complain or get it done, you decide

you get to decide but you don't get to complain about your decision

hello again.. hello again from an amtrak train.. hello again from my notes app.. as we start this, we’re north bound on a train a train headed for new york city for a quick production trip for something Freaks of Nature related (more on that soon) and we’ve spent basically the majority of the trip working on a feature due to come out later this week. i was working working when i noticed my battery on my laptop was getting low and in that moment realized in my haste to catch the train, i had forgotten my charger.. but thanks to the kindness of a stranger, i was able to borrow theirs and get what i needed to get done.. it was almost fitting for the idea of this piece which, was first mentioned while i was in chicago about the theme of “complain or get it done” - i could have closed my laptop, been pissed at myself, try to place blame on something else.. or.. use my words, humble myself and ask for help.. and now, as we pass newark, nj.. i have done what i needed to get done for this part of the train ride and now we’re here.. in the notes app writing.. taking some carl time.. so let’s get on with it yeah?

slightly longer than maybe a month ago, i rang my friend jd to check in with him ahead of his run in the UK “RUN THE CAPITALS” - last year he ran the the length of every subway line in london.. like all eleven lines.. and he had showed up to be with me in dc as i took on 24 hour marathon on veterans day.. this run for him, his RUN THE CAPITALS event was him running all of the capitals in the UK.. something like 900kms over the course of 11 days..

i didn’t want to take much of his time so after a quick check-in, i said “i just wanna share with you one piece of “advice” if you will..” i went on to explain this thing my wrestling coach as a kid would say to us at practice.. in times where it was a lot or it got really hard and he sensed us getting frustrated.. he would say.. “do you want to complain or do you want to get it done?” - and while maybe sometimes when things get tough, its not always “complaining” and sometimes using your words isn’t always you “complaining” but the ethos of the question is very direct and to the point on the occasion of complaining. i told him that it’s not just something i wanted to relay but its something that’s been guiding me as we’re in this sprint of work the last few months.. and that was that. i had no words of motivation beyond that. nothing i could tell him that was going to help him run, im not a coach.. it was just advice from someone in their own kind of relay giving advice to a dear friend…

fast forward, i’m in chicago and i get a call from him.. he’s now s completed his run, i know he’s on the rebound and so the call seemingly is coming as a surprise to me.. i answer, we exchange hellos.. and he proceeds to tell me “mate! (oh, he’s british by the way i wrote that first part with an accent) i just wanted to thank you for that call before my race.. i just kept repeating it to myself and the team and i just adopted that and man, it really helped us..” - now i want to be very clear on something.. we talked about more, we talked about more on the first call as well and if you’ve been here for a while, you’ll understand my desire to keep things in a sort of “public but private” manner.. but i think jd would understand the point of sharing these two specific interactions.. we chatted a little longer, he got to meet salu ahead him running the chicago marathon and even offered him some advice of his own.. all in all, it was a really lovely exchange of support and its a moment, im gonna hold on to for a while..

now, please know that i know that there is very much a difference between “complaining” and just venting but for the purpose of this specific phrase, i think what our coach was trying to relay is “you have a choice, but your choice is yours and that choice determines how long things will take you.. its like this sort of thing where, yes by all means, complain.. do what you need to.. but that’s just going to slow you down. that always stuck with me. i remember one time, we had a tournament on a saturday and the night before i had bagel bites.. like that little 9 piece thing.. and my father, someone who grew up wrestling himself and was a wrestling official in the state of washington at the time said “that’s not a good idea but its your decision” and wouldn’t you know it.. i came in overweight by 1 pound the next morning at first weigh-in.. my coach said.. “you have 1 hour to weigh-in again, get to work” now mind you, in that moment i was mad.. but more so, i was embarrassed.. when you’re a young man, you think you have it all figured out. you think you know best. you don’t see advice as that, you see it as “i’m smarter than you.” and how dare anyone be smarter than you.. (also, mind you.. im like 13 in this story.. i know..) so in that moment, everyone in the room is looking at you, you’re “overweight” by a pound.. like is it really a big deal? in the larger scheme of life.. no? of course not but rules are rules.. i went and sat down on the bleachers, threw my hoodie on and moped about.. coach came over.. tapped me on the shoulder.. and said “you have 55 minutes.. do you want to complain or do you want to get it done?” - and the worst part about that question in that moment is all of 13 years old, it dawned on me how insane it was to reply “i want to complain” - so knowing that, i got my butt up, started working out, spitting in to a bottle.. doing all i could to drop a pound in 55 minutes.. in the end i got it done.. i came in 2nd place in that tournament but the real win was the value of understanding that advice is not always from a negative place and there’s so much value in just doing the work.

