I was dreading going to the Ice Carnival this year.
More on that opening statement in a second, I’m first going to talk about always trying your best, even when you don’t want to.
I’m a firm believer in doing the right thing no matter what the circumstances are, but in this industry you unfortunately run into a lot of people who are disrespectful and don’t deserve it.
So what do you do when people are rude to you and still expect things from you? Me personally, I try my best not take offence to it (it says way more about them as a person than it does me) and I continue to cover whatever it is they’ve asked me to cover as best I can.
Holding grudges over words is like carrying around baggage when you don’t need to carry it. In other words, it’s a waste of time and it’s exhausting mentally and physically.
Okay, enough ranting about respect, let’s get back to the Ice Carnival and why I was dreading going to it.
Two years ago, the Gazette made a mistake. We didn’t cover the Ice Carnival, which was honestly a huge embarrassment on our part, and one that to this day I still haven’t fully let go from my memory.
I could easily throw someone else under the bus for why we didn’t cover it, but I’ll take the blame solely on my shoulders and carry the burden.
Elizabeth (Port McNeill figure skating coach) was very kind and forgiving to me about it. I apologized to her in person, wrote a full page story about the carnival, and also tracked down some high quality photos (thanks Danielle for the awesome photos) for the article.
So why was I dreading going to the Ice Carnival this year? Because I knew how much it meant to all the athletes and the community of Port McNeill, and I didn’t want to let them down again.
This time around, I made sure my schedule Friday night was clear with no other commitments. I arrived a half-hour early to make sure I got a great seat, and I took roughly 100 photos so I knew the content would be quality.
I’m not a great photographer by any means. I have always struggled with that part of the business since I first started at the Gazette in 2015, but I’ve slowly gotten better over the years, and I’m really proud of how the Ice Carnival section came out in last Wednesday’s paper.
The show itself was amazing to watch live. It featured great skating, a fantastic set, excellent musical choices, and cool costumes.
Now that it’s all said and done, I feel like I’ve proved to myself that I can photograph something as challenging as figure skating (the lighting is ridiculously hard to deal with), and I feel like I finally made up for the Gazette’s mistake two years ago.
Maybe now I can let the ghost of 2016’s Ice Carnival coverage go and move on?
Or maybe I’ll continue to carry it with me as a permanent reminder to always give my best, no matter the cards I’ve been dealt.
Yeah. I like the sound of that.