Before every work trip, I endure the photojournalist’s version of stage fright. I know I have the right gear, but do I have the talent to pull off the shoot? While cost weighs on my mind, what most gives me pause is that my peers at the Monitor expect only excellence from me. I typically get a single opportunity to photograph a story – and if I blow it, there is no do-over.
But as I start thinking more about a story and immersing myself in the people and places involved, I undergo a transformation. I decide on the pieces I need to construct a visual narrative, and I proceed in search of them. From that point on, the job is a treasure hunt. Every person, object, and landscape is vetted in my head for the potential to perfectly encapsulate the story.
For this essay, I was asked to choose my favorite photo from all my shoots this year. The photo I am most attached to is one that almost did not happen.
This summer, I headed from Boston to Scandinavia. Monitor Senior Global Correspondent Mark Sappenfield and I had to travel back and forth between Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen, and the Swedish city of Malmö while working on a story on immigration. The first time we crossed the Øresund Bridge that connects the two locales, I came up with a plan to help capture the essence of the story. Mark and I would walk to most of our appointments and see what we found on our path. As I said: a hunt!
When we arrived in Malmö, we got off the train and began walking toward the water, hoping to get a view of the Øresund Bridge from there. Indeed we did, but the bridge was distant and dull. I waited for a ship to travel under it to have some extra element to try to salvage what started to seem like a not-very-photogenic situation. Then, we passed two women chatting by the sea under a blue sky. But I hesitated to take the photo: I didn’t know the women’s language or how they would react to being interrupted by a stranger with a camera. As Mark and I kept walking, though, I pictured myself back in the newsroom explaining that the best I could deliver were bland images of a bridge. So, after a 10-minute internal debate, I grabbed a camera, asked Mark to keep an eye on the rest of my equipment, and raced back toward the women.
Snap! I took the photo, which became a cover image I’m proud of. Stage fright, one more time, was vanquished.
