Looking Back: The Year 2000
Last fall, I took a couple months off, turning down both shooting and editing assignments, to stay at home and make sure my family was eating well-balanced meals and being taken care of. I dug out recipes I hadn't made in years. I would like to say that I did this out of the right balance of love, familial duty and goodness of heart, but the truth is that it was a combination of things plus the fact that I simply could not work and take care of things at home at the same time. My husband, also known in family lore as "The Spaghetti King" for his ability to make that common pasta taste uncommonly good about a thousand different ways, was barely able to navigate across the room, much less boil water. Enter Susan, who in the last few years has jaunted off to untold numbers of assignments, leaving home and hearth well attended by my husband, The Spaghetti King. In the plus column, my husband is on the upswing, and is now back to work several days a week. Last October we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a candlelit dinner at home, thinking about exotic locales we might go to celebrate, once he gets his sea legs back.
Also in the plus column, I added "video journalist" to my resume. Although I may have a long way to go before I get a television contract and some time before I can afford a DV camera, I am now confident that I can do it. I just need a little more practice! (Well, maybe a lot of practice). Just six weeks after the Platypus workshop, I rented a Canon GL1 for the first time, to work on a story about the reunion of a man and the girl that he left behind 31 years ago in the Soviet Union. I had met Serge Rus, a pressman, while working at the UN last September (Stories from the Basement/October Digitaljournalist). While reunion stories are fairly common, this one had elements that were made for the Romance channel or American Movie Classics (make that Russian Movie Classics).
As for Gaby, Serge gave up all hope of ever seeing her again when the KGB told him she had married. Although they had written each other several times in the early 70's, the letters were intercepted, or simply lost in the political morass. But he had always felt bereft at losing her. Last April, Serge decided to write to one of Gaby's relatives living in the United States. When I first met him in September, he and Gaby had just resumed their correspondence after 30 years and she was coming to the United States in December. I decided, if I could, that I would try and tell their story.
On the down side, I made a lot of mistakes on my first solo gig. My checklist notwithstanding, I forgot to turn on my onboard mic after my interview and so I am missing about 12 crucial minutes of ambient sound of my B roll, which I fortunately realized before Gaby's arrival at JFK. My checklist notwithstanding, I also didn't get enough B roll because of time constraints, some initial security clearance problems at the airport and because I got nervous and spent too much time thinking and not enough time following my instincts. Carrying around a camera, sticks and my small lighting kit, to three different locations proved to be more than I could comfortably handle. On the up side, it's been a pretty good
year. My husband is getting better and my daughter is back in the
saddle. I told a few good stories. I took a few good pictures.
Not a bad ending to the year 2000.
Susan B. Markisz
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I
took at least one good photograph this year. As I started thinking
about this piece for January's Digital Journalist, I was going to write
about this one good picture (or two). While a few of my newspaper
photographs made section front pages, none qualified for the real wood,
or had the kind of soulful quality that I like to see in my photographs.
Most of the pictures I took, that I liked, were not news photographs.
It's been a crummy year, although it's no excuse for crummy pictures. With
the details of my adversity occupying a large space in my mental notebook,
I started making a mental note of the things I've done and I thought to
myself: "Hey Markisz, pull yourself together." In fact, the
positive column far outweighs the negative, in spite of my acountant telling
me otherwise. In the negative column, my husband became suddenly and seriously
ill in the middle of August. With both of us self employed, one kid in
college and the other one a "barn goddess" who has had severe stress fractures
and shin splints, requiring casts, crutches and physical therapy for months
and months, we had all we could handle trying to make ends meet and keep
our heads above water.
In
the plus column, I took a few good pictures of which I was justly proud,
although I did not often have the kind of meaty newspaper assignments I'd
like to have had. In the plus column, I managed to get the inside
dope on the world leaders at the UN Millennium Summit, which was quite
a coup for this freelancer who often complains about access.
Serge
Rus, born Sergei Peepchenko, met Gaby, his Belgian sweetheart, while she
was traveling in the Soviet Union in 1968. Gaby returned several times
to visit him over the next two years and she and Serge fell in love and
planned to marry after his planned defection from the Soviet Union. Unfortunately,
the KGB intercepted their last correspondence in 1970, which included money
sent to him to aid in his defection. He was harassed for many years
by the KGB and spent 2 years in prison for his association with foreigners.
To make a long story short (if that's possible), Serge escaped to Finland
on a rubber raft during a dangerous 40 hour trip with two other people,
in 1985, making big headlines in the newspapers in Finland. He made
it through Sweden, Germany and ultimately to the United States in 1986,
where he was given political asylum. He changed his name to Serge
Rus and became a US citizen in 1992.
On
December 14, 2000, I rented a DV camera, voraciously consuming the instruction
book til 3 am the night before the reunion, and going over my checklists.
The following day, I went over to Serge's home and interviewed him in his
small one-room apartment, three hours before we were to leave for the airport
to pick up Gaby. He was nervous and excited about seeing her again.
It was an emotional interview and the reunion with Gaby was every bit as
emotional as I'd have imagined. Hopefully one of these days, I can
edit the piece.
