WHO KNEW - KWAME GOES TO JAIL

As a freelancer you just never know what you might end up photographing day to day. The AP Detroit office called me last night wanting to know if I could photograph Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty at a court hearing this morning. They said no photos had been shot in court for a few weeks and they wanted some today. I assume all the staffers and regular freelancers are covering the PGA golf tourney that’s in town this week, so they called me. I don’t shoot much for the AP. Actually this was only my second assignment for them. I won’t go into the reasons why here. So I sent in my paperwork requesting permission to shoot in court and was approved. This particular court can make you jump through hoops for approval to shoot in court. The light stinks in the courtroom, no flash of course and the court clerk was real concerned about the shutter clicking on the camera. The judge doesn’t like it. So I shot normal, not to exciting court images of Kwame. Not too many to keep the shutter clicks down so as to not get thrown out.

So who knew the judge would throw the Detroit Mayor in jail which made it a huge story. Even got a bunch of national play. At this point in my career I am more interested in making some money to pay the bills which is tight then a photo credit all over the country. Don’t get me wrong it’s nice that my work gets used; I just would like it to be some spectacular shot of something. Maybe someday. Plus since the only two photogs in court were me and a staffer for the Detroit News, who I shoot most often for, I was just in the right place to get photos of a story people ran with. But like I said, you just never know what you might shoot.

Some place online the photos were used.