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Let Me Take This Call

It was 12 degrees out with one of those ridiculously low wind chill factors, and I was still recovering from a severe bout of the flu. My eyes were tearing, my nose was running, I was losing sensation in my fingertips and I was beginning to worry that I was going to come up empty on this assignment. By the way, did you ever wonder how the weather people came up with those wind chill numbers,("It's 12 degrees with a wind chill of minus 40, so it feels like minus 60!" How do they know, by the way how cold it feels to you and me?) Anyway...

A few weeks ago I received a page to do an assignment for the Business section. The editor told me he needed a picture of a cabdriver with a cellphone. He told me it was an illustration so I could stop and ask cabbies if they had cellphones. In other words, I didn't have to stalk one out with a telephoto lens.

When I work for the Big Newspaper, I sometimes get a faxed assignment request (if I'm home). Mostly though, I get paged and the details are given to me over the phone. This assignment had come to me by way of the telephone, the night before, and I had had the whole night to think about it. I'd asked the editor how many people he wanted me to photograph and if there were any other particulars I needed to know. It seemed straightforward enough. The editor told me that if I nailed it on the first one, all he needed was one person.

The way I figured it was this: If they're doing a story on cabbies with cell phones, there must be a lot of them, right? How hard could it be? New York City must be filled with them. I've been known to ask one too many questions when it comes to assignments, so much so that I've been asked on more than one occasion: "Markisz, did you hear what I said?" Ok, so I'm slow. I was confident that this was going to be a piece of cake. I'll drive down to Broadway in midtown and hail a few cabs. If that doesn't work, I'll walk over to the Hilton or to one of the other big hotels. Hey, this is New York.

At 10 am the next morning, on Broadway and 54th, I flagged down half a dozen cabbies and not one had a cell phone. Fifteen minutes into my search, I was frozen, feeling faint, and having heart palpitations. It wasn't working out quite like I'd anticipated, and I feared I was getting a relapse of the flu.

I meandered over to a small hotel on W. 54th Street and there happened to be a half dozen cabs waiting in line for fares. The first person I asked was a woman ---with a cell phone! A willing subject, Ms. Rajni Tak let me warm up in her cab, while my frozen fingers numbingly searched for the shutter while she used her cell phone. I asked her a few questions, like what company do you work for? are you self employed? what do you primarily use your cellular phone for? where do you live? I asked what I thought were pertinent questions and went on to find a second subject just to cover my bases. I walked to the Hilton Hotel on Sixth Avenue and 54th Street, to find at least a dozen cabdrivers waiting in line along Sixth Avenue. I went to each and every cabdriver in that line, and not one of them had a cell phone.

I began to wonder what this story was about anyway. I went into the Hilton to defrost for a little while and then I made my way back to my car, which was parked along Broadway. Passing the same hotel as before, I found another cab driver, this time a man named Baldiner Singh who let me photograph him with his cellular phone.

At this point I was nearly passing out, but managed to get downtown to the office with my film. I called the editor and told him the film was in the drink. I had an alternative picture in mind, one that I'd taken while in Europe in November, if the story was more global in scope. The editor told me he was interested in seeing it ---and that I should transmit it later in the afternoon---but it probably was more of a national story.

He then asked me: "You did get the model type of cellular phones that they were using and the type of plans that they have, didn't you?"

"Uh, what?" I gulped.

As I recall, I mumbled something unintelligible.

"I did tell you that this is a story on cellular phone use, not cabbies and cellular phones, right?" he asked me. We just thought it would be good to illustrate the story with a cabdriver.

"Just shoot me now," I thought.

Not one to admit defeat, I figured I had to salvage this somehow without having to go out and reshoot it. I needed to go back home to bed. I called directory assistance in Queens to see if there was a Baldiner Singh listed. There were two thousand of them.

When the editor came up to the lab to look at the film, one of the staffers asked me what I'd just photographed. I launched into a Seinfeldesque version of this story, to which the staffer said: "You know she's busting your chops, don't you??? (although he used somewhat different language) to which the editor replied: "She's 100% right, I hadn't given her enough information."

Fortunately, Ms. Rajni Tak had asked me when the story was going to run. She had asked me if I would call her and let her know. OK, SUSAN, WHERE WAS THAT PIECE OF PAPER, THE ONE WITH HER CELLULAR PHONE NUMBER ON IT? In my pocket was a crumpled piece of paper. 14K gold! I called her and was able to get the model type, and the type of cell phone plan, all of which eventually went with the caption information underneath her photograph, which ran a few days later.

It all ended on a happy note, thanks to the serendipitous request of Ms. Tak for the pub date.

Unfortunately, my alternative picture, which I thought was pretty funny, didn't run. when I was in Europe in November, it seemed that virtually all Europeans had cell phones. People walking and talking on their cell phones, people eating and talking on their cell phones; people driving and talking, people in churches and museums talking on their cell phones. It didn't occur to me that this might be a story in the making, but I did, I thought, get the quintessential European cellular phone picture...a Venetian gondolier with his cell phone, while his clients wait impatiently for him to finish his conversation and get on with the business of taking them for a ride. I respectfully submit my Venetian gondolier rather than my New York Cabbie. Although the scope of the story was not international, this was a better picture.

