Raleigh’s bigwig developer (and my office landlord) Greg Hatem got hitched this weekend to Samantha Smith. A huge group of people attended. My friends who were there pointed out that the wedding was a reunion of sorts of the staff of the N.C. State student newspaper, The Technician. Greg did a lot at the Technician.
It reminded me that I, too, did Technician work, albeit a laughable quantity. Right after I enrolled at NCSU in the fall of 1992, I thought I would apply the photography work I’d done in the Navy to the Technician. I was particularly interested in shooting sports photography, and drooled at the thought of wielding the newspaper’s ultra-expensive, 1.8/f 300mm lenses around on the Wolfpack sidelines.
I walked up to the Technician offices, meekly introduced myself, and sat through one staff meeting. To my disappointment, the telephoto lenses I’d hoped to try were all spoken for. Halloween was approaching, though, and the editor wanted a few decoration pictures. I volunteered and spent the next afternoon driving around downtown Raleigh, looking for shots.
I snapped photos of the old Magic Corner magic store on Hillsborough St. as the storefront was decked out in spooky costumes and the like. I wandered over and shot a few of a decorated house near Blount and Peace. I then developed the roll in the Technician darkroom and turned it in.
My Blount Street house picture ran with the Halloween story and that was the highlight of my journalism career: one photograph in an October ’92 edition of Technician. It was a good shot, though!
I don’t know why I didn’t continue with the Technician it as the experience was a lot of fun. Back then I was still very shy, though, and might have preferred to keep a low profile. Or it could have been the time commitment, I don’t really remember.
So, there you go.