That's My Boy!

Had to stake out the Benton County Courthouse today for a generic shot of a prisoner chain gang being lead out of the building for A1 news. I needed to get the Bentonville square in the background of the photo for it to work with the story and wanted to not reveal the prisoner's identities. After freezing my ass off in 32-degree weather with wind gusts above 30-mph for more than 40 minutes the group finally came out (a guard told me 40 minutes prior that the group would be out in 20 minutes, so i had to wait at the top of the courthouse steps out in the open for the shot i wanted). Just as it all frames up and there is a good line of prisoners headed down the steps the last winner in line turns to me and keeps saying "Hi Mom" repeatedly. Then follows it up with "Hey, when's this going to be in the paper?" Like he can't wait for his mom to see it the next day. "Oh my God! Junior's on the front page of the paper honey. Put down the red phosphorus and the Draino and come look at this!" Again this is one of those "Can't Win/God Must Hate Me" scenarios. When you want to get the prisoners face they react like a vampire hiding from the sun. When you don't want to get their face they all of a sudden become proud of their situation.


In the end this is the shot I went with. So much for not showing their identities, but I like the photo better than what I was going for intially anyway. And Junior's mom still gets to see her boy on A1.