My First Associated Press Photo Credit
Posted on March 15, 2020 Posted by John Scalzi 34 Comments
I snapped a picture at the Ft. Lauderdale airport yesterday while I was trying to head home and posted it on Twitter with the requisite snarky comment, and then it went viral (so to speak). One thing led to another and now the AP is distributing the photo. Now I have an AP photo credit to my name, which as a former full-time journalist, is kind of neat. I also talked to the AP’s local reporter (Terry Spencer of the byline you see above) of the mood, etc of that very packed airport.
When he asked me my occupation, I noted I was a science fiction writer who had, in fact, written books about a future plague, so the unfurling of current events was not exactly surprising to me. We’ll see if that quote gets in any future updates to this particular story.
If you’d like to see the story to which the above photo was appended, it’s here.
Also, hello! We’re back home. We’re feeling fine. I for one don’t plan to leave the house for a while. Not only best practices at the moment, but just, you know, what I do anyway.
Zombies in training, John. Zombies in training . . .
I read the story, and this caught my eye
“The entire time people in the crowd would yell out in anger, and Customs officers would yell at people to not take pictures,” he wrote.
OK
Congratulations on the credit and your safe arrival back at Stately Scalzi Manor. I hope all the Scalzis stay healthy and free of all fevers, cabin and otherwise.
Over her in Denmark; and the rest of the world for that matter, authorities are advising against crowding, therefore that picture is horrifying. In line with the previous poster mentioned a catastrophe in the making. All it would take would be a single contaminated…
Anyway glad you and family made it back home; hopefully unscathed.
An AP Photo credit? You’re famous now! :-) (When the only choices are to laugh or to cry, it’s more fun to laugh!)
If one person on that picture has coronavirus, then most people in that picture have coronavirus.
That picture makes me so angry. Not because you took it, obviously, but because that situation existed to be photographed.
Congratulations on the AP credit and your safe-enough return home. I’m sorry about the circumstances that led to the photo credit.
And as I open Politico there is a familiar photo on their lead article.
Well done. Is this a paying gig for you?
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Your picture was from 2020, this is Ellis Island in 1907: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amy_Fairchild/publication/6587870/figure/fig1/AS:277906875011074@1443269570260/Immigrants-awaiting-further-processing-at-Ellis-Island-Photo-New-York-Public-Library_Q320.jpg
Hopefully the pandemic won’t get so bad that, decades hence, your obituary leads with this photo and your writing gets second billing.
Whoa, congratulations on the credit and distribution! Hope you didn’t catch any viruses from being stuck in that airport.
The picture makes me wonder if people from other nations will see this photo as another example of the US as a nation of dumbasses.
Yep, it’s actually number 1 on my Google News feed, complete with your credit. Can’t post screenshots here sadly.
No lessons learned from the picture going viral — this just in on the WaPo digital site:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/15/chaos-dulles-airport-shows-how-not-handle-pandemic/
Very sad, very dangerous. This could easily have been avoided.
flattenthecurve.com
Thank you for the photo I love the gentleman’s shirt and how everyone has their phones in hands and the lady is reading with her kindle. I am a applied science student in commercial photography and its interesting that when I noticed the associated press and the name of the photographer this is a first credit! Nice work.
A well-composed shot, but I can’t help miss the old days when it was your bacon cat photo that went viral metaphorically.
Congrats on living your life. Also welcome to hell. Check in time noon. Check out time never.
(meh we could be living in some commie country. I’ll take this over that.)
Finally! After all these years having to suffer with piddly lit awards you’ve finally hit the big time! Congratulations! I see your career truly advancing from here.
I saw that picture in my Google News feed! It’s definitely taking off. Perhaps this will displace the Baconcat picture as your most famous creation.
I have to agree with the other commenters about how completely batshit this is. This situation is optimal for virus transmission.
Also coming home (DC) from The Boat, we had no real problems. There was some wait time to get out bag checked — but, that was just a Southwest line. Security was _fast_, and while a lot of folks were waiting to board the plane, I mean, that’s just what happens when folks board a plane.
In other news: It was nice to meet you! Especially with both of us in dresses. Today in describing The Boat to a friend, I had a conversation that went like this:
Me: And I got to be a zombie in re: your brains and I met Ken Jennings!
My friend: Uh huh…..
Me: …. and talked to Scalzi.
Friend: You should HAVE LED WITH THAT!
Me: While we were both in dresses.
Friend: Whhhhhhhaaaaaatttt?
So, in conclusion: To a certain sort of nerd, you are tremendously more famous than Ken Jennings.
Who is Ken Jennings?
@gle: Someone who lost at trivia versus the JoCo cruise, that’s who*.
* It was a really unfair fight. He answered freeform and chose first. JoCo cruise got a multiple choice list and chose second.
What! They let YOU back in the country?
Levity aside good to see that you didn’t get any extra grief than necessary.
Just waiting for the other shoe to drop here in DC.
Front page of the Ottawa Citizen for your photo! I’ll upload a file to Flickr later today, under “dwight_ew”!
Sweet!
(I mean, given the circumstances, which are terrible, but even so)
Correction: National Post, not Ottawa Citizen, but the NP has a section in all Postmedia-owned newspapers, including the Citizen. Photos are now uploaded!
Congrats on the AP credit! On an unrelated note, what brain-interface and/or robotics companies should we invest in now before the inevitable lock-ins start from the virus?
Please tell me you were at least offered a stringer fee. I know you don’t need it, but as a former small-town newspaper editor myself, whenever I see a good shot on social media get swarmed by major news orgs asking to run it for credit, I always think, “Sure you can run it for credit AND FIFTY BUCKS.”
I informed the AP that my practice is to get paid, yes.
Every cloud has a silver lining, a lesson to be learned.
The lesson to me is that if the U.S. joined the rest of the developed world in having a national health plan, then they would have the resources to have enough testing kits, both all over the country and in airports.
Never thought I’d say this, but: “Socialism saves lives.”
Canada, as a developed nation, has national health care, and so I remember during SARS U.S. citizens were driving north to get the vaccine that was not available in their own country, at any price.
@Scalzi: Noice
Small version on front page below the fold of today’s Austin (TX) American-Statesman paper. Congrats.
Congratulations on the photo credit. Of such small wonders are bucket lists filled.