 Access is everything. That's today's topic in today's deconstructing photography. Welcome to another deconstructing photography. Today's episode is another installment in our photojournalism series. Today we're talking about the access needed for news photography. It should probably go without saying that access is very important when it comes to news photography. In fact it's probably very important in most photography. But it might be the most important part of news photography. If you can't see what's going on, you can't take a photograph. So I thought we'd analyze that a little bit today. Talk a little bit about access, how you get access, the difficulties around getting access in a typical day as a news photographer. One of the most stressful parts of being a news photographer through the years was trying to get access to breaking news. Trying to figure out the location of where you need to be. Trying to figure out what you're hearing on the scanner. Trying to translate that into is this something I need to be concerned about? Is this something I need to try to find? Since we spent so much time listening to the scanner, most of the time you could tune out a good portion of what's going on. But every once in a while something would stand out and you would catch your attention and you would try to figure out is this something I need to be concerned about? Is this something I mean you go photograph? And then there are times where if emergency crews were called out like fire department they would have a tone out. So anytime there would be a tone out you would listen to the tone and then they would give you the location. And nowadays we have apps like PulsePoint that also help tell where this event is going on. If it's a rack or a fire. Of course there are also times where it's not a tone out. It's just you hear something that sounds a little off on the scanner or somebody talking back and forth about something. That's a little more difficult. Then you've got to really try to tune in to what they're seeing and try to figure out where they're at. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can. That usually is a law enforcement kind of thing. If there is a phrase like shots fired boy then you really your ears perk up and everybody's scrambling trying to figure out what is going on. We've got reporters calling dispatch trying to figure it out. Once we have a fairly good idea where we're going then we hit out the door. Not really knowing what we're going to see but we know there's something that we should see. So we get out the door and we hit that direction. Since I worked in a county at a county wide paper we had a lot of agencies to deal with. We had sheriff, we had state police. Each town had their local law enforcement. In each town had fire their own fire departments and volunteer firefighters and that kind of thing. So each time you went out you could keep that in mind who is it you're going to most likely be dealing with when you go out to this emergency or fire or wreck or whatever the event is. So when dealing with law enforcement police I would always just assume that they're going to have a hostile attitude towards me. They never wanted us there. They never wanted a photographer there. I would go to where I needed to be to take the photo. Now you can't ever cross tape. A yellow tape you don't cross that. You just get the rules. But if there's nothing marked and you're staying out of the way you just got to go to get the shot. You go where you need to get the shot. And there will be times where they'll come over and tell you you can't be here. You got to move out of the way. Or they've got you so far back already having a barricade up that you can't see anything. And it doesn't hurt to ask well it doesn't hurt to try to get closer. I never asked the question where can I be. It would be more like would it be okay if I stood over here by this tree or behind this car. If I didn't move any further closer to the scene instead of just leaving it up to them. I would point out where I thought I needed to be. And I wouldn't be greedy. I have a long lens with me. I've got an 80 to 200 70 to 200 maybe even longer. Telephoto is a good place to start. We don't need to be getting in their faces with a wide-angle lens. Especially when they're trying to do their jobs. You've got to understand that they're under some stress to pinging on what the scene is. Could be a fatal wreck or something like that. There's some stress on them as well. So if you can just point out to a spot where you want to be. And often they would say sure okay that'll be fine. If I was to say where can I be they would just say well here's fine. Here's not where I need to be over there's where I need to be. So if they don't want to accommodate what your needs are don't argue with them. You're never going to win an argument with law enforcement on a scene. What you need to do is just look for another angle. Look for another. Come in from another direction. Look for a side road. Go down another block. Try to get some elevation. There are a lot of different approaches. You've got to be creative sometimes to to get at least some visual something that you can see that you can take back to the office. If all else fails take a photograph of the blockade. But that's really kind of the last ditch thing before you head off to your next idea. Shoot a picture of where you were. Something that says there's law enforcement. There's fire. There's something here that would indicate it's some kind of emergency situation. Now if the officer lets you get closer or works with you to get you a spot sometimes they'll actually take you to a spot. They'll say I'm going to go take care of some business real quick. I'll come back and get you and I'll get you a little closer. You've got to work with these people and if you abuse that that trust if they've given you some place that you can go and they're working with you you need to make sure you don't abuse that by creeping in closer or going to a different spot. So odds are you're probably running to this officer again at some point. And this is where you're starting to build relationships with these people so they'll trust you in the future on something that may be even more dramatic or something that's more intense. They'll know and trust that you're going to be professional and do what you say you're going to do. So it's important to keep that in mind when you're dealing with these people. Don't argue with them. Comply as best you can and be professional and if you're not getting what you need you're going to have to figure out another way to get it. Just can't you're just not