Naked People & A Camera

Q. What do you get when you cross a vampire with a snowman?

A. Frostbite

It seems that everyone finds a way to get into at least a little trouble while in college. It’s your early 20’s, it’s some of your first years away from your parents, and there’s temptation and excitement around each corner.

Well trouble was not what I was looking for when I returned to my off-campus house during the Spring of 2003. I had spent my Friday evening up in the university TV station teaching myself how to edit and now was returning home for some much needed rest. When I walked up the driveway I heard noise. It was another house party at the “Frisball house” (Name explanation? Half of the residents were Frisbee players, half basketball players). When I opened the door I was faced with a room full of college kids, beers in hand, and not a worry in the sky. As I crossed through the main room someone had the brilliant idea of streaking across campus. “Come on, if a bunch of us do it, it’ll be hilarious!” The idea quickly gained momentum and before I knew it, I was being wrapped into the plan. “Hey Fox, do you have your video camera with you?” “Yes,” I responded reluctantly. “YOU CAN VIDEO TAPE IT THEN!!!! It’ll be awesome!” And this is where the misfortune began to unravel.

I ran upstairs to get the video camera from my room. (It should be noted that this wasn’t my own personal camera, but a camera owned by the university that was loaned to me to use while working at the TV station.) A handful of people dropped their drawers, whipped off their shirts, and they were off! The crew blazed a trail across campus while I followed behind capturing  the action on camera. Everyone was laughing, people were screaming, onlookers were shocked.

We circled through campus and made a final dash back to the house, only to be cornered by bright lights and a voice telling us to “Stop immediately!”  My heart began to race. Yes it was only the campus police, but still, what could I possibly do to get out of this one? After all, I was videotaping streaking!  Some of the streaking crew frantically dressed themselves while the campus police handed out orders and asked for names. I kept rolling on the action until one of the officers started to approach me yelling, “Turn the camera off!” Unbeknownst to me, this minor distraction proved to be enough for some of the streakers to  escape, making a beeline into a deep sea of darkness. Meanwhile the others continued to put on their clothes and we all were eventually summoned to the campus security office.

My immediate response was, “Why do I have to go, I didn’t streak?” They identified me as an accomplice, confiscated the camera and told me to follow them.  I would learn that the sticky situation was that I was using school equipment to capture all of this. So not only was I involved, but I was involved while using equipment that wasn’t even mine. As we headed in, my mind began to rapidly process how on earth all this was going to play out. In an instant I realized that they could confiscate the camera, but what about the tape? That was mine. It happened to be raining on that particular evening so I asked if I could at least have the camera back while we were walking so I could keep it dry and undamaged. They agreed to hand it over. Yes! This was my opening.  I dropped a few paces behind the group and casually opened the camera up and removed the tape to put it in my pocket. Yes they could have the camera, but the tape was mine.

As we got back to the headquarters they again asked for the camera. They wanted to review the tape to implicate the others who had escaped. They took down my information and released me. I walked home with a giant smirk on my face. If only I could be a fly on the wall when they tried to play the camera only to find that there was no tape to review.

I crawled into bed finally ready to soak up some sleepy time. Only minutes had passed when my roommate yelled up the stairs, “Fox, the cops are here! They want to talk to you!” My eyes snapped open and my heart again began to race. Uh-oh, I thought. Had my plan backfired? And why were the cops now involved? Had I broken the law? I hustled downstairs, my heart pumping, my head hurting. “Are you Michael Fox?” “Yes, sir, I am Michael Fox.” “I was sent over here to retrieve the tape from this evening’s incident.” I paused, thinking about how I could dodge this one. Did I have to hand over the tape? I didn’t know. So I asked. “Do I have to give you the tape?” He smiled. “No, not necessarily. They just sent me over with the hope that I could coax it outta you.” That being said, I declined to hand over the tape, he retreated back up the stairs, and all was left untouched for the rest of the evening.

Eventually the university would take the incident to the next level. We were all written up for our involvement in the campus streaking, and my punishment was to write a paper about “the misuse of school property.” I worked for student media and they expected more from me as a young journalist.  I was required to interview three different Communication professors about the ramifications of my actions, and how being involved with student media didn’t coincide with this kind of behavior. Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah. I thought. I completed the paper, submitted it to the student conduct board and eventually was able to wash my hands of it all.

Half-a-dozen years have passed since that incident in college. I have reflected on it more than once, laughed about it with friends, but also taken seriously, the role that I played that evening. Yes it was a harmless streaking incident. Naked bodies, loud voices, no big deal. However the more serious learning moment was that I represented the student TV station as a journalist and a storyteller. My involvement with this, while using school equipment, compromised my credibility as a young journalist working for the school TV station. Fortunately for me it wasn’t a more serious situation. But this is something that I continue to use as a tool when analyzing  what gets photographed in today’s world. When is enough, enough? There are far more serious incidents than shooting streakers that photographers make  decisions about on a daily basis. So the question I pose to the reader…When is it too much? When is it about more than just capturing the action on camera? When is it time to take a step back and turn the camera off?

The new joke…..What do you get when you cross a brown chicken with a brown cow?