or Serious injury, there's a lot of emotions involved. There's the police there. There's the friends there's the victims and then there are the public that stands around wondering why you're there and never questioning why they're there and there's a lot of things happening and I don't like Photograph those those type of situations but I inevitably have to I go out and as soon as you become emotionally involved in the situation, you're starting to react to the person you forget to take pictures and I think the result of that is you the photographer comes off as cold and callous. They're only there to get their picture. They're only there to to photograph this tragedy and make the spectacular Sensational picture on the front page and that isn't true because it's a delayed reaction on the part of photographers not only accidents but a lot of lot of lot of instances instances you have photographer has to have a delayed reaction to this and so when a photographer leaves the situation they suddenly have to deal with all this emotion and there's no way there's no support there. There's no person sitting next to you that you can relay these feelings that you've had you go back to the office and no one's in the in the office has been there and there's there's a typical Banter that goes on and so photographer has to deal with those emotions by themselves and they do do have them let's reduce but they have them and in the very real but we don't show them when we're photographing because if we did we wouldn't get the photographs. Well, that's a good that's that's a typical response that people say is how can you go to situations that people are really in pain or suffered some kind of turmoil and how can you then intrude upon their very personal situation? And there's no question. I make no apologies. The camera does intrude it's question. It's all I hate cameras. First of all, I really hate cameras. There are glass metal plastic and they get in the way. I mean, you have a capacity to see something as a human being and as a photographer and as soon as you see it you then have to throw this mass of metal and Machinery in front of your face and it it takes you away from the scene people stopped relating to you as a human being they begin to relate to the camera and it's Mechanical process so for all their their glitter and shine, I really hate cameras, but I digress I let me let me there's a purpose to be served and intruding in people's lives. There was a forest fire a couple of years ago the burned on a home family of five children husband wife are standing outside this literally the smoking ruins reporter and I had arrived within an hour of the time the fire had passed and one of the children is on crutches and the father is looking distraught everything he zones is gone and in the mother is crying and we were all up in our shiny Rent-A-Car and and were requested to perform our jobs. Okay. Now that seems difficult and it is it no question about it. It's hard to pick up your camera and point it at somebody and record what's going on, but there is a purpose to be served in its larger than the momentary discomfort and it helps a great deal in this particular instance the fact that we recorded them Inward and picture as to what had happened to them. And made that information available to the larger community. Happening occurred a week later the entire Community for 40 miles around came together and literally rebuilt their home donated clothing utensils appliances and within a month the family was re-established because the larger Community was aware of what had happened to them and I don't mean to go around saying I'm a Good Samaritan, but we do have to know what's happening about us and a photograph is a very powerful instrument in getting some kind of action to take place and sometimes it's for the good and I think there is enough reward from that end of it to balance the unhappiness of both you're intruding upon and the unhappiness of the people who have been intruded upon even if there's not a positive social response. There is a sharing in the car accident that Reggie mentioned there's a sharing of the grief the again the community at large can oh, it's really difficult to verbalize that kind of thing. But what happens is that you can Both identify with and maybe take a lesson from I'm not sure that it holds up. But those are the kinds of thoughts that go through your mind when you're photographing. It is not to get the tear running down the cheek. Well the sun holding his mother's bloody body in his arms. The point of it is to show what's going on. So that other people can act appropriately were nothing more than a pipeline of information and that does make you seem cold some days. No question about it. Do you ever ask people in situations like that if you can photograph them or do you simply step in and start shooting? It'll vary there are so many shades of grey it's impossible. When the Vietnam War ended the night that Nixon made his speech. We were dispatched out to the veterans hospital to get reaction from the Vets out there as to the ending of the of the conflict and the reporter had found a group of people about for in a room and he sat and talked with them that didn't make a picture. So I wandered down the hallway and I as I was going down the hall I came to one Ward where there was. All bed lamp and a tiny portable television set and a double amputee veteran watching Nixon give his speech and for me, it was a very powerful image and I walked into the room and I said, would you mind if I photographed you watching Nixon and the man said he didn't care. So in that case I did ask and was given permission and I've later talk to the man had dinner with him in restaurant and what all other situations you either a can't or be. It wouldn't serve any purpose. It would be a further abrasiveness to walk in and ask it's better to do your job and go away and there are And I stress rarely but every now and again there is a time when you don't make the picture quick instance that comes to mind as a drowning where the body was recovered and people were carrying it up out of the water and there was no reason to photograph that body being carried from the water. There are other ways to do it and other ways to tell that In but that frame doesn't exist because there was no purpose even though I was there covering the news and it was a it was a very graphic Dynamite image and I never pulled the trigger on it. You just don't do it. That's such a hard decision to make when you're out in the field. You're you're