Uploading photos from my hard drives and re-editing a lot of them is like going through a roller coaster of emotions.

First of course there's the excitement of finding something I thought lost. I'm not always good with indexing and backing up spot news events work. I need to pull the 10 or 15 good photos from something and then send them off to the wire as soon as I can. Often the little moments - the ones that would be great in a longer photo essay don't make it to the edit... so I don't even really see those at all until I do I have a slow work period like I'm having now.

Second there's the "DAMN" I wish I had the equipment I have now to shoot this event! Just thinking about how much better the D600 with the Sigma 35mm 1.4 would have done in this low light situation pains me to no end. Back in 2005 I traveled over 10,000 miles around the country with a Nikon film camera and a Nikon D70. Some of the things that I photographed just simply don't exist anymore. The fact that they were shot with a 6mp camera and cheap Tamron lens that had a soft focus at 70mm... ugh. Just... ugh.

Third and finally there's shots like the one at the top of the blog. Just a frame I took before a gig, while waiting outside for the doors to open. Not anything amazing, in fact it's technically lacking. I should have shot it wider, and exposed for the sky, not the buildings. But it's a red flag for my memory.

That's one of the big reasons I got into photography professionally years ago. Mainly I was a researcher and a journalist, I had been photographing for years - in fact had gone to school for film and still photo. Out of college I got a job working for a journalist as a researcher and producer. So outside of maybe an occasional B-Camera shoot I didn't really have the chance to work as a shooter. Eventually I started to write and cover my own stories but as an awkward mostly phone and computer journalist I had a problem actually talking to people in person. Cameras provided me the reason to be there, and to talk to people.

Keeping the outtakes also allows me to remember other things. Like the the day that happened after this photo was taken. The photo itself isn't of the event just what happened right before.

And that's sort of what this photo this photo means to me. I wanted to be somewhere and having my Nikons around my neck gave me the excuse me to be there.