"Let Me Take This Call" November 13, 1999 copyright Susan B. Markisz

Susan Markisz
< smarkisz@digitalstoryteller.com >
Contributing Photographer
The Riverdale Press, NY
Freelance for the New York Times
Other journals by Susan Markisz
334 November 10, 1999 I have a New Boss
328 Is Photojournalism Dead? Susan Markisz I am not a photojournalist here (at the U.N.)
322 September 20, 1999 The heavy artillery has arrived
321 September 21, 1999

My adrenaline was already running high when I was given today's schedule.

 

318 September 14, 1999 7:45 AM: I note as I arrive at St. Bartholomew's Church on East 51st Street for the Interfaith Prayer Service
317 September 13, 1999 Milton hands me two Nikon F4's and an assortment of lenses and assigns staff photographer Evan Schneider to accompany me on my first assignment in the GA
314 September 10,1999 Milton Grant, Chief of the Photo Unit, welcomes me to the department and takes me on an informal tour of the UN.
312 August 31, 1999 The Boy Who Fooled New York.
311 August 20, 1999 I Went Scuba Diving
310 August 16, 1999 The Junkie Priest
306 July 21, 1999 The relentless quest for (Kennedy) imagery
296 July 7, 1999 Hot Hot Hot
294 July 3, 1999 The Sleepovers
288 May 31, 1999 Bad Judgment / Good Judgment: The Picture That Never Was
285 May 27, 1999 Shut Out
281 May 17, 1999

I received a letter recently that reminded me that I'd been taking some things for granted lately.

278 May 7, 1999 A Mass for Littleton
250 March 15, 1999

It's been three months and I've finally developed the rest of my film.

245 March 11, 1999 The picture-taking took less than 10 minutes.
242 March 3, 1999 I don't want to get in a mudslinging contest about the future of photojournalism
235 February 24, 1999 Lately, I seem to be the queen of features and the environmental portrait.
219 February 9, 1999 Does Color Matter?
208 January 29, 1999 Let Me Take This Call
194 December 28, 1998 Last July on this website I wrote about an assignment I had had, to photograph a mother and her young son, both of whom were battling leukemia
193 December 27, 1998 Girls, curls and slipjigs
188 December 19, 1998 Around this time last year I wrote that one of my goals was to find out how photography fits into my life.
172 November 4, 1998 We've all had to do our share of one computer genius/computer programmer/computer innovator/computer geek photograph after another... and it begs the question: How many ways can you shoot a computer without taking out a double barreled shotgun?
165 October 28, 1998 Baseball legends
162 October 26, 1998 "Keep following the story, sounds like fun!"
149 September 17, 1998 Something about Harry
144 September 6, 1998 Photography enabled me to bring my own vision and interpretation to the canvas, at first fairly effortlessly, at least compared to what it had been like trying to eek out an image from a glob of burnt sienna to replicate a paper bag still-life.
136 August 21, 1998 A Day in the Life
134 August 17, 1998 What was startling was that one of the kids who used to play there not so long ago, now a young mother herself, was there with her 3 year old.
117 July 18, 1998 This story is not about a war on another continent. It's about a silent one being fought here...and in just about every corner of the world
113 July 15, 1998 I don't do wars...
112 July, 1998 Lighting 101
107 July 5, 1998 Hundreds of people would gather and watch as unscripted---and illegal---eye candy unfolded.
104 June 25, 1998 How many ways can you spell G-R-A-D-U-A-T-I-0-N ?
102 June 24, 1998 Simple Pleasures
99 June 22, 1998 Life Begins at 40
95 June 15, 1998 "I am woman, hear me roar..." ...Ok, so it's only a muffled "Yesssss!!!"
93 June 13, 1998 Pomp and Circumstance
88 June 9, 1998 Anything Goes...
86 June 3, 1998 Shooting for Stock
85 June 1, 1998 Baby, think it over...
79 May, 1998 Art.Rage.Us -- An Essay
64 April 19, 1998 Thursday I took the day off ... well, sort of.
60 April 14, 1998 Bernard L. Stein, Co-publisher of The Riverdale Press, wins Pulitzer prize.
57 April 10. 1998 A Homecoming of sorts
56 April 6, 1998 "I am not Julia Child"
54 April 5, 1998 The Photojournalism Roller coaster: Of Extremes and Insecurities
49 March 30, 1998 The dark side of humanity reared its head in one of our communities over the weekend.
48 March 29, 1998 A mitzvah is a good deed...
46 March 29, 1998 Today, it was over 80 degrees
45 March 28, 1998 "the (not really) begging phone call."
41 March 22, 1998 In Search of Art
36 March 12, 1998 And today's assignment is to photograph...real estate brokers.
26 February 23, 1998 I always breathe a sigh of relief when I edit my negatives after a basketball game.
19 February 18, 1998 Newsroom Decisions, Dilemmas and Cut Lines
15 February 10, 1998 These are the things about journalism that are truly joyful
4 January 23, 1998 One of the last photographs I took in 1997 was of firefighter John Usai. . .
2 January 14, 1998 My hope for 1998 is an ability to come to terms with what role photography plays in my life.
 
Contributor since 1998
 
   

 

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