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AHH, THE SMELL OF IT Have you ever noticed there are certain "smells" that go with news stories? Elementary schools smell like those doughy buns they serve with lunch that I never would eat as a kid, it was like chewing on rubber bands. The State Fair has the hot, greasy, sweet, corn doggy smell that you know will raise your cholesterol just by breathing in, but you still make a bee line for the funnel cakes. In New Mexico, the annual green chile harvest in the fall smelled like capsaisin heaven, I am going to really miss the divine fragrance of de-vined chiles spinning in giant barrels as their wet green skin gains a blackened brittle edge asking to be peeled away and slapped on a hamburger. I had not really thought about the smell of news for a while until this weekend. Reporter Todd Hauer and I were at a murder scene in Granville County, North Carolina on Saturday. A man's body was discovered lying infront of an abandoned car in the middle of a tobacco farm. The deceased had been there a while, about five days. As we positioned ourselves down wind from the crime scene, I caught the nauseating odor of decaying human remains. They say women's sense of smell is better than men's, that was evident Saturday as Todd and our live truck engineer did not smell it and could eat dinner afterwards, whereas I did not feel like it. But for all the bad smells in this world, there are some wonderful ones. Namely the sweet sulfuric smell of pyrotechnics. Sunday night was the Closing Ceremonies of the Special Olympics World Summer Games (more about that in my next journal, as soon as my body figures out they really are over). The gala ended with one of the most intense fireworks displays I have ever seen. It lasted about ten minutes, long enough that you got your fix of fireworks for another year, but short enough that the seven year old standing next to you was entertained to the end. As I stood there shooting the shooting stars and roman candles, I would just pull out to a wide shot for a minute and take my eye out of the viewfinder and just enjoy this hot summer night in Raleigh. The Fourth of July is an easy date to look back on and see where you were a year ago (at fellow photog Todd Ziemek's house eating homemade banana ice cream as we set off some free fireworks his brother in law who works at the legislature got from the fireworks lobbyists), five years ago (sitting on top of the thirteen story Norwest Bank Building in downtown Roswell, New Mexico shooting the three fireworks displays around the city all at once), ten years ago (riding my bike to Bonahoom park in Raton, New Mexico and watching the town's fireworks display as a big fire broke out on Goat Hill). As different as each of those instances are, and as far away in the past and in geography they seem, next year, five years from now, ten years from now, whether I have a camera on my shoulder or swigging a beer in my backyard, whether I will finally get the Fourth of July off or I am shooting a live shot, one thing will remain the same: the smell. |
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Lynn
French
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Contributor
since 1998
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Behind
the Viewfinder - A Year in the Life of Photojournalism |
