I’m going to have to start waking up earlier. There simply are not thirty days of great photos within two minutes of my house.
I subtracted ten minutes of sleep this morning and headed to neighboring Spreckels to shoot this iconic corridor.
There’s a lot of pressure in making yourself shoot a picture in the early morning every day. Especially when you go to sleep the night before looking at pictures in National Geographic. High standards.
I got in my car this morning and had no clue where I would go. I found myself shooting pictures out my window while driving down Main Street, pointing the camera at the royal blue sky in the distance and hoping.
I found my picture in the agricultural fields just outside of town. Fortunately, today I remembered my tripod — something I almost never shoot with.
I am not a morning person.
So it’s with a small amount of masochism that I start my new photo project, tentatively titled 30 Days of Dawn.
The mission is to wake before the sun and go into the world and harvest a picture. For a month. Largely without coffee.
I like the idea of starting my day by being creative. And I like that I have a limited amount of time to accomplish this, because dawn is fleeting.
On Thursday, it was dark at 6:45 a.m., but nearly completely light by 6:58. I was shocked to see how many people actually arrive at work at 7 a.m.
I was not going to work Thursday, because it was my first day of work furlough, a cost-saving measure imposed by my newspaper to hopefully avoid more layoffs.
It was an appropriate day to start a new assignment. Working for myself.
The dispatcher said a guy was asking for an ambulance. He had just been shot in the head. His buddy, too, in the leg.
I get the address, jump in my car. Sirens. It’s my first day back from vacation.
When I get to the neighborhood, I park on a side street. I have the overwhelming feeling that I’ve parked in that exact same spot before, to cover a shooting in the same neighborhood.
I look up and the truck parked in front of me has a “Loving Salinas” bumper sticker. It’s the slogan of a local church’s campaign to help make this violent city a little more peaceful. I’m struck by the irony and futility of it all.
The shooting went like this: A couple guys in masks walked into the driveway and shot the two guys. I photograph them, on stretchers, being wheeled to the ambulances. Neighbors are gawking. Everyone looks grave. I have seen this scene over and over and over and over.
I move to the other side of the block, shoot the cops doing their thing. Fill my card. I put in a new one, the last card I filled before I went on vacation. I check the photos before I delete them. They are pictures of another shooting.
