Photographers are kind of like mail carriers- Engagement portraits after the rain

June 26, 2013 • Leave a Comment

I never had this thought before, but as I huddled under my camera gear to try and stay dry during a summer rain shower, I thought...photographers are kind of like mail carriers. Have you ever heard their slogan? The United States Postal Service Creed reads, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

I had a little time to ponder during the rain storm. I was thinking, this is not typical for me as a portrait photographer (to be getting drenched for an assignment). Usually if it looks like rain, we just move the session to another time or day. But back as a photojournalist, I had to shoot in all conditions. I didn't get a choice about what I covered, so whether rain, shine, snow, hurricane, flash flood or heat wave, I was out there photographing the happenings in Baytown.

On one rare occasion, it snowed in Baytown. It's only snowed in that area about five times in my 28 years. Shooting photos in the snow wasn't terrible. It was actually fun because it wasn't something I'd ever done before before. Watching kids have snowball fights and adults building snowmen was pretty entertaining. But the day before, that was the rough one. Jane Lee and I went to cover a ribbon cutting for the new Life Flight location at the Baytown airport. Luckily the organizers had planned in advance and there were portable heaters in the hangar on that chilly day. But to get the shots I needed during the ribbon cutting portion of the ceremony, we had to mingle away from the heaters. It was so cold, my camera stopped working. It may have been a fluke, because those cameras are pretty tough, but I figured the camera liked the cold just about as much as I do...not much.

On a slightly warmer day, another reporter, Traverse, and I headed to Kemah to cover a filming of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Kemah was a bit out of our coverage area, but a Baytown couple was volunteering in the home building, so we followed their story. On the TV series, the whole "Move that Bus" experience and the people rushing into their new house happens in about five seconds. In real life, that's not the case. And for the hours and hours we waited to see the bus move, it rained...and poured. A crowd of journalists and photographers huddled in a mass of ponchos and umbrellas waiting and waiting. It was pretty cool to see a few celebrities and to see the reaction of the deserving family when their house was revealed, but huddling in the rain and wet clothes for hours made for a long day's work.

On two different occasions, I was stranded during flash floods. On the first occasion, I shot a basketball feature at Lee College. On the way back to the newsroom, the roads were beginning to flood. I diverted into the Food Town parking lot thinking I could make it out on the other side to get back to the newsroom. No can do. I was stuck in the Food Town parking lot in my car for about two hours before being rescued by Dave Rogers, who drove an SUV. Luckily, during the second flash flood, I was only stuck in the newsroom. I had finished my day's work and just couldn't leave until the water had cleared.

With sports events, I've covered it all. Football pretty much happens as long as there isn't lightning, so I've covered games in August in the rain and in November (with about four layers of clothes) in the freezing or below temperatures. Baseball doesn't seem to play as often when it's raining, because it ruins the fields. But baseball season can get pretty hot. And windy. I remember one day, after our new publisher changed our dress code into less casual attire and more business/professional attire, I tried to cover a baseball game in a skirt. That was about the worst idea ever. The wind was blowing like crazy and I kept having to tuck the skirt between my legs so it didn't blow up while shooting photos of a bunch of teenage boys.

On top of weather, as a photojournalist, I had to cover stories in some pretty sketchy situations. That's a little off topic so I won't go into detail, but just to name a few situations we covered...manhunt for an escaped convict, SWAT standoff and of course all the possibilities of getting hit by a foul ball or tackled by football players.

Now back to my rainy session Monday... It started out as a normal session. I was to meet my sister and her fiance at the SFA Mast Arboretum for an engagement portrait session. I got to SFA about 15 minutes early to get my gear set up and to scope out the area. I had checked the weather earlier and my iPhone showed it to be partly cloudy with no chance of rain. ***Don't trust your iPhone weather app.

I got all my gear put together and started venturing into the arboreturm. There was a gray cloud overhead but it seemed to be passing, so I wasn't too worried. But it did look a little rainy off in the distance, so I grabbed the first waterproof thing I saw...a Vera Bradley tote bag. I thought, if it start sprinkling, I can throw this on my gear until I make it back to cover.

I walked into the arboretum and scoped out some nice areas to make photos...wooden gazebo, pretty flowers, trellis work, benches, purple tire art installation...

And then it came...the rain came down. I grabbed my Vera Bradley bag and tossed it over my Canon 7D (which was on a tripod) and managed to also get it over my flash (on another tripod). I tucked my light meter in my shirt. I planned to run back to the gazebo, but with the waterproof setup I'd managed, I didn't think running was possible. I figured I'd fall and that'd be the end of it. On top of that, I had to protect my other camera with the zoom lens. The soft box mounted on my flash seemed like a good cover, so I huddled under it and tucked the second camera under my shirt. Are you getting a visual of this? I'm sure I looked like an idiot.

Then it was one of those moments where I kept thinking, "I'll wait it out., It's just a summer shower and it's almost over." Then I'd think, "I should've run for it earlier." Then back to, "I'll wait it out."

I'm not sure how long this lasted (maybe five minutes), but finally the rain stopped. I was pretty much drenched. And then it was time to take photos again...in wet clothes and in the 90-degree weather+East Texas humidity.

So like I said, photographers are kind of like mail carriers. We just work through it all. And be thankful for your Vera Bradley. It could save your life someday...or at least your camera's life.