going to argue your way into that position. Now it's at this point where you've got to decide if I leave here and look for a better angle am I going to miss everything because the time it takes to move or you decide do I stay here and just get what I'm getting. Sometimes you can get you're getting a little bit but you think if I went just down their ways down past this fire engine over here or something maybe I could get a different angle and on what's going on. But you've got to consider that the time you take from here to there it could be over you could miss everything. So it's always that little roll the dice or it may mean you have to get in your car and drive around to a whole other side of what's going on another side of the scene that you have to take another road in to approach it. I remember going to a flooded road rescue part of the road was washed off and a car was washed off the road and someone was trapped in a vehicle. So I get to the location and I can just barely see what's going on. There was like a little bend that that I could not see very well around to get to the other side of the road. I would have to go all the way out out of town. I mean it was quite a distance. So I had to decide do I stay here and just try to get something get a picture of a vehicle or maybe a jet ski going out in the water or do I gamble and risk that they're going to be done everything's to be over by the time I get to the other side. I do make my way around and I get to the other side and my gamble paid off. I actually had a much better view of the rescue and it was still going on when I got there. The person was an elderly man that was trapped in his vehicle. He had about six inches of air between the roof and the water line and they were able to extract him out of there and take him to the hospital and so he survived. Sometimes there are events that go on that require the law enforcement to cordon off many blocks worth of space around whatever's going on. Maybe a hostage situation, bomb threat, whatever. And it makes it tough to get to where you can see anything. Sometimes you have to probe the edges. You have to kind of start at one point where you see something, get a photograph or two, and just keep probing the edges, keep moving along until you can find another view of what's going on. In the case of this incident here, there was a hostage situation in a liquor store. The police were staged a ways away and so I started where I could see the police and I got a couple shots, some atmospheric stuff and then worked my way a block or two over down, probing to see if I could see enough through the streets, get to the other end where the road was closed off, see if there was another angle. And at some point I came across a spot where I could get into where I could see I was behind a bush or something, able to see well enough the front of the store that if they were going to go in and do something, I'd be able to get a shot. So I was able to see I'd be able to get a shot, but I had to kind of probe the edges. It wasn't a very easy thing to do. It was very physical, took a lot of running, a lot of physical activity. And that could be the case for a lot of things. There are times where the road may be closed because of something going on down the road. It could be a half a mile down the road. There are times where they won't let you go. Somebody that's at the, where the road's blocked off may not let you go or just don't have the authority to let you go. Maybe their job is just to keep the road closed. And so at that point you have to decide if there's no other way to get down there, am I going to spend all that time and energy trying to get a photograph. And there were times where you did, you just grab your cameras and you just hoofed it down the road. And never once would you get lucky enough that the person that was blocking traffic recognized that you were there for a job. And they said, well, just go down and just stay out of the way. And that was, that was always welcome. I remember one time hearing some chatter on the scanner and I couldn't figure out where it was, what was going on. And somewhere I heard a side street or somebody was telling another officer how to get there. So I started heading that direction. I thought, well, I'll go check this out. It sounded a little different, a little odd. And so I see a car down, down the street. So I pull over and I park and I just kind of start walking down towards the squad car. Then I see a police officer with his gun drawn pointing over the hood of a car. And another one was heading, running down the sidewalk towards me. And I just walked right up on a scene where there was a standoff going on and I didn't realize that I was not aware that I was like right in the middle of it. And they quickly let me know that I shouldn't be there. I got a photograph and I got out of the way. You got to be aware of your surroundings. It can be dangerous. I've gone to a fire in the middle of the night, stormy bad weather and the house was lit up with the lights that they would use. And I'm taking pictures thinking, well, I'll get a few shots and I'll get out of here because it was late. And all of a sudden these fire firefighters are yelling at me. I'm thinking, why are they yelling at me? They never yelled at me like that before. And they were telling me, I couldn't understand what they were saying to me. And finally when the one ran up to me, he said, don't move. He said, you're three feet away from a hot power line. And of course, then it was dark. So I looked over and there was definitely a power line hanging there and I felt so stupid because I go up to this fire. I didn't pay attention to what was going on over here. I'm just looking right at what's going on over here, right at where the lights were. And in the dark here, there was death dangling to get me. And luckily they saw me there. And of course, I promptly moved out of the location. Once I got my shots, I was out of there. Well, I hope this little bit of information has been of some interest to you. If you're considering a career in photojournalism, you might start in a newspaper, or it might be something that you make a career out of. These are the things you're going to be faced with in the modern day. It's the same as it was in the old days. You still got to have access. You still got to be able to see what's going on. You may have to shoot some video while you're down there. You may be sending images from your location, but you still have to see what's going on to make your images. So I'm going to end today's video right here. Until next time, thanks for coming along for the ride.