Published: May 19, 2009 11:33 pm      

John Cannon: 5/20/09

Like every other human being God has created, there are a few things I do well — or at least reasonably so.

Other things I do adequately. I am not really gifted enough to make a living doing them, but I can do well enough to meet my minimum standard, which can be summed up in one sentence: Well, it’s not perfect, but it’ll do.

Then there are some things I am just plain lousy at doing. Unfortunately, one of those things I have upon occasion been asked to do in my profession: Photography. I try — and usually fail.

Apparently, I see the world out of focus. When I snap a picture, everything looks in focus through my bifocals, but when the image appears on the digital screen of the camera, even I can see that it is out of focus. I would refocus and try again, but the image was captured by a small digital camera that does not require focusing.

This is not a new problem for me. Almost 40 years ago, I was a cub reporter at The Daily News in Bowling Green. The paper only had one full-time photographer and he was being run ragged taking photos of accidents, ballgames, beauty pageants and whatever else came along.

Recognizing that the photographer needed some help, the newspaper armed every reporter with the cheapest camera then on the market, the Kodak Instamatic.

This camera was so simple to operate that the editor dubbed it the Idiotmatic, saying that even an idiot could operate one. I mean all you had to do is point and click, and the camera would do the rest. As long as you were relatively close to the subject of the photo, there was no way you could take a bad picture with one.

Or so the editor thought. I soon proved him wrong. Maybe idiots could take good pictures with an Instamatic, but I couldn’t. I took a number of different photos with that camera, but I don’t remember a single one of them being of good enough quality to publish in the newspaper. It wasn’t long until whenever I had a story to do for The Daily News that required a photo, the photographer accompanied me,

Forty years later, it still is happening. Because of some changes here at The Independent, I am now writing more news stories than I have written in more than 25 years. Some of them require photos, and when they do, my colleagues here at The Independent have learned to assign one of our two photographers to do the task.

While our two photographers carry quality equipment, there is a small digital camera for reporters to use in a pinch that supposedly is as easy to use as those old Instamatics were way back when. All you have to do is point and shoot. Who can’t do that?

I can’t, that’s who.

On Monday, I was assigned at the last minute to do a story that required a photograph. I quickly tried to round up the one photographer on duty, but unable to reach him, I left a message for him. As I left for the interview, I grabbed the small digital camera — just in case. Fortunately, the photographer showed up just in time.

“I heard that you had the camera pointed at your head and were threatening to shoot,” photographer John Flavell later told me.

“Yes, but Kevin (Goldie) came to my rescue,” I said.

Buried in a desk drawer at home is a transcript of my grades from Morehead State University that includes an “A” in photography.

I have never showed that to my co-workers. They’d never believe it.

JOHN CANNON can be reached at jcannon@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2649.