I suffer many trials and tribulations, then take a picture at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant for The New York Times

First, this is not the picture. The picture had to be taken this morning at 7:00 AM. It could not be 6:59, AM, it could not be 7:01. It had to be 7:00. Not only was this picture not taken at 7:00 AM, it was not taken today at all. I took it last Tuesday, while Margie was in Anchorage babysitting little Jobe.

Yet, it is the image that set me on the pursuit of today's picture.

One of the blogs that I visit everyday is Lens, published by The New York Times. Recently, Lens put out a call to all interested photographers anywhere in the world - pro, amateur, novice, whatever - to shoot a photo at 15:00 UTC/GMT. Out of these, they plan to build some kind of huge montage for a project they have titled A Moment in Time. In Wasilla, that moment would be 7:00 AM AKDT.

Naturally, when I learned of the project I immediately wanted to participate. So, I thought, where should I be at 7:00 AM Sunday?

My first choice was somewhere on the Arctic Slope where Iñupiat whalers are out right now, hunting bowhead: Barrow, Wainwright, Point Lay or Point Hope. Yet I lacked the funds to go there on my own and had no projects going that would take me there.

So I began to think about exciting, wild, dramatic places in the Mat-Su Valley where I could position myself - places that said, "this is wild and wooly Alaska!"

And then, last Tuesday, as Connie King poured my coffee, I thought, wait! I'll just go for the ordinary, mundane, everyday, typical Sunday morning, 7:00 AM scene: a waitress at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, pouring coffee.

I knew that such an image would have to compete for attention against much more dramatic fare: shots taken on the battlefront in Afghanistan, the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, rescue and relief efforts in disaster stricken regions of the world from China to Haiti; against the action of athletic events to the glamour of models and showgirls - for you can count on all of this kind of material and much more being prominent in the mix.

But what the hell. Every morning, at Family Restaurant, the waitresses pour coffee. And they always smile.

I told Connie I would come at 7:00 AM Sunday. She laughed and said "okay."

This is also from last Tuesday, as is the next image after it. The three that follow that are from today, but shot after 7:00 AM. I will use them as the backdrop to tell the story and then I will post today's 7:00 AM shot. Please do not cheat and skip ahead.

I could have cheated on the photo, and started shooting a couple of minutes before 7:00; I could have then continued for a couple of minutes after so that I would have a bigger selection to chose from, but I didn't. I kept it strictly honest.

This still gave me some choices to make. Should I shoot with the pocket camera, as I have typically been doing for this blog? Or should I use one of my big, pro, DSLR's?

As you know, the pocket camera is very slow to recycle, to focus, and to do all sorts of things that one wants a camera to do.

In the time it would take a waitress to pour a cup of coffee, I would be doing good to get two frames off. If I were to bring a DSLR, in that same time, I could shoot a dozen frames.

Plus, the technical quality would be far superior.

Still, I have elected to use the pocket camera as my primary tool for building this blog. If it is good enough for my blog, then is it not good enough for the New York Times "Lens" blog?

Yet, I do miss many images with my pocket camera that I would have gotten had I been shooting with a DSLR. For example, just before I shot this image last Tuesday, this big, tough-looking man patted the baby girl on the head.

I spotted the action and had the camera on them while it was still happening, but I could not get the damn thing to focus until the action was over. With any of my DSLR's, it would have been in focus just like that.

Still, the moment I did get was nice, if not as nice, and that is the kind of compromises one makes when shooting with a pocket camera. You get what you are able to get, not what you could have got and in return you live a more subtle, peaceful life.

Can you imagine what a spectacle I would be, sitting at the breakfast table in Family Restaurant blasting away with a big, noisy, DSLR?

This man followed the big man to the baby. Again, although I had the moment framed, the camera did not focus in time to get the image. Still, the emotion does bleed through the blur and, as I am giving a demonstration of the strengths and weaknesses of pocket cameras, I use it, anyway.

I decided to leave the big DSLR's at home and shoot today's image with the pocket camera.

I am not a morning person. I seldom get to bed before 1:00 AM. Three and 4:00 AM are common bedtimes for me. Once I get to bed, I have difficulty falling asleep and after I do, my sleep usually comes poorly, in fits and bursts.

