Dunk Contests and Gay Proms
I suppose there was a humor in the seemingly disparate assignments. But I was thoroughly psyched to be shooting both. I saw both of them as complete challenges to come up with something different in environments that can rapidly become very cliche. Proms? Please, it's like shooting a wedding reception, right? How many Macarena shots can you get at a prom? Don't think I didn't get my "save-your-ass-shot", though. How about setting up a crude 2-light studio, with gels, in a pitch dark basement, next to the punch table? It's a gay-friendly prom. I wanted to make it as much about the people as possible, and as little as possible about the dancing. Unfortunately, the paper saw it as a dance, and published 2 dance photos, plus one portrait...booooo!
How many photos of a player dunking the ball can you look at before you get bored? For the past several years the standard at the paper had been to set up the lighting along the baseline, and stand perpendicular to the basket and capture the kid soaring to the basket, with the crowd as the background. The photo was great before, but I felt this event, Hoopsfest--the fourteenth annual--was in need of a new take on the same subject.
Anyone who watches basketball or looks through Sports Illustrated is familiar with the overhead pictures and the images as seen through the backboard. Since there is no catwalk in the rafters at Potomac High School, I went with the latter. And it took one google search of “how do I attach a remote behind the backboard”, to find a detailed description of how to put it together. Thank you Sportsshooter.com. I rented some gear to make it happen, tested it out on Friday, and voila! It worked out. As it turned out, my “safe” shot didn’t work out, and thankfully the remote did, because I didn’t have anything else to fall back on.
As the gym emptied out, I hustled to bring my gear down, only to rush to the office, file my photos (and only after a brief discussion on how to run the final product), I was off to the first Gay-friendly prom in Prince William County history.
Weeks ago I noticed a press release forwarded to our paper about this prom, and thought it a good idea to cover. Considering the changing attitudes of the country with gay marriage and the political drift to the left, I thought this event in the heart of Prince William County, long a conservative-leaning county, to be relevant. And I had a great time. I was a little concerned that maybe the high-schoolers wouldn’t share my enthusiasm with documenting the event, but they were completely cooperative.
I set up my mini-studio spot, and shot portraits, and cruised around while they were dancing, as well. I've already expressed my disappointment with how the paper ran the story, but I digress, this event was more about coming away with something I liked, paper be damned. And I really like what I got. I think I could have come away with more, if I had some more time to set up, and had some modeling lights of some sort. I was bedeviled the entire night with focusing issues. Dark with blinking red, blue and orange lights, together with a strobe, basically makes for an environment where the camera simply can't focus. So I had to focus on a light fixture behind the kids, take two steps back, shoot. Peek at the back of the camera, and either fire away, or re-focus. It was maddening, and often it killed any flow I had to the portrait shoots, but everyone was great, and I thought a few of these photos turned out really well.
So the story published, and like any other online paper, readers may comment on any story by logging on, and typing away any idiotic thing that enters their heads.
A sampling:
(Mike): If you read Romans 1:26-32 you will find that homosexuality is forbidden, it is a sin. If you want to help gays, please help them to repent and become straight.
Right, because we can counsel them from being gay. Nice try. Just because you happen to believe that your religion says homosexuality is a sin, let’s not try to foist your opinion on everyone else. As far as helping them repent, and having them “become straight”, there is plenty of evidence pointing to the fact that homosexuality is very much a genetic, and physiological thing. It’s far more likely that everyone is on a sliding scale where we all lie somewhere between hetero- and homosexuality.
(snip) How ‘bout we cover some actual news? Like the Kyle Wilson Charity Walk that drew nearly 1000 participants. Honoring a local hero that gave his life in the line of duty. Where is the Potomac News? Covering the Gay-friendly prom.I am not anti-gay, I just think the gay-firendly prom, attracting “more than 30 high school students” is getting a bit too much attention.
Well, it turns out that we did cover the walk, albeit briefly. We had a photo from the event (from a stringer). And I would say, yes, we should cover that, also. But we didn’t cover the prom in spite of the walk. We covered the annual Hoopsfest, instead of the walk. Hoopsfest every year benefits a family in need. I suppose we picked our benefit to cover. That 1000 people showed to the benefit, doesn't make it more newsworthy, anyway. Not in a county of half a million. But the numbers are beside the point. Not only was the prom a far more visually appealing event to cover, but it was much more relevant to our time. More could be made to comment on what is going on in our country at large.
A benefit walk, is hyper local, and not necessarily interesting beyond the fact that someone died in the line of duty, which is an admirable thing, but not necessarily uncommon. And what do we say about it beyond what's already been said? It's only once that the first ever gay friendly prom is held in a conservative county. And considering the recent states' decision on gay marriage (Miss USA, notwithstanding), the prom is far more relevant and interesting. But again, we didn't cover the prom in spite of the walk. We covered Hoopsfest in stead of the walk. And if there were more staff at the paper, I would bet that we would have covered both events.
A letter to the paper by Cletis E. Neal:
Concerning the front-page story about a gay-friendly prom dance conducted in the church, or President Barack Obama’s Easter embracement of gays at the White House, you failed to tell the end of the story. Except ye repent, your future home is a lake of fire.
Again, repent for what? For not being the same as you, I suppose. I think there are few things worse than shaming someone into being someone they are not. Bullying people in one way or another because they are not like you is shameful and it's what leads 11 year olds to kill themselves. Being tolerant and welcoming people different than you is a good thing. Just like you, I never knew Jesus, but I'm betting he's with me on this one.
Juliet, born a male, she wishes to be female; a transgender girlSo some kids got together for a prom, and they were comfortable with themselves and enjoyed themselves. We should be happy they live in a country and a community that tolerates and hopefully learns to embrace it. Let the kids have their prom, gay or not. I simply can’t understand why it bothers anyone. But I’m glad it does. It just exposes them to their own close-minded beliefs
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