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| Photo by Mark Lent |
| The funeral of a soldier in Bibb County, Alabama. |
Picture yourself in this situation:
It's the middle of summer. The air is hot and the humidity hangs on your shoulders like dead weight. Suddenly, the thick air splits with the crackle of a police radio:
"618, 618...10-24,10-27 at 7651 Highway 45 north 10-16 code 3..."
Someone has just been robbed and shot at the convenience store just down the road. You get into your car and, as fast as you can, get to the scene—where chaos abounds. The robbery happened near a shift change, and the replacement clerk is sobbing hysterically near the now-dead body. Police officers spot you and sternly ask you to move back away from the crime scene—you oblige by moving into the road and shoot the scene with a 300mm lens rather than the 85mm you had been using.
This is one of the nine assignments (because spot news is ALWAYS an assignment...) that you end up shooting today. You came into work at 9 a.m., and at 10:30 p.m. you remember that you haven't eaten today, so you go to the nearest fast food place while your CF cards are loading onto your hard drive. You wolf down the burger and fries and something that the fast food manager told you is a strawberry shake without giving the taste much thought. It's now midnight and you're leaving work after a grueling 15-hour day.
Even at the end of such a long day, you consider the images that you turned into the desk for the next day and think to yourself that it's worth the extra effort. The next day, you're at it again. Today, though, you only have six assignments and heard about this children's festival going on in the next town's school, so you decide to try to make a feature photo out of it. But since it's a new day, you have a whole new series of spot news events to photograph. Car wrecks, murders, bank robberies, you see them all. Even with the light load, you still manage to have an 11-hour day.
It's now 8 p.m. and you suddenly remember that you are married. If you hurry home, you just might get to talk to your spouse for 30 minutes before they turn in for the night. Your newborn child is already asleep and you peek into the infant's room for a glimpse.
The next day is the day of the week that you live for—PAYDAY! You get into work and there, nestled among the 10 assignments on your desk, is that little white envelope. You open it and see a check for $317.00 for the week. In the column that's attached to your check you look at the hours posted for the week and it reads "40."
This gets you to thinking that if it weren't for that freelance work you've been doing, it would be tough to make ends meet. You think about the clients that you've worked for over the years, and the list is getting longer and longer. It should be, too. You're a good photographer and give your very best work each and every time that you pick up your camera.
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