This story hit me like lightning.
I can relate to this story in so many ways- and it might explain why I'm not so hot on the importance of my blogging. Don't get me wrong, I do think this medium is very important, especially in the face of today's infotainment media, but I realize that my words only push the river along at a certain point in time. While they might hold some of their relevance, chances are they will become dated and practically meaningless as that river rushes on.
Blogging is good for a laugh to look back and see how wrong (or right) you were, or perhaps to use as reference if a subject comes up again (stay down, Dick), but other than that, the stories are fresh for a week or two, tops. Sure, you influence the conversation in some small way, change the course of that river, but you gotta keep it up and that can be difficult to do. I probably wrote more than some professional writers this year, and it's a lot harder than it looks. It wiped me out.
But one picture, one picture can capture it all, and when you see it there is no need for verbal or written explanation. You just know. And it's forever. It's part of history.
Photos freeze that river of time in a way the words never can.
When 42-year-old New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy made a campaign swing through Lansing on April 11, 1968, he gave two Lansing photographers career-high days.
Bruce Cornelius, now-retired Lansing State Journal photographer, foiled the national press corps to get toothy close-ups of the senator greeting an adoring mob at the Lansing Capital City Airport.
At the same event, Doug Elbinger, then an MSU student and stringer for the Detroit Free Press, climbed the podium right next to Kennedy and clicked away at point-blank range.
Both men came away with photos that shimmer with the Kennedy charisma, taken against the backdrop of a wide-open presidential race and a summer of social revolution.
More than 38 years later, the day’s details are fuzzy in both men’s minds, but the images and emotions remain clear.
"It was exhilarating," Elbinger says. "I just felt like I was right there, part of history. I was all giddy."
Dude, I know the feeling. There is nothing like it.
The story goes on to describe positioning and lighting- something only a photog needs to think about. Are you bored yet? I'm not, because I understand perfectly.
Both photographers got close to Kennedy through a combination of luck, persistence and low-level security that would be unthinkable now.
When Kennedy’s chartered four-engine plane landed at 12:40 p.m., Elbinger managed to scamper up the ramp right away. However, he didn’t get photos inside the plane because it was too dark and his flash didn’t work. He backtracked and quickly headed for the podium.
As Cornelius looked for a way to outmaneuver the knot of interlopers, he got a tip: As soon as Kennedy walked onto the tarmac, the reception line would do an about-face and turn toward the crowd. Cornelius positioned himself accordingly, and as a result got some excellent photographs, foiling the nationals.
Heh. It's fun to beat the pros.
You can be driven by the reaction of a crowd...
Both photographers vividly recall the pandemonium Kennedy generated. The crowd, estimated at about 1,000 people, was full of enthusiastic MSU students.
"There’s nobody since Robert F. Kennedy that’s got the charm and the charisma and the aura this man had," Elbinger says.
"I don’t know whether he related to the people or the people related to him," Cornelius says. "That election cycle, Nixon came to town, everybody who was running came, but nobody else who came to town sparked the reaction from the crowds that he did."
You don't want to interfere, either. It's like spooking a wild animal or something.
Amid the swirl of humanity, neither photographer engaged Kennedy in conversation, nor were they inclined to do so if they had the chance.
"When I’m with celebrities or politicians, I try to be as unobtrusive as possible and try not to disturb them," Elbinger says. "I’m an observer. I had nothing to say to Kennedy, so I let other people do the talking."
And there really isn't a lot of time when someone is being rushed from one place to the next.
The story goes on to describe what happened to these two guys in the subsequent months and years- and we all know what happened to Kennedy a few months later. That is the thing, you never know if an opportunity like that will come again. Part of it is sheer luck, being in the right place at the right time.
Maybe once in a lifetime for some. Maybe for me, too.
People like my writing, that much has been made obvious to me. I thank you all, and I'm glad that I could help. It means so much, I can't begin to tell you.
But getting this shot was the top of the mountain this year-
Maybe all the words I wrote helped make this shot possible, I don't know. I can't know. All I know is, one hundred years from now, no one is going to care what I had to say about all of this. But this one moment, this picture has the chance to go on, out live all of us. It captures a Michigan historical event, and I like to believe it captures it accurately. It reflects the gratitude being felt in that moment.
And I got it. Me.
Touchdown in the Superbowl, man.
Maybe there is a better one out there, but I haven't seen it. I beat the pros.
Some back story on this picture- at the moment it was taken, I was worried that my life was being stolen out for under me. I thought that I had lost my camera bag pushing through the crowd- and in that bag was practically everything anyone would need to cop my identity. My drivers license. A couple of credit cards. My debit card. The extra keys to my house and my car. (fortunately I had a house key and the key to the car I drove down there in my pocket) My extra batteries and flash cards. I didn't know how much juice I had left for the flash. Was there enough? Panic in more ways than one.
I had to make a choice. Go and try to find my life, or stay and capture history. I chose that latter, as you can see. My identity, I could get back. History, I could not.
Turns out I had left the bag in the bloggers conference room, dizzy blonde that I am. But the moment I made the decision to stay, something crossed over in me.
Looks like I'm getting a pro camera for Xmas, lucky person that I am. It will take some time to learn how to use it, and I'm looking forward to that. Now I have to worry about getting lenses, some of which are more expensive than the cameras themselves.
Maybe I can capture history again someday. That excites me a lot more than my writing ever will.
My thanks to the Governor for making all this possible, and for being so photogenic. I guess the secret is to tire her out so she doesn't move around so much. ;-)