MAGIC MOMENTS

by Dick Kraus
Staff Photographer
Newsday (retired)

After 42 years as a photographer for Newsday, the period of time that I look back on with the most distaste are the two and one half years that I spent behind the desk as Night Photo Editor. Without going into a lot of gruesome detail, it will suffice to say that the key complaint was that of utter frustration. The following story exemplifies this frustration and was one of the reasons that I ran, not walked, back to the street as fast as my bandy legs would carry me.
      
It was a warm, humid Long Island evening and the news desk was working on a nice little feature that had all the elements of good pictures. The story concerned the fact that a lot of the Long Island matrons who enjoyed strolling through the scent filled walkways of a local arboretum in the evening were being disturbed by young people who were taking advantage of the rolling terrain in the gardens by whipping around on their skateboards.
 
I must admit that I succumbed to something that I detest in Photo Editors; I drew mind images of these kids in tattered cut-off shorts and wild, wind-whipped long hair doing their youthful thing while prim white-haired old ladies looked on in shock as they hitched in their skirts lest they be soiled by these rowdy youth.
 
I had but two veteran photographers working that night and both were already assigned. So, I called in one of our summer photo interns and explained the assignment to him. I never liked having an editor or reporter telling me how to shoot an assignment, so I merely tried to impress upon this lad that the key to this story should be the intereaction of the two generations. And with that, I pushed him out the door.
 
Several hours went by. The other two photographers came back from their jobs and we picked their film. The three of us chatted while waiting for the return of the intern. At last he was back and into the soup went his film. He didn't talk much about the assignment so I assumed that his photos would do all the talking. Finally, his negatives were laid out on the light box.
 
He had a heavy take so I started with roll #1, frame #1. By the time I finished the last frame of the last roll, the blood had drained from my head and I was having trouble breathing.
 
"What the Hell are you showing me, here? There isn't a clear frame in the bunch. All I see are disparate shapes, blurs and God knows what else? I can't make out a skateboarder or a matron or even a clump of bushes. What were you thinking?"
 
By now, the other two photographers had the loupe and were looking at the kid's film.
 
"I used my 400mm lens on everything, and I guess I may have been over lensed." was his reply.
 
"Over lensed! Over lensed!" I could barely talk. Everything came out in splutters. "What the Hell are we going to put in the paper? There isn't one frame here that's usable. You had fading twi-light to begin with. Plus fast moving skate-boarders. What possessed you to use a 400?"
 
"I was looking for the "Magic Moment."
 
The two pro's exploded and I thought they would wet their pants. Me, I went out to look for the Managing Editor to see about going back on the street.
 
Dick Kraus

newspix@optonline.net

http://www.newsday.com