Monday, August 15, 2005

What is Sapphoto: Nightside?

I bet you were trollling around the internet just clicking links when you happened onto this little site called Sapphoto: Nightside.

"What's Sapphoto: Nightside?" rolls around your head as you get ready to hit the back button. Who could be so lame to pass you onto this site where the author is obviously hung up on the cool gimmick of a name he fashioned.

Sapphoto: Nightside is the chronicle of my modest attempts to be a photojournalist, cameraman, cameramonkey(althought I think this demeans the simians), live truck operator, satellite truck operator, editor, tour guide, and ferryman covering Michiana with a 30 pound Panasonic camera, microphone, and microwave live truck.

I've been lugging around a camera for 7 years now. I've worked in Illinois, Florida, and now Indiana(where I hope to stay for a while). I've been working to make news as a professional for 9 years.

I do all the above while I work the nightside shift? The Army had a saying that they did more before 9a.m. than most people do all day. I do more after 1:30 than a producer does in a shift(just kidding my keyboard ticklin' friends). We try to find the news to fill up that half-hour news slot after prime time. You know the one. Right before Letterman or Leno. We do most of this without any direct supervision of management. They go home and try to forget the day they've just suffered.

Sooo...what happens once the policy makers leave?

Well, we don't come in until most people are looking to get home to their families and private lives. Therefore, it is becomes a daily trick to find interesting events to make into one minute thirty pieces waiting to be dropped into the produer's puzzle.

Hang on and watch. I hope you can find something useful from my insight into the nightside.

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