Tales from a Regular Person

Any indication to his most repeated phrase was not apparent on his home facade. No, this was a big house, with a big yard, beautiful, almost dream-like. On the outside it had some well trimmed bushes and walks leading up to the front step. I rung the doorbell and waited exactly two seconds and the door opened.

"Pablo!" he exclaimed, being followed out by one of his friends. "Follow me to the garage, this is Charles, I'm almost done with him."

"Do you play tennis?" Charles asked me, holding a tennis ball holder.

"Well, I, uh, I, I've attempted to but no not really, I--" I was not expecting this question...

 "Oh that's okay. I just wanted to give this away," he said, putting the holder down.

Charles soon left, and the Job shadow began. I think.

"What do you want to learn?" Joel began.

"The ins and outs of photojournalism," I replied, mentally proud of my answer.

"Well, I can tell you this. You don't want to do this, this is a dying field. In ten years I won't have work because anyone can take good pictures now--and for free. I take good pictures of the earth, but they're not free, so the industry is heading towards phasing out paid photographers. Web design and Video journalism--now that's another story."

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching him rearranging photos on his website, ranting some more about how photojournalism is fading into video, and doing a radio interview over the phone on which he spoke about a website from National Geographic and how photojournalism.....

However, I confronted him about what he does as a normal human being. That afternoon I also helped him move things around his backyard, clean the garage, and watched him do dishes and kiss his children and wife when they got in the door. "How hard is it to have a family when you're gone half the year?" He thought long and hard about his response. I added, "Everyone sees journalists as crazy people going into stories  people are fleeing, but the truth is we are regular people."

"Yes, true, you have seen me do dishes. But it is hard to have a family. Frankly, it sucks. The job is fun and all, but I am away so much that it does me good to be home a day a month and hear my children fight. Most photojournalists are divorced. Now, this is just a guess, but I'd say at least 90% are divorced. I got lucky. My wife is perfect, she has been willing to cope with this all these years. But it's hard."

The rest of the job shadow became more like a chat. We talked about jobs, and how photojournalism....But we also talked about my career, and how I should focus on videojournalism/essays, as opposed to their photo counterparts, because photojournalism...

In the end, I told him about my video production class and my knowledge of Final Cut Pro 7, and immediately that struck with him. "There is video I don't know how to edit. Would you be interested in an internship with us if you make this videos?"

I didn't have to think twice about the answer.