Redlights and Redeyes

If you don’t like the assignments you are given, make your own.

Shooting for free is the kiss of death in this industry, but there’s a time for everything.  Sometimes, a self-assignment is worth it.  If you are a staffer, the daily grind of assignments can beat you down with every building mug and press conference.  If you are a freelancer, the times when the phone doesn’t ring can seem like an eternity.  I suggest one of two things: either get off your butt, or get your boss off of it.  Find something to go shoot and go shoot it.  Just for yourself – not to sell, not to market, and definitely not something you are delegated.  This assignment has to be something that gets you going both visually and viscerally.

In the summer of 2007, a small group of photographers – myself, Sol Neelman, Rob Mattson, and Bob Croslin – piled into a car and headed north to East Dublin, Georgia, to cover the Summer Redneck Games complete with events ranging from the mud pit bellyflop to the toilet ring toss to bobbing for pig’s feet.  Essentially a bunch of rednecks, trucks, camo, and beer.  Amazing.  It wasn’t something any of were being paid for (even though some of did after the fact – i.e. Sol in National Geographic) but it was just something…else.  There wasn’t an editor that needed a specific shape for the paper.  No reporter asking for us to shoot someone because he/she was in their story.  Hell, we didn’t even have to get names.

We just shot for the pure joy of shooting.

We eventually met up with Jeff Haller, Elissa Eubanks, and Tamika Moore – we even ran into my Eddie Adams leader Bill Frakes and Laura Heald on a random hillside.  The key for the four of us was that we wanted to just have fun and make some photos, but the underlying mission was to destroy each other visually.  It was never spoken but there’s that battle that always happens when you get a bunch of photographers together.  The challenge breeds creativity and somehow wipes out any sort of hesitation to just jump into a complete stranger’s world without a reason why or publication to vouch for you.

None of us wore credentials.  I bought a mesh, green John Deere hat (which has gone MIA unfortunately).  None of us really remembered rain gear.  Others had trash bags wrapped around cameras.  I just took it like a champ and my gear paid for it – a body and a lens toasted and off to CPS after covering the bellyflop contest.  My clothes were ruined by the thick red clay that I can still see almost 5 years later in that shirt I wore.

We all crashed in a very exquisite motel and edited that night.  Why?  None of us had clients, but we were just excited about what we had shot.  Everyone was racing it to their blogs or Sportsshooter galleries at 3am with a hotel sink full of beer and smiles on our faces.

What’s the point?  The photography business can be a rat race.  There are tens of thousands of photographers out there doing exactly what you and I do. Everyone has one unique thing – a vision.  That vision can be driven by ego, competition, passion, fear, curiosity, artistry, adversity, and talent.  What drives yours? It should be you.

Sometimes feeding the beast is easiest when that beast is you.

For more photos:  click.

I’ll leave you with one last photo.  That’s me in the center after taking a hit in the mud pit.  If you see that hat somewhere, it’s mine and I miss it.

I spent the week doing a couple things I don’t do very often – disconnecting, actually going to the beach for fun (instead of a shoot), and putting my camera down for a while. The eye candy one night this week was too insane to play around in for a few frames.

For as much as I use them, I always have to look up the proper spelling of “silhouettes,” and it still looks wrong…and for as close as Siesta Beach is, I don’t go there nearly enough.

That being said, I’m out the door for an evening magazine shoot.  At the beach.  At sunset.

Now for something completely random.

The insides of a old Apple blueberry G3 I dug out of the shed before taking it to the tree stump and driving a 4″ nail through the hard drive on the way to its burial.

R.I.P. ol’ blue.

Got a nice little write up from the fine folks over at Jen Bekman Gallery and 20×200 for the upcoming Hey Hot Shot! competition.  I have no idea if I’ll make the cut or not, but it was cool to read someone else’s take on a project I literally do just for fun when I’m bored or in need of a visual reset.

Thanks – love the site!

Just added a new batch of signed art prints (available in 8×10, 11×14, 16×20, and 20×30) on my Photoshelter site – give your walls some love from Chip Litherland Photography!

Here!

Old prints still up (here).

Well, it is Florida.

I never really understood why Florida attracts these huge random news stories that seem to take on a life of their own – drawing every Nancy Grace, live truck, and iphonarazzi™ to our neck of the woods.  I’ve covered a more than a few of these.  The abduction and murder of Carlie Brucia, Terry Jones, the pastor who hosted Burn a Koran Day, and Terry Schiavo.  All three were elevated by the media and, yes, I include me in the “media.”  I could try to feel better about it because I can see the bigger picture, but I didn’t have to accept an assignment to go shoot the morning Casey Anthony was sentenced for lesser crimes after being found not-guilty of the larger murder charge, but I did.  There’s something almost gravitational about the circus surrounding these stories that I can’t put my finger on.  I alway say I’m going to cover the circus, but in the end I end up juggling knives next to the person taming the lion.  I have obligations to wonderful clients who keep my kids fed and my dogs happy.

The sentencing was uneventful at best.  There were less protesters than media.  In fact, you could count on two hands the number of people inside the little free speech zone taped off in front of the courthouse in Orlando.  In the end, we end up taking photos of ourselves, in some sense, that actually makes sense now that I write it.  These stories are indicative of where we are at in journalism.  Headlines.  24/7.  140 characters.  Stay tuned.  Exclusive.  Team Coverage. That’s all the time we have.  I wish the energy were put into covering an actual issue – perhaps doing long form journalism.  Documentaries.  Investigative journalism.  Actual reporting on actual issues that affect tens of millions of people instead of the effect of ten people watched by millions.

Alas, this is the world we live in, so what do we do?  We document and the cycle continues.  Over and over and over.  Until the next one.

News of the World.