All in a Day’s Work

I normally dig this job, but it’s days like Wednesday that really make things exciting.

I shot the assignments Wednesday: a mix of candids and a portrait for this story about Eddie Kisfaludy, the marine technician at Scripps Institution of Oceanography; a portrait of brewmaster Peter Zien for this weekend’s Q&A; and, this portrait of Cheryl Hiscock-Anisman, who developed an interview technique that is supposed to tell whether people are lying.

Scrambling around the county like that is fun. But the most exciting (and petrifying) part of the day was hanging off the Scripps Pier with thousands of dollars of camera gear around my neck. To get into the boat to photograph Kisfaludy, reporter David Washburn and I had to climb down a chain-link ladder tethered to the boat below. Now, I’m not one to tremble at heights, but as I carried my camera gear down that swinging ladder with nothing but the Pacific Ocean below, I was pretty fearful for my equipment.

Here are some shots that made it worth the climb. This is Kisfaludy, “Jack of all Seas” as Washburn calls him in the story, making his way rapidly down the ladder with the boat.

On the way back up, I had to have Kisfaludy hold the camera and get a shot of me climbing back up.

It also didn’t make my day any less exciting to have the boat ride include a jaunt through a pack of several hundred dolphins.

Later in the day was the portrait session with Peter Zien from Alesmith. Let this serve as a lesson to anyone I photograph in the future. If you trust my crazy ideas (and the egging on of reporter Will Carless), we can together make a really fun picture.

I guess it runs in the family. His cousin, Sam Zien, or Sam the Cooking Guy, pretended he was about to smack me in the face with a frying pan for his portrait for this Q&A last year.

On a side note, I’ve appreciated the e-mails regarding my plan to host guest bloggers in Credentialed. Keep sending your ideas for hosts to sam.hodgson@voiceofsandiego.org.

— SAM HODGSON