thrown into a situation where a lot of things are happening in Europe being required to make a decision rather fast. It's whether or not to pull the trigger there are times when I react in a situation and I'll say I do not want to photograph this and then another voice says but you have to photograph it because it is happening and because and then another little voice that says why you were sent out to do a job and I'll do it situation like that is not always clear cut and a lot of times you end up taking pictures and getting back to the office and finding that. Yes. There was a good reason to take that picture that happened to me one time. It was just it was an Lincoln me I we do not take pictures of heart attack victims because it happens every day and it's not it's not news unless you know, perhaps this is someone who's in the news everyday, but there was such a nag heart attack picture and I was taking it and something inside of me was saying yeah, you have to take it. There's a reason to take it in and there's part of me that was saying no, I we don't run this and it turned out to be it turned out that this man had been with another trainee and he had been helping him and the training touched some electrical wiring and was knocked unconscious this man tried to revive him and they called out the ambulance they were not able to revive the younger man. So this man and his partner get into the truck heading back to the office and he has a heart attack and he dies. And it was at that point that I came on the scene when they were trying to revive him. So when I got back and we looked into the story it there was there was a story there was but it's a hard to make those decisions. What are some of the more mundane and less bizarre or less difficult frustrations about this job the mundane. I tend to think sometimes the mundane takes up most of my day other times. There are things happening that that I'll go out with the attitude while this is this is really going to be boring. I've done it a hundred times before and it's going to be boring again today and I find out when I get there that something slightly different and it makes one fine picture and that the whole thing about mundane is attitude our boss like to say, there's no such thing as a bad assignment. I will disagree with him. I've been on those assignments. I know however what he's really saying is that if you go out to an assignment with an added bad attitude, you're going to come back with a picture that is not going to be very good or no picture at all. If you go with a good attitude chances are you may come back with a boring picture but the chances are much rarer when you're when you go with a good attitude, the joys can can outweigh the frustrations and they often do or I'm sure we would have both quit a long time ago this largest single frustration is that there's never enough space to run them enough pictures never enough space to run them large enough. There are never editor smart enough to pick and size exactly the right photographs the Pressman at that particular day wasn't paying enough attention. So the ink wasn't laid down right with the paper paper person of your block may or may not have decided to deliver the paper to your door. Today so everything that all of us did before comes to naught or it rained that day or the cat soiled it around a hundred things can get in the way between between the event and the perception of the event but the on a personal level. The largest frustration is is its much like going to a lot of dinners each assignment on a given day is like going to another dinner and you show up and you sit down and you have time to eat the soup and a nibble at your salad and then you have to get up and go on to the next dinner you rarely have time to get to the main course. It's the business of newspapers to be published every day and we have several things to do each day. So while you would like to spend some time to get to know the people and to understand the situation that is often denied to us. Fortunately the Tribune has a Sunday magazine section where we have an opportunity to expand on stories that demand more time and more energy and and we do spend a good Deal more time and energy and then have the space to put it into so there are compensations. Those are the frustrations what about a particular assignment that you've done or particular style or type of assignment? If not a specific event that appeals to you or has been exciting fun one that really sticks out all there are tons of good ones. That's that's the real joy of the job is the opportunity to be and meet and see and in no particular ranking order, but let's see some of the some of the most rewarding jobs. I've done have been following the birth of a baby all the way through from pregnancy to delivery and a couple of months later. I was at Wounded Knee for nine days. I've been in a gold mine and Lead South Dakota. I've been in Alaska twice for the newspaper. And in fact, I just got back from once and Alaska a couple of weeks ago. We've been to Washington we get to go to the Vikings games for nothing as it at the facets are endless and multicolored and Those same facets by the way, really getting getting the same things that give you Joy also wind up being double edged. The unpredictability of the job is one thing that I just totally Delight in. I would really hate to have to punch in and out and know precisely what I was going to do day after day after day this job. You never know what you're going to do. In fact, I remember one Saturday evening. We had some people over for dinner. We were sitting around with spent till about 1:30 in the morning really just having a nice Gathering of six people the phone rings and that was the little suberin up in the LA area forest fire. Could you drive up there right now and I grabbed my camera and at 1:30 in the morning after has been a pleasant evening at my home drive all the way up the Gunflint Trail and it's six o'clock in the morning. I'm photographing firefighters after being up all night driving and you come back for clock in the afternoon. You're printing the pictures you go home Dead Tired smelling like a skunk and city is can be and the next morning you get the paper on your front doorstep and it all feels better, but But that drives your wife up the wall. It drives your children up the wall at drives. If you if you make an appointment to go to the Orchestra Hall next Tuesday, you know, something terrible is going to happen next Tuesday and you'll be up all night photographing it it just