Tonight marks the official opening of the WYFF 4 photographer’s lounge (and gear storage room), something we’ve been slowly working on since last summer.
Here’s photographer, James Cooper’s vision for what the lounge should look like when we get finished, and it’s kinda close. But our new room has a lot more character (and by character I mean: “no plasma screen HDTV”). Here’s the what it actually looks like:
It’s bigger than it looks, and I didn’t do a reverse shot of the camera cages on the other end. We used to have a giant, battle-damaged big screen TV, but it wouldn’t fit with the furniture - my vote to “sit on the floor and watch TV” was defeated 10-1. Also, I would like to note that I have yet to see any photographer resting in the room, as we’ve been rather busy lately.
And, part of the reason tonight was the official opening was to coincide with the tribute to Chris Gulfman, the photog we lost last summer. The room is named after him…
And we have a really nice framed tribute to him on the wall, facing all the folks hanging out in there.
Mark Lyon (and everyone involved in getting this room ready) did a really nice job, and I’m glad to have a place to duck into from time to time. When he had some downtime, Gulfman would always be reading a book in the same room (which was a supply room) or out in his hot automobile, so this place is somewhere that’s a perfect choice to fix up and dedicate to him.
Before there’s a bunch of comments about why we even need a room, I would like to say: we bring a ton more junk to work everyday than everyone else, and we don’t have a desks or offices. The size of the room is about the size of two cubicles, divided amongst all us guys…and there just happens to be a TV.
