TEAGAN GOES VIRAL
I was scrolling through the bloated remains of what used to be Twitter last week and something caught my eye: A short news clip from a familiar looking beach access, where the anchor thought they were off air (“You’re clear!”) and gave the microphone a quick toss + spin before leaving the frame to end the segment.
It wasn’t the spin itself that I (and many others) noticed. It was the SWAGGER with which it was done. The anchor said “Thank you!” but the mic spin said “WE CRUSHED THAT, LETS GET THE F OUT OF HERE.”
It did not look like their first mic spin.
Halfway through the second watch I turned into the Leo pointing meme.
WAIT A SEC - I KNOW HER! (I do not, lmao.) We follow each other on Instagram though. THIS SHOULD BE A BUCKET.
Her name is Teagan Brown and she does sports for WMBF here in Myrtle Beach. I reached out the next day to see if she had any interest and described to her a couple of shots that I had in mind - inspired by, and essentially recreating the video but in a series of stylized photos that gradually became more complex. The photos would be to commemorate going STUPID VIRAL (6 million views as this was written + featured on TODAY) as well as show off some of both of our talents.
She happily agreed, although stressed that the spin is nothing out of the ordinary, it just happened to be on camera that time. I told her that made it even cooler.
In fact, that’s something that I really want to emphasize. I want to show appreciation for everyone that does their job with a little big of swag, a confidence and a COOLNESS to what would otherwise be an ordinary day at work. Now that we are well into the smartphone era, it’s easier for such instances to get caught on camera, and the internet has countless examples, so this is nothing new (the guy throwing the tomato baskets immediately comes to mind.) Hell there are times were I will flip a tool to myself or catch something falling in stride while working alone that I wish were on a security camera somewhere. But this one was close to home, literally like 12 blocks away from my crib, and I thought it could be a great set of photos, so I went for it. Shooters gotta shoot.
The photos turned to be almost exactly what I had in my mind’s eye, and nothing is more satisfying than that as a photographer trying to visualize something that doesn’t yet exist. It did take some practice, and I really appreciate Teagan’s patience. I told her I work quick but we did give it many tries, basically trying to get the background and lighting right.
The last shot of the night involved her tossing a microphone in the air while striking a pose, at the same time me dropping my phone into frame with the viral video of her frozen at the right moment, capturing it all at once, in-focus without a tripod.
(I had a tripod but I was showing off.)
I took one look at it in the viewfinder after the click.
WE CRUSHED THAT. LETS GET THE F OUTTA HERE.
Yeah this is literally exactly what I was talking about. THANK YOU.