There is only one place that I want to be at 7:00 AM and that is in bed.

This morning, knowing that I had to get up early, I started to head for bed at midnight, but somehow did not manage to tuck myself under the covers until 1:30 AM.

I then thought, "do I really need to participate in this? It will make no difference to my career. My image will get lost in the thousands upon thousands of images that will surely pour in - many of them to be shot in dramatic circumstance by top-notch photojournalists working with the best equipment; others will have been carefully planned, lit, composed and staged by genuine artists in preparation for that one moment.

"Doubtless," I thought on, "there will be some who will fudge a bit - who will start shooting at, say, 6:50, keep at it until 7:10, then choose the best of a few hundred frames. Set against all this, my poor little coffee shot will just disappear into the morass; no one will take note of it at all.

"Why I should I subject myself to the pain, agony, and suffering that getting up in time to be at Family Restaurant at 7:00 AM will inflict upon me?

"Yet, isn't that what the artist does? Subject himself to pain, agony, and suffering, just to create his art? Art which, in most cases, will simply disappear unseen and unnoted by the mass of humanity, itself destined in its entirety to die out and vanish?

"So why not just sleep in?"

As I thus deliberated, Pistol-Yero, the white-booted tabby cat, crawled onto the blankets atop my chest, flattened out there and began to purr. 

I felt warm and snug. I wanted to stay that way as long as possible.

The thought struck me that, come 7:00 AM, I could just grab my camera from where I lay, take a bleary-eyed picture of Pistol-Yero and the black cat Jim, who would surely have joined us by then, close my eyes and then just drift back to sleep.

Yet, one cannot count on a cat for something like that. A cat is going to do what a cat is going to do and it does not matter what the cat did 30 days in a row prior without fail, the cat is going to do what it wants to do and if you plan in advance for it do something specific it will surely do something else.

I went to sleep fairly quickly and slept soundly until 2:30 AM. I then woke up, checked the time, fell back asleep and then stayed that way until 3:15, when I woke again. And so it went through the night until 6:15 AM. I then decided to get up and go get the picture.

I had planned to position myself at one of the booths by the windows that face the railroad tracks, so that the light that comes through those windows would fall upon my waitress. At the instant I stepped into Family, I saw a young family with a boy who looked to be about six-years old sitting together on the other side of the divider, near the bar-style counter. I suddenly knew that I had to make them the subject of my 7:00 AM shot, so I walked over, introduced myself, told them what I wanted to do and they said, "sure, join us."

So I did and I shot and I shot and it was all so beautiful and the interaction was wonderful and I knew that I was just getting the most fantastic shots. Then they finished their breakfast, got up and left the restaurant.

I looked at the clock. It was only 6:34 AM.

Oh, no! I had gotten so excited that I forgot to check the time. None of those fantastic pictures that I had just taken would qualify.

I decided to return to my original plan. I looked over at the booths by the window but was horrified to see that they were now all filled. There was no space for me to sit there. Wait... I saw a diner get up, leave his table. I arose and rushed for that booth... but just before I reached it, a serious-looking man wearing a white shirt, black slacks and black-rimmed glasses sat down there ahead of me, opened up a copy of the Anchorage Daily News and began to read.

Damnit! Rude S.O.B! Here, I had an assignment from The New York Times and I was blowing it! This man wasn't helping!

I looked back at the clock to see how much time I had. It read 6:35 - but this was the clock in my bedroom, not the one at Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant. I was still in bed. I had been dreaming.

I got up and drove to Family Restaurant, where, after completing my big shoot, I would see Rob, who I met last Tuesday right here at Family, and his wife, Katie, who I met just today. This is them, smiling above.

According to my iPhone, which must be right on, I took a seat at a window booth at 6:55 AM. Connie came over to fill my cup. "Wait!" I stopped her. "You can't fill it until exactly 7:00 AM!"

"Oh, this is for that special deal you were telling me about?" she said. "I thought it was supposed to be Saturday. I wondered why you didn't show up."

