Day 39 (Thursday, July 20)

I started my day at 12:18 a.m. when I had a short phone conversation w/ a great buddy of mine named Hector Q. Today was his bday. We've known each other since the 7th grade. I always remember his bday for some reason. I look up to that guy. He has been w/ the same girl since we were in 9th grade. They've been married for almost a year. He's got a good job and a brand new house. So talking to him on his bday was cool.

Happy bday man!!!

The day continued to be good. I found out that USA Today used one of my immigration photos from yesterday (the two ladies chanting "Si Se Puede") on their national news coverage. Also the Daily Southtown, a Chicago-area paper used the AP TOP PIX photo in color. NICE!

© The Associated Press

Chicago has some crazy weather. The weekend and early part of the week featured some triple digit heat. This morning it rained so much that I walked around w/ wet socks all day long during my shift.

I ran around the rain this morning looking for nice weather images.

© The Associated Press

The above photo works. It has a sunny weather photo of Chicago in the background, a group of commuters w/ their umbrellas and the word Chicago in it. It works.

© The Associated Press

We had a call that a lawyer was going to give a press conference in 15 minutes at the federal building. That put me into rush mode as I tried to get there as soon as possible. It didn't help that I got a rookie cab driver. That slowed me down a bit. However, I was able to arrive there on time and get a photo of Flynt Taylor.

© The Associated Press

I went back to the office and turned in my news conference photo. Minutes later, I was given a new assignment. Quite frankly, I didn't want to work any more. My feet hurt from all the walking I did yesterday during the rally. My feet were wet from today's rain. I had about an hour left on my shift. I just wanted to go home.

The story was about how the city is cracking down on smokers, cell phone use by drivers and eating fried chicken. Fried Chicken? What?

Yes, the city deems eating fried chicken a bad habit. So they are trying to change people's way.

The fact that this was such an odd story gave me some energy. I headed out to shoot images for this story w/ a little bit more enthusiasm. I shot the above photo of the woman smoking. She was very rude to me as I tried getting her name to go along w/ the photo. It sure erased some of the new found energy. So, I decided to enjoy a bad habit in order to get some energy.

Nooooooo! I didn't have a smoke. Don't think wrong.

I did, however, walked into MacDonald's for my first meal of the day. I figured I was tried and hungry and I wasn't thinking right. So, I slowed down for about 20 minutes to have a meal. Then I headed out w/ a lot more energy.

© The Associated Press

As I was walking around I saw a man eating fried chicken on the street. I was pretty lucky. I mean, how many people u see standing on the street eating fried chicken when you are trying to do a story about fried chicken? This has to be luck.

Perhaps it was just a reward for being true to myself and saying "just relax, go eat some food and don't rush things."

It all paid off. Even my boss said "it's different" to refer to the photo of the guy eating fried chicken and fries. When you get a world-class editor saying things like that about your images, you know you did something right.

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