is a for sure so it's it's very it's very difficult to make any plans and I happened to be at the dinner party that and I was glad it was his phone that rang not mine. But that happens with great deal frequency. I came into the office one morning and I was really not feeling very well in about 11 o'clock. I felt so bad that I said, I'm going home and Earl Seibert whose Chief photographer her said, well, you know, there's a floods happening out in Minot and I said, well I said, I'm going home. I'm sick. So I'm just crawling into bed in the phone rings says you've got to be on a plane in an hour. There's no one else that can go what's wrong. I said, I don't know what's wrong. I'm sick. I want to go to bed. And so I he said well, there's nobody else so I crawl out of bed and I say, well, I can't complain like because that's not going to keep me from going and I go down to the office and I roll some film and I just get on the plane and we take off and I'd taken a couple of aspirins and by the time I got there I was feeling somewhat decent. But that's the type of situation. I mean, you can't be sick in this job and get away with it. There's one question. You haven't asked that I've been delighted and amazed people are forever asking us about the cameras in the film. What kind of cameras do you like? And what kind of film do you use? I would just like to say that those things don't really have a great deal to do with the business. Nobody asks a reporter if he likes a number two pencil versus a number three pencil if he likes the IBM selectric over a Remington those are not pertinent questions to the profession the cameras the tape recorders the tools of the trade are nothing more than that are tools of the trade and there's nothing more annoying than being in the middle of a very tight situation where you're you're short on time and you're short on patience and somebody walks up to you and says, hey what exposure using our Rd like those Japanese cameras? I don't think photographers really are are concerned with the mechanics of of Well, I'm talking about how to distinguish people who do photography for a living are not concerned with the mechanics nearly as much as people who do photography for a hobby. But there's one other thing that people have stopped seeing to us in the last five years and I think it's I think it's really important that they have when I first started this paper 11 years ago. I can remember going out on some assignments and showing up before the word person and having the person who was meeting me saying are you the reporter or just the photographer? That's a very demeaning thing to say to anybody just anything but it hasn't happened in a long time. And I think there's a realization brought on by better people coming in that photographers are not just photographers there photographers and There are many of us who are even attempting to do writing. I don't mean to put even attempting to do in giant quotes because the the two things are not compatible truly to write and photograph simultaneously is a little like juggling because inevitably if you're supposed to be writing down a good quote that's when the picture is happening. And if you're making the picture you can't write down the quote so half a dozen of us have taken to using tape recorders or are other varieties of ways of doing it and becoming responsible for both ends of the business and I'm not sure where that will take us in the long run. You've tried it. I've tried it. Sometimes it's satisfying sometimes it's not The the satisfaction comes in being able to accomplish it the greatest satisfaction, but it is really really hard. I find that I have to concentrate so much and Gathering of the words that I forget to take pictures and the photographs are are in want sometimes so I really avoid it being a photographer for newspapers is more than being able to to take a good image. It's to be able to be a good journalist. It's being able to deal with people being able to gain access to things being able to talk to be able to build rapport. All of these things are so incredibly important and I think a lot of people a lot of photographers don't realize that that taking pictures is is almost the smallest part of our job in a way that's worked out. Yeah. The mechanical aspect is is very small and dealing with the public people thinking of story ideas. All of that is it takes up most of our time a good photograph of an ongoing situation you were you were way back there you talked about. Is it frustrating to see what you've got on the film you were at the situation a living breathing smelling and then you pull a film out and oh gosh. It isn't all there. Well that for sure happens occasionally, but a well-done photograph can be better than the reality because it cuts away all the odds and ends and it eliminates the clutter in the visual trash and it allows you to see precisely what happened in a split second and you can do it at your leisure and instant example is a baseball game that I was at a year ago where the pitch was made the batter struck at the ball hit the ball ticked it and it landed right at his feet just plunk right in front of his toe and the catcher reached down picked it up and with great Glee on his face just tapped him lightly and they just a big grin and he was out obviously that the ball has been hit caught and he was tagged out and the batter just stood there, you know amazed and astounded The catcher was so delighted with himself and I had it it was in the camera and I knew it was in the camera came back and sure enough. It was in the camera and put in the paper the next day. I got a call from a fan who said I really want to thank you. He said I was there at the game. I was looking right at it and I never saw what happened until I saw the picture in the paper this morning. So it's a great chance to give people a gift quite literally, you know, you can look in the back of that camera and it's a Magic Window, whatever you see in there. You can give to somebody else and they can have it for as long well that that gets kind of scary. Sometimes I was going to say for as long as things last and it suddenly occurred to me that the first place many researchers look when they're doing historical research is to the micro file micro films of old newspapers, which means that as long as micro films last in libraries somewhere in the world, the things that I was at and the images that I made will exist and I guess in a sense that's small tiny gift of immortality for or for the events and myself I'll share and I feels good.