Every time I come back to my blog I feel the need to explain myself. Bear with me. It’s difficult to distil all of everything I do into a few paragraphs, but like old friends I like to try and catch up now and again.

I still work in news and my job is my life and I still don’t know how to not do my job.

My blogging slowed considerably in the past year, but that came from not having the time to do everything I wanted to do and I have some important things I still want to do. Something had to give and blogging about my days working in news suffered.

Heck, I mostly even stopped bringing my camera with me to work.

Wait. . .what? Crazy, right?

I had my reasons, but looking through my archives recently, I was taken by the quality of photos shot with my big camera. That was a little bit of a kick in the pants.

There’s a saying that no photographer ever regrets a picture taken. You’re only going to regret pictures you failed to take.

I find that by extension of that notion, nobody is going to miss what isn’t seen.

Moving on.

If you don’t already know, I stopped working general assignment news about a year and a half ago and partnered up with my station’s political reporter, Dave Bryan. We’re the unofficial political unit of CBS2/KCAL9.

There are fewer car chases and brush fires in my life these days, but nobody was going to miss me covering those stories, right? Right?

Sadly, just my blogging fans.

Even though I haven’t gone cold turkey, it’s been a little difficult to not be out there covering the types of stories I’ve always covered in news.

I have missed getting better quality still photo souvenirs from behind the scenes. The occasional Instagram picture posted to my blog might have let folks know I still exist and I still work in news, but I’m sure nobody felt like they were getting the whole story.

The collection of shots of political newsmakers would have made for interesting additions to my photo archives. It’s just not always possible.

As promised, Rand Paul. Snapped discreetly during an interview in Orange County at a Republican Party event a few weeks ago. Even though I wouldn’t bet one way or another on his chances, I absolutely won’t pass up a chance to grab a still shot of a Presidential hopeful.

It makes my job more difficult and I’m already challenged by the workload involved in the type of coverage our typical political stories require.

We’re on at 9:00pm every night. A typical general assignment story on air is one minute to a minute and a half in length and usually with a 10pm deadline.

On our political stories we do two and a half to three minute pieces every night and again, that’s usually with a deadline one hour earlier than the rest of the field crews.

At the end of the day, it feels like more work.

You know what? It feels like more work because it is more work.

We’re crashing for that 9:00 deadline every night, but Dave’s a champ and we work well together.

I take care of my job and see to it that he makes slot. I work with a lot of amazing photographers and there are other people who can do what I do, but nobody at my station is willing to commit to this on an ongoing basis.

That’s what I’ve been doing. It’s really not much different than what I’ve always done and yet it makes the biggest difference to me.

I don’t expect to be there for every crime scene. You won’t see me working with other reporters very often. I won’t be driving to Lompoc for. . .wait, I just did that the other day.

Ok, well, I won’t be jumping in the SAT truck for every big fire.

Mostly, I’ll be shooting sit-down interviews with politicians, business leaders and ordinary people who are involved in the bigger picture. Sometimes I’ll be in the back of a room, plugged into a press bridge and zoomed all the way into someone likely more important than a high speed police chase.

I’m okay with that.

News gets criticized for a lot of what we don’t do. I don’t alway agree with the criticism, but I like the idea of covering stories that seem to carry more weight than some other assignments. Do I miss the action? (sigh) Sometimes.

Would I trade places? I dunno, ask me again if I’m not on the next big story or out of town trip.

For now, I vote on election days and I cover the political beat. You may not agree with my views on everything, but it’s been a lot more difficult to call me out on my job in news.

(I miss this. Let’s try to get together more often.)