Today I photographed an event that was heavily about Allegheny College and some of its community initiatives and how they are working hand in hand with other community initiatives to try to make Meadville a better place to live. So photographer Bill Owen was on hand to take pictures for the college. I've known Bill for a number of years now and he is both a fine photographer and person. We laughed today as we were both at the same place at the same time photographing same people doing the same things. Neither of us were really getting the pictures we wanted. So Bill said in a joking manner, I'm not taking pictures for the newspaper so I can set things up. He then asked the students to lean and point and look at each other and he said that this will appear in a brochure or booklet someday to his subjects who then sort of smiled and laughed as they posed and talked to each other. It was funny because as a journalist I really can't do this, my job is to document whats there the best I can. Bill knows this and made a point to say what he did loud enough so I could hear it and that gave me the chance to bust his chops. I invited him to my 'truth with the camera' lecture for one of my classes. I told him after I heard him setting up the picture the only way I could ethically shoot the picture now was to include him. So I did. We laughed. What he is doing is showing Allegheny College at its best, he can't afford to not get a picture that shows that. I just need to get a picture to tell the story, I don't need to concern myself with how good or bad it looks, just how it looks. On the way out I saw this picture below---not sure where it falls into the ethics debates, but it was a reflection in a metallic trash can that I thought looked pretty neat. Meadville Tribune photographs by Richard Sayer.