With A Whimper.

Last night, something happened which I feel compelled to write about. As much as it might not be a good idea to do so.

Last night was a first, ever, in my nightlife photographic career, which has spanned a few years now. I always viewed it as some sort of compliment, or feather in my cap, that I could go to photograph in any different situation and, basically, make it out alive. From my suburban, Donna Reed-esque background, attending gothic bellydancing performances and Lamb Of God shows, is a far cry from late night dinners at IHOP after a movie at your local multiplex. (Ok, it wasn’t exactly like that.)

I used to be all about my “comfort zone”. Seriously, I never strayed beyond a few blocks radius. (Wow, that makes me sound utterly crazy.) So, with that background, you can perhaps understand the overwhelming accomplishment it is for me to attend any number of different events, at varied locales, with a plethora of different people.

And in all of the situations, the one thing I can say is that people have always…um…respected me. Well, if not me, the camera. It was always this fact that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside towards faith in humankind.

Until last night….

When a guy poured beer on my camera.

Now, let me be clear: I try very hard not to overreact. So, when I was photographing and this guy, who we’ll call X, came up behind me and poured beer on ME and coincidentally on my camera, I didn’t say anything. True, my hair was now sticky and my clothes had a certain odor to them, but that was all ok. And the byproduct of beer that landed on my camera, which was considerable, I smiled at, wiped off, and kept on going.

But then it happened again.

With a little less of a tolerant smile, I wiped off my camera, again, and kept on going.

And then I met X myself. While photographing someone, a spray of beer came from very close to me and this time I saw who did it. So, I turned to X and told him to stop getting beer on my camera.

Like a petulant child, he tucked the beer behind his leg and looked…amused. I tried to stress again the importance and gravity of the situation. Do not get beer on the camera. His grin got wider and more amused. As I lifted my camera, he threw beer on my camera.

Directly on my camera.

And for the first time, I couldn’t finish my job. And for the first time, someone disrespected my camera. And for the first time, I felt truly unsafe.

And thinking about it now in the dawn of a new day, it occurs to me that he never apologized. After the police were called, after the bar was informed, after everything that happened, he never apologized. He simply remarked that I should not have gone to a punk show.

My camera is my own source of income. And every week I never know if I am going to get work. Every week starts with panic looking at a landscape of empty days with no work. So, risking my camera, my reputation, my connections and my work, in totality, is devastating.

Every time something like this happens I wonder if it will be the end of my photographic career.

This is how it ends, with a whimper not with a bang.

Let’s hope not.