6 Hours - 0 Frames

So there I am… sitting along the chain link fence in the cargo area of RDU airport. It’s cold, windy and there’s not another person anywhere to be found. On the up side, I can sit in the car, listen to NPR, read a few pages of my book. On the down side, it’s still waiting and waiting and waiting.
Earlier that morning, I hadn’t got sixteen feet east of my driveway before the text message came on my phone. “Head for the airport. You’re on stake-out duty. Call Steve.”

I call Steve; he tells me we are waiting on the federal Marshal’s to bring Allison Quets back to Raleigh to face federal kidnapping charges. Quest is accused of kidnapping her two children she gave up for adoption. She fled to Canada and it became an international news event.

The Marshals are nice guys, but they won’t tell us when or exactly where, they’ll fly Quests in to the Raleigh-Durham Airport. So it’s stake-out time. We know from past experience we can usually get a shot of suspect transfers from the fence line in the cargo area. But that’s been a few years ago.

I get to the airport at 9:00am, set-up and wait. A few phone calls to pass the time, a few pages of the book, a lot of NPR pass the time. By noon, she’s still a no-show, and I’m still all alone. At half-past twelve I start to get nervous and begin to look for another location the Marshal service may be using. I get a tip from another photog that the Marshals are at the General Aviation terminal on the other side of the airport. I take that lead and sure enough, there’s a white transport van, along with a Bureau of Prisons bus and a county sheriff van. Looks like this will be a popular spot once the plane lands.

I set-up on the general aviation balcony around 1pm. Another TV station’s photog has been there since 10am. He doesn’t look happy I’m there to steal his “exclusive” thunder.

More time passes and just before 3pm the plane finally lands. Ground Services guides the plane to park right in front of our cameras. Lucky Day! All the waiting is about to pay off. The Marshal’s transport van pulls up, followed by the Sheriff’s van and the BOP bus. We’ve got a clear shot of anyone who leaves the plane and get’s in the van.

But things are never that easy. And I’m not a church-going guy. Just as Quests is about to exit the plane, the bus from BOP moves right in front and blocks our shot. I grab the camera run down stairs, out the door to the fence. Too late, she’s in the van already. Six hours of waiting all down the drain.

I don’t know if the bus was moved on purpose to block our shot, or if Karma was paying me back for something I’ve done in the past. Doesn’t really matter. It’s just broadcast News. I’ll have another stake-out and another chance to get a shot come next week.