Assignments

During the KC Star copy clerk period, I guess I appeared eager enough to learn and do, so I was lucky enough eventually to get little shooting assignments from the Star (and morning Times, which was still going strong then). Really, pursuing photography was the reason I wanted to do any job in the newsroom in the first place. On days off I actually parked myself in front of one citywide reporter’s desk for hours, waiting for something to happen. But from him I actually got some of the best opportunities! 

The nicest but scariest tough guy I knew then was the photo editor for the Times. Maybe because I didn’t run out of the newsroom crying when he’d get angry about what photos I brought back, he saw that I wanted to learn? I wasn’t going through the usual process of enrolling at KU or MU journalism school, but he gave me lots of really great advice when I needed it (which was always). 

He explained he had one shooter who was absolutely the worst, technically speaking -barely knew how to operate a camera- but he always came back with something (like a photo of Elvis’ last KC concert from about halfway across the big arena). The other photo staffers were also very supportive of my ignorance, thankfully.

They gradually trusted me as a “permanent freelancer” more and more: amazing! To me, the best assignments I got from both papers came with backstage passes:

Linda Ronstadt
Alice Cooper
Procol Harem
The Eagles
Pink Floyd
The Dead Boys
The Spinners
Gino Vanelli
Iggy Pop
The Babies
Yes
Todd Rungren
Roxy Music
Electric Light Orch.
and Eddie Money

I was also assigned rich kid parties (very weird), a fashion show reception (to get quick head shots of designers like Bill Blass and Mary McFadden), trendy teenager-fad activities like face photocopying (ok, it was the late 70s), and technically-challenging high school football games played on very-dark Friday night football fields.

Somehow I “got” to go to the St. Pius high school field a bunch of times, where the lights on the field were not as bright as the car headlights nearby on I-29. Back in those days we had to “push” Tri-X B&W film from its normal 400 ASA to 3200 and beyond in order to get something on the film usable enough to make a print where you could partially confirm that upright humans had been there doing something.