Best of the Triangle Party

Best Of The Triangle Party 2009 - Images by Independent Weekly

I just cannot seem to escape The Best of the Triangle assignment. Day after day following the completion of those 28 assignments and editing the massive amounts of photos that resulted, I waited to hear from my bosses of what they needed me to do next.

Nothing came. The photo requirements were light for each week. Finally, something broke: I needed to cover the Best of the Triangle Party celebrating the winners I photographed and the many more included in the paper.

From what I read, several vendors would attend and give out samples of their food, and the masses would flood in to wine, dine and enjoy music. My boss told me to just enjoy myself and snap photographs of people doing the same. Enjoying myself certainly sounded like fun, along with the abundance of free food.

It did pan out that way at the start. I ate ice cream, I photographed. I ate tacos, I photographed. I tried to figure out how people enjoy sound installations, I photographed.

The whole process soon became redundant, and I turned to the stairwells and to the outdoor concert for entertainment and photo fodder. While it gave me the varying the shots I needed for the assignment, the shifting temperature changes soon made me feel ill.

I asked my boss if leaving half an hour early would be OK, to which he said didn't mind. There was little point in forcing myself to photograph while sick because the results never turn out well. In fact, I'm mildly OK with my photos in the viewer (the others, as the footer says, are my boss's work). I did not record caption info for all of them, which makes me an awful photoJOURNALIST, and I only found few compositions I enjoyed.

In the end, though, I went home to rest and enjoy an evening of evenly air-conditioned rooms and talking with my friends online. It's just what the doctor ordered.

Access Denied

At our pre-budget meeting for the Daily Tar Heel today, I felt great walking in with an idea that could possibly turn out extremely well. The feeling only grew when surprisingly the features editor requested a multimedia that had to be done tonight. While I hate rushed projects, documenting the closing of an iconic movie theatre on Franklin St. closing seemed interesting.

Unfortunately, my documentation of an ended era soon met the same fate at the theatre. A person greeted at the door and took me to the owner of The Varsity once he heard my request. I feared this encounter because he was already ignoring every other press member trying to reach him, but I had every intention of fighting for my right to be there.

He simply said no. I could only video the marquis because they were having a farewell party in the lobby, which was a private engagement they did not want disturbed (I was secretly screaming that it's also something that would be great to document. Plus, a series of reactions and goodbyes would have been beautiful from the people who worked and supported the theatre for all these years.)

After devastating my cause, he just walked away, leaving me with the rest of the part goers starring at me. One told me the owner refused to talk any press after the last time the family lost a theatre. People hounded their phone lines and "ruined their lives" somehow. Since then, they haven't given an inch of access to the media.

I took my leave and returned my equipment to the office containing my editor. He called them jerks, which made me laugh and want to agree with that idea; however, I know that hatred or at least fear for the media people experience. It has reared its ugly head in almost every project I have done. People seem to think we're out to exploit them by creating a false image and auctioning it off to the highest bidder.

A lot of that, I feel, derives from the paparazzi hounding celebrities while hiding in secret locales and waiting for their next move. It's an image people have to banish from their minds when it comes to true journalists. At the same time, we have to be persistent with our causes yet respectful of their wishes and uneasiness. It's a fine line to walk, but we all have to do it if these needed stories are ever going to be heard.