When I was able-bodied, I was a school photographer. It is a thankless job, honestly, with no recognition coming when you (daily) create and tend to the personal relationships that create loyalty. No parent knows how hard you worked to try in your half-minute with their child to create the best image of their child that you could in that moment. I threw everything into that job over four offices, lots of disrespect from people who were supposed to be “on my side”. IDs and after school sports and weekend youth sports and special events on top of the daily grind of yearbook pictures. It was physically demanding, emotionally demanding, and I loved it. The friendships that I cultivated with my schools. The time with the students. Many of them were a challenge, but they were fun. I hated walking away.
I remember the situation and day that I knew it was over. It was retake day at an Elementary School on Capitol Hill. Retake day was always a special day. There was the challenge of photographing a student for a second time that probably didn’t want to be photographed the first. There were trade-offs, though. Especially when you had been the one to photograph at the school the first day - the feeling when they call for all the retakes and literally no one comes… whoo boy that feels good.
So it was retake day at this elementary here in Seattle. What you may not know about Seattle is that space for parking is a perpetual challenge. I remember this day, I was supposed to load in from the parking lot (not directly in front of the school. Retake days usually started later, so I had to be out of the way for the whole “getting kids to school” business. This was fine. Nothing I hadn’t seen before… except in this instance, the parking lot was two blocks down the road, I had to cart the equipment up a low-grade incline for two blocks to even get in the door. I think I’ve mentioned before that uneven ground is a challenge for me… so I was already working from behind, as it were. I’m not entirely certain if it was actually the case that there was not a way to roll directly onto the stage or whether I have just made that up to make myself feel better about what ultimately happened, but what I remember is lifting each bit of equipment onto the stage… more effort. The setup was not hard, per se, but it had a lot of components and required a lot of physical walking within the footprint to get everything in. More activity.
The day itself was fine. A thing about retake day is that, within reason, you can drive at your own speed, as it were. I seem to remember maybe 30-35 retakes up to the critical moment, which is not a small number, but not a huge number either. I had made it all the way through the grades and made last call and had been told there was one more student on the way. I was waiting, sitting… trying to get back whatever function I could to finish out the job. What does that mean? When I would photograph, there was a lot of crouching and bending, positioning my face in proximity to the lens so that the student could look at me and still look like they were looking into the lens. When I am starting to lose function, each one of those things compounds upon itself. My foot drops. In extreme cases, I have trouble standing straight. That is where I was on that day at that time. Waiting. One more student. I can do this. Get things torn down and get home and sit and recover… then do it again tomorrow. I can do this.
As I wait, a student walks in with a picture packet. This is, of course, the universal sign that they are there for me. She was an adorable little girl, super sweet, coming to me with the aid of her paraprofessional from her special needs classroom. These students were frequently missed in the room-by-room calls for retakes, but that is a different story. Background: From my early days in Arkansas, one of the most consistent comments you would see about me on my comment cards would have been compliments on the care and the time I took with the special needs classes. I remember one school in Arkansas that would bring their class down to a three-camera setup and funnel almost all of their students through my camera. I was proud of this. Back to the present, this particular pose was a standing pose. I was a big proponent of “show them how you want them to look” which is fine most times. As I mentioned, however, my condition was deteriorating. I could not stand up with my back straight, no matter how hard I tried.
I’m trying to show this wonderful girl what I want her to do. She was doing her literal best to copy what I was showing her. I can’t remember what I was trying to show her, but remember- I can’t stand up straight. And so this sweet sweet girl after I ask her “can you go like this <show pose” hunches down in her back with this huge beaming smile that I can’t photography because she is nowhere near standing tall and you can tell. The poor para recognized what was happening and I had already communicated my challenge to her… she was mortified. I, on the other hand, was just sad. I knew in that moment that my career was over.
In my life, I have never been that person to “shoot their shot” as it were… but I had known that things needed to change. I had applied previously to be part of the territory manager training program. I made it to a certain point, but my sales training and experience did not look like what they wanted it to… nevermind my strength in building relationships, which is the real point. Regardless, there was no sustainable way forward, so that is how that ended. That is how you lose 12 years of your life. Maybe we’ll talk more about work tomorrow.
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