I suppose that no matter what one does for a living there’s at least one task that comes along now and then that’s considered part of our job but we’re personally not wild about doing.
Let’s say you’re a doctor but maybe you don’t really like poking that ear-flashlight thingy in some old man’s hairy, waxy ear. Or you’re a lawyer, and a client comes to you to handle his/her divorce but you just know the client is going to sit in your office and vent and maybe even get all emotional about all the crummy ways his/her not-so-better half has treated them.
As a photojournalist, my most-dreaded and to-be-avoided task has always been coverage of Awards Presentations. Back in my early days as a young newspaper photographer I remember having a fairly steady diet of assignments where I photographed somebody presenting somebody else a plaque, or a trophy, or a check. B-o-r-i-n-g.
So there was a weird, why-am-I-doing-this? feeling in my head last week when I volunteered to photograph an event for Habitat for Humanity in Seattle. Though not an award-presentation event per se, what I covered was a fund-raising breakfast: Nearly 600 people were seated at tables in a hotel ballroom, listening to a few other people who were standing at a podium giving speeches. Good pictures to warm my artistic soul weren’t exactly falling from the sky.
There were several candid moments, however, when I was photographing newly-elected King County Executive Dow Constantine, and the look on his face gently reminded me why I volunteer for H for H:
Compassion.
And it dawned on me that people in a room listening to speakers might be a difficult photographic circumstance, but those folks would contribute money ($205,000 it turned out) that will fund the building of houses for the needy in our community...and that is work that many of us are happy to be a part of.