this phrase while quite literally being something ive known for so many years has only really been something in recent months that i’ve started to guide myself by.. and yet, there’s still times where i want to complain.. but i think ive come to understand that those moments can be held on to and released once the work is done.. i truly try really hard not to even feel pressure.. pressure in the since of like “worried” i won’t get something done. i’ve been there. i’ve been in very stressful places in my life.. maybe one could even say my younger life but we’re quite literally talking life and death pressure.

i’m not sure how much talking about this i’ll do as its still sort of fresh for me but it’s a huge part of my life and what makes me, me so bare with as i try to explain this but by design, at times, talk around things as a way of respecting the career and the work.. deal? if you’ve been here.. you probably know i was in the air force.. i’ve been very open about that.. but what i haven’t talked about really is what i did.. and when i joined the air force, that job was one called “imagery analyst” - now commonly referred to as a “geospatial analyst” geo being sort of short hand for geographic.. or maps.. but in sort of laments terms.. what that means is i analyzed things from map data to satellite imagery to drone feed and other forms of visuals that came from different platforms.. as my time in the air force came to an end, i entered the private sector, working for different three letter agencies.. and ultimately landed on a sort of commonly simplified job description called “intelligence analyst” - it brought me all over the world and took me to place i never imagined being.. and often times briefing or talking to people, i usually felt like i had no business talking to.. but.. luckily for me i had been guided by some really smart people and found myself having a really amazing career as an intelligence analyst.. and in many ways, it was my last trip that made me realize where and what i wanted to be doing with my life more than i realized while there.

the country, doesn’t matter but for story sakes, let’s just say i was somewhere that i think basically only my father and my then lady knew about.. for everyone else at the time, i was just gone.. and well during this time away, i was often responsible for building briefs for special forces guys.. that involved sometimes having quite literally an hour to pull data together, build a brief, understand the brief, be able to talk to the brief without looking at said brief at the time and be prepared to answer any question anyone in the room had.. you had to think about the “what-ifs” to something you yourself only have been working on for an hour.. basically you needed to be your own devils advocate.. you had to believe in your work and also be critical of it.. because wether you felt it was fare or not, sometimes your information lead those in charge to make decisions where lives were on the line.. no.. im not joking.. i promise you.

when i sat down with our ceo from freaks of nature, we talked about workload and my ability to exist in this go go go environment and i shared with her, that i love this sort of pressure.. its really a privilege. to be counted on to me is one of the highest forms of compliments one person can give another.. but with a sort of smirk and a small laugh.. i shared with her something ive talked about with a few others.. its this sort of one go-to story i share about pressure.. and in doing so, i want to also make it a point that this is no means a way to talk down what anyone else goes through.. what is pressure or not pressure to me is mine and mine alone, its not comparable or even a competition.. but my story is this…

one night i was tasked with building a brief and package for a group of operators who would be leaving the base to go to a compound to look for some folks.. now mind you, yes we were in a conflict zone.. so they were anticipating a fire fight.. and to be shot back at.. so.. here i am, basically 10 hours in to a normal 12 hour shift.. finishing this brief when one of the leads from the team who was going out comes to my desk.. “carl, you’re the expert on where we’re going.. talk to me one more time.. give me the details.. break it down for me.” - mind you, im wearing like khakis, a filson shirt and sneakers.. prob a beanie or cap.. and this guy is fully kitted out.. vest on, gun on his back.. helmet in hand.. he was going from my desk to their vehicles to the helo that would take them to their hlz where they would from there.. trek to said compound/village.. - we got right to work and we spent a few minutes going over everything forwards and backwards.. he thanks me for the details, folds up his notes and shakes my hand.. “see you in a few hours.” - then in no time at all.. he and the rest of the team show up on my computer screen in the middle of nowhere as they begin to make their way to their target.. i’m observing on a feed from our asset in the area providing overwatch.. the operation goes off without a hiccup and the boys leave the area, get to their extraction point and helo back to base.. i would not see them again until the next morning and just like that the team lead who just seemingly hours earlier was at my desk on his way out is now at my desk again so we can spin-up and debrief and what we got right, what we got wrong and what we could do better.. and while that moment happened more than once, it was never lost on me just how crazy that was.. like even now reliving that it still blows my mind.. like, at one time my job involved making sure people didnt get killed while on an op. that’s actually nuts.

