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STILLS FIRST! Jeeze. That’s a phrase you don’t hear any more. Chances are that most of you young shooters out there have never heard it. It seems to have been relegated to the old phrase file that contains such pithy sayings as “Copy! Where the Hell is that damned copy boy!” Or “Rip out the Front Page. We've got a breaking story.” I’m certain that there some old timers out there who could add to the list. The clarion cry of “Stills First!” was commonly heard on big stories, when I broke into the trade in the ‘60’s. In the New York Metropolitan area, back then, there were far more newspapers than there were tv stations. In addition to my paper, Newsday, there were the NY Times, the NY Herald Tribune, the NY World Telegram and Sun, the NY Daily News, the NY Daily Mirror, the NY Post, the Brooklyn Eagle, The Staten Island Advance and the Long Island Press. As far as tv went, there were CBS, NBC, ABC, WPIX, WOR, and I forget what Channel 5 was, before they became Fox. That was before cable tv so that meant there could be 6 tv stations, and maybe a couple of newsreel movie outfits. Add to that the ten newspapers and AP and UP (later to become UPI) and a major story could become rather unwieldy.
.“Stills First!” The cry would rise when ever something happened. Like when the Chief of Detectives produced the ransom note from the Weinberger kidnapping. The still guys (there weren't many still gals in those days) would crowd out the tv shooters before they set up their tripods and sound boxes and cables and shouted “STILLS, Down in front!” And then the ten or twelve or more of us would elbow our way in close to the Chief to photograph him and get a close-up of the handwritten note. Only after we were done could the tv shooters do their thing.
Plus, it wasn't at all uncommon for our subjects to vanish after they got their 15 minutes of fame in front of the tv cameras. Once they had that exposure, many of them didn’t feel it necessary to spend any more time with the print media. Many felt that a few brief seconds on the nation's tv screens tonight were worth far more than the enduring photo that would appear in tomorrow's newspapers. So, “Stills First!” could often mean the difference between getting your shot or nothing. Nowadays, I call out the old battle cry at large press conferences and such out of nostalgia. Not too many people know what I am talking about. But, the few dinosaurs will smile. There are a pitiful handful of newspapers left from that list of august publications that began this journal. Most have merged and re-merged and finally submerged out of existence. Now, whenever I cover a big story, more often than not, I am the only still shooter there. And, in addition to the tv crews that I listed earlier, you can add several more from cable news stations. And, while the crews aren't as large and they are using electronic cameras instead of film, they do make an imposing array when they are all set up on their sticks, with miles of mike cable snaking across the floor.
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Dick
Kraus
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Contributor
since 1998
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Behind
the Viewfinder - A Year in the Life of Photojournalism |
