the scrum and then some

last sunday a young girl went missing - a playmate at her apartment complex turned up at the family's door to tell them Navaeh was gone...later, an Amber Alert was issued, and today, the search continued, this time with search and rescue teams scouring the two quarries in town - i had no idea there even were two of them - this one was remote - tucked behind a park and the holiday inn out by the highway - i went here first, because, frankly, if it's this out of the way, i kind of thought that it was a more likely place to be - pretty gruesome way of thinking i know, but it just made more sense...trekked through the woods to the open area where the teams were assembled and made some pix as they made their sweep, canine search dog aboard...animals are so amazing..i was talking with one of the team and i'm like - can that dog really sense something on the water bank from out in the boat? - not only can he do that, but he told me how they can smell a body that is at the bottom of the water - a body under water starts to emit gases that bubble to the surface, and while we'd never notice that, the dogs can smell it and know there is a body below - amazing, but still, very gruesome and particularly sad given the context that this is a 5-year-old girl

while i was at the quarry, i got a call from the reporter that the grandmother of the little girl (who actually has the legal custody, but mom lives there, too) called all the media to tell them she'd like to hold her own kind of press conference, show everyone Nevaeh's favorite toys and tell them about what kind of child she is - that was in about an hour, so i hung out a bit longer and then headed over to their apartment complex after running home to scarf down a yogurt

the regional press - toledo and detroit - have been all over this story, and before grandma and other family came out, a great aunt agreed to speak - there was some rumor that grandma and the family had decided perhaps not to come out and talk - as soon as one tv reporter asked if this woman would talk, it was an absolute onslaught of cameras and mic-bearing reporters/anchorpeople - here's my "hail mary" of the scrum...

so, knowing how this thing was gonna go if and when the immediate family came out, i made sure to be up front, which meant maintaining a very squatty, leaning angle beneath the cameras, mics and arms jutting out all around me - but i would have had no shot any other way...let's just say, that is one core body work-out - the kind of weird position that you maintain until you feel your legs and stomach start shaking...being so close in their emotional moment, i didn't want my pictures to be like that "in your face as you go through trauma" view that i hate, but it was hard not to be in their face, given the position i had to take to get any pix at all, so i struggled with which of these to pitch as dominant or single, but such is the stuff of this job i guess

from left, the little girl's dad, her uncle, and the grandmother with whom she lives

this is getting into place before the cameras and tv people descended - the family was walking out and getting ready to face the press pack - just stick close, back up and don't get shut out i'm thinking as they walk out, and this is at least clean and i think what we may be using in tomorrow's paper...just on my personal rant, i wonder how it is tv and still people can all go thru the same journalism programs and come out with such divergent practices - i.e., one of Nevaeh's favorite toys, which her grandma brought out, was a toy guitar - she turned it on so that we could hear her granddaughter's song, and this tv reporter bearing a mic just reached out and turned the thing off! i guess it was interfering with the audio of the interviewing or whatever, but the worst was that grandma kept turning it on to listen to it, and this woman would just lean in and shut it back off....wtf???

made me feel really not so bad that my camera was right by their mic clicking away and probably also disrupting their nice, clean audio....so ends my rant and post for the day