i’ll meet people from time to time and they’ll learn i was once that person and their response is normally something like “man, you’ve lived a few lives already!” and it always makes me laugh.. in a nice way.. so when i talk about pressure, when i talk about complain or get it done.. when i say things like “i’m really busy but i love it..” i don’t mean to glorify busy culture, i don’t mean to make it sound like you can’t be open and vulnerable about what is holding you back or upsetting you.. all i’m trying to relay is for me, the idea of having more than one shoot in a day or a week with 5 or 6 or being in chicago after berlin after copenhagen.. and nashville, i simply behind the scenes of my life am doing so because that for me is a lot easier than standing at a computer as you watch a team of spec-ops dudes roll up a compound you helped them get to, all while hoping your information was right and oh yeah.. none of them get killed in the process.. i never wanna do that again..

after chicago, i got back to dc and a friend asked me if i think other photographers ever get annoyed with how much i talk about work, if i think they wonder how much i’m working.. and i shared that i have two thoughts on that.. and 1 is very recent.. but first was “i don’t know.. i don’t think so.. but i do know when i was coming up, i was very jealous of opportunities i saw others get and felt like they should be mine.. and so i moved to new york to work my ass off to try and get those opportunities.. but imo, the photographers, i’m close to.. i see them working working as well, so i doubt it.. but that part of me also works this hard to show the younger ones coming up, whats possible.. because i dont know if i had a “me” when i was starting out, so im trying to be that for someone.. and luckily, ive been able to be someone people come to advice for..

and then the second part was introduced to me by the film “steve jobs” and in it someone asks steve jobs.. “why do you want people to dislike you? to which jobs replies; “i don’t want people to dislike me.. i’m indifferent to wether they dislike me.” and i cannot tell you how much i needed to hear this and have this enter my life in this current season.. you see, i dont really see that quote as a front to people or even to any demographic of person, not even fellow photographers.. yet i see it as a call to fully understand what’s actually important to you.. to not get tied up in silly differences.. to not let, missed opportunities get you down, to allow things out of your control throw you off your goals or hopes for yourself.. it’s a round-about way of basically saying, you have to focus on you.. and that right now for me is choosing to just get it done and not complain..

on my recent trip to LA, i was sent out there to photograph some folks in LA.. it turns out.. one was in glendale, one was in Paulo verdes and the other in covina.. so basically like “LA” but not like larger LA.. and yet.. so what right? what was i gonna do? not do it? no.. you just figure it out.. you plan, you make adjustments, you figure out what needs to be done and you execute.. no, its not life or death but its still important.. its our chance to tell the stories of people who matter.. why do my feelings need to come in to fold? what does that accomplish? - in the end, we got to meet three really awesome people and i got to see parts of california ive never seen before.. and wow, that place really is beautiful sometimes.. i will just forever be grateful for any opportunity to see the coastline.. a real reminder that there is so much out there we have yet to explore that pushes up right next to a place we feel so familiar with.. and yet, there’s still so much to be learned about the two.

i say all this to say that just hours ago while in nyc (oh yeah, sorry.. we took a break from this to shoot a campaign in nyc.. we’re on our way back to dc now..) a friend came to where i was having a little dinner by myself and she says “how are you not tired?” to which i replied.. “no, no.. im tired.. but it all has to get done” - you just have to choose.. you have to ask yourself… do you want to complain? or do you want to get it done?

so what’s it gonna be?

thanks for reading. x.

carl.