For those of you who follow ODFM aka Derrick Oliver’s blog, you would’ve seen a blog post about how his world almost got flipped around from a simple little text message from myself. (Check out: http://www.derrickoliver.com/2010/09/17/what-a-whirlwind/). I figured I would post a follow-up/back story to explain the situation a bit more fully on my side, and my thoughts in general about the whole situation.
Sometime in the spring, I found out that Adam Thomason (a pastor at the Village Church) would be leading a trip to Sudan in August with Matt Chandler (lead teaching pastor at the Village), Lecrae, Tedashii, their wives, and a handful of other folks to do one last teaching of Southern Sudanese Pastors before the Referendum as well as host a concert by Lecrae and Tedashii. I was dying to go on this trip to document the whole situation. I heard that a documentary team from the church would be going on the trip, which I tried to be a part of. Unfortunately, they decided not to send any journalism folks on it, and the trip was full enough as it was. So…bummer for me. Chalk it up as another international humanitarian trip that I can’t make it on. It happens often (as you can tell from my lack of humanitarian postings in the recent bloggings). Then around September 12, 2 weeks prior to the trip departing, Adam told me that some people dropped out and asked me if I could go to do some photography and video work, as a paid visual storyteller. All forms of regret then sunk into my soul to the depths of making me want to put my head through a wall because I booked a corporate event shoot and a wedding for a friend’s wedding. I didn’t have anything going on at the time of booking, so why not? POOP! For 2 days, I wrestled in my head on whether I could get those 2 events covered so that I could get to Sudan. The corporate event shoot would’ve been easy to cover. The wedding had it’s own nuances, considering it was for a friend of mine. I think if I would’ve asked her, she would’ve let me go, given that I could find a suitable replacement for myself. But what would that say about my business?
The big struggle here wasn’t if I could go or not. Really, it was a matter of how I wanted to run my business. I made a commitment. Regardless of my ultimate goals in photography, I should have the character and dependability to follow through (not trying to preach…just trying to remind myself why I didn’t go). So after those 2 days, I decided to hold true to my word, and began the mad scramble to find someone to go with Adam. There were a slew of photographers that had their names in the pot, but for one reason or another couldn’t go. So then 3 of us were working our own networks to find someone. That’s when I sent the text to D.O.
It was during D.O.’s decision making process that Kari Crowe (www.karicrowe.com) was referred and accepted the gig. (Sad day for D.O. but probably for the best. And if you read his post about it, there was another girl that was trying to rework her schedule to go on the trip at the same time, which is why I referred to ‘another girl’…not calling him a woman, as we’re all aware that he’s not.).
So that’s the story behind the almost life changing text from D.O. But here’s a question for all your readers: What would you have done? If you’re in the business to shoot for humanitarian/missions/non-profit/non-governmental groups, but you shoot anything else on the side to pay the bills, would you have made the same decisions? Why or why not? Seriously, let me know.
Paul G
PS. I talked to AT after they got back and he and I both bemoaned my absence. But he said Kari was owning the situation and told the story right. So I guess in the grand scope of making known the good being done around the world, the job was still accomplished [idea: different voices in the same choir]. For that I’m thankful, but I still wish I could’ve gone.