She promised to come back right at 7:00 and then left to do something else.

I decided that I should do a test shot to check out exposure and lighting. I let my hand play the role of the waitress.

I kept checking the minutes on my cell... 6:56... 6:57... 6:58...

Come 6:59, Connie was nowhere in sight.

I decided to give her 40 seconds. If she didn't show, I would then track her down.

Forty seconds passed. No Connie. I got up, walked a short distance to a spot where I could peer down into a little enclave alongside the kitchen where the waitresses sometimes go. There she was, talking with another waitress.

"Connie!" I said. "It's time!"

A look of panic swept over her. She scurried empty-handed into the area between the counter and the big window that opens up on the cooks, then dashed to the far end, grabbed the coffee pot and hurried to my table. She lifted the pot to pour.

"Wait!" I said. I picked up my cell phone. It still read 6:59. Two seconds later, it switched to 7:00.

"Okay," I said, "pour!"

Oh, damn! Despite my test, I could see that the shot was going to be somewhere between one and two stops underexposed and there was a strange purple cast that would be a bear to ever fully correct. The framing was not quite how I had envisioned it.

But it was 7:00 AM and the coffee was pouring...

I had to shoot...

Connie King, Waitress, Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant, pouring my coffee at exactly 15:00 UTC/GMT, 7:00 AM AKDT.

It's nowhere near the best coffee pouring shot that I have ever taken, but it is the one that I took at a specific Moment in Time.

"Now, what is this for again?" Connie asked as she raised the coffee pot back up. I explained.

"I've been pouring coffee for 35 years," she mused. "I always knew it would take me somewhere."

I returned home via Church Road. Along the way, I passed this young woman. She, too, was going somewhere.

Comments

[dahli22]

cool! bill is there a link to the contest?

[mocha]

Wow that is a very cool story. I hope your photo gets in the montage and I know you'll find it. Then the montage will become famous and forever you can say your picture was in the famous Lens montage! sometimes it's worth suffering for your art! By the way, are the hash browns better at 7AM?

[Wasilla, Alaska, by 300]

There is, Dahli, and I did link to it through the words, "A Moment in Time" but maybe the coloring of my links doesn't stand out enough. Anyway, here is the link:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/readers-11/?ref=global-home

It's not a contest, so much as a huge display. They do plan to put some images up before the day is over, but there is no chance that mine will be among them. I did not send it until after I finished my blog post. By then, according to the info on their site, they had already picked the ones that will go up today.

After that, they plan to put up some huge map that will enable readers to get to them all.

[Mikey]

Lol, I love this post. Love the smile on the waitresses face and her comment :) Fantastic!

[Wasilla, Alaska, by 300]

They are, Mocha - because the crowds haven't come in yet and they pay more attention about cooking the hash browns to order. It was truly an excellent breakfast.

Yes, Mikey - that was a good comment. I thought it gave a whole new perspective to it all.

[another photog]

Send it! Send it! They're not that strict! I love these shots!

[debby]

Huh. What was I doing at 7 AM. Oh. I know. Sleeping soundly. Glad no one was taking pictures. It would have bothered me.

[siao-rong]

I linked to this post from Lens. I loved your post of how this photo was taken, and Connie has a great smile. Siao-rong, from Taiwan.

[twain12]

can't wait to see it published

[Wasilla, Alaska, by 300]

another photog - I sent it, alright. Just not in time to make the first cut. Maybe you sent one, too?

Debby - but 7:00 AM here was 11:00 AM there, so you would have been awake.

Thank you, siao rong. Maybe you submitted, too?

Twain - I will let you know. They got over 10,000 photos and I don't know how they are ever going to deal with that. I just hope mine makes its way onto their map.

[Rebecca]

Loved the story! Many of your posts have made me laugh, but this one had me laughing over and over again. Thanks Bill!

[siao-rong]

Hi, Bill, Yes, I also submitted. As it was 11:00 PM in Taiwan, I spend a long time thinking about what to take. Taking a photo in the dark is challenging for my digital camera. I ended up submitting a photo of a night market in Chiayi City, where I live in. :) It's interesting to see some photos displayed in Lens now.