While Hirsch and Marc Hermann, who shoots for the New York Daily News at criminal court three times a week, appreciate that with larger cases such as Strauss-Kahn’s their pictures are more likely to be used, the pair say they prefer the pursuit of the low-profile, true New York defendant. “These are real stories about real crimes and real drama,” Hermann said of their usual subjects. “When a big case happens … it’s no longer just our place to do our thing.”
There simply was just not enough elbowroom during Strauss-Kahn’s most recent appearance to have the usual fun. While a pair of photographers had joked earlier that morning about employing an old standby – “Hey you dropped your wallet” – Hirsch and Hermann have their own set of tricks. (Hirsch attributes his training to the Enquirer and the Globe, “which was quite a school” but he said became too celebrity-centered.)
One is the Spin and Bag, a form of “synchronized shooting” in which they walk side-by-side in front of the subject, count to three and spin to take the person’s photo by surprise. Then there is the Pinball Machine in which the “Perparazzis,” as Hirsch has dubbed them, split to either side of the subject and function as bumpers, firing their flashes back and forth causing the shy person to turn between them. And then, at the most extreme, there is the Food Cart, when Hirsch hides in the food vendor’s cart outside the courthouse, shooting with a camouflaged lens through the steam of the hotdog cooker.
“This has become a goldmine for material in the papers,” Hirsch said of the court’s rotating cast.
The post-trial press conference for Strauss-Kahn was still going on the courtroom steps when Hirsch sought refuge inside the cramped, but comfortable, lair that serves as the courthouse pressroom. Six desks fit like a puzzle in the L-shaped space, and Hirsch settled into his usual desk.
But photographers from other agencies – including the pool photographer from the Times – had crowded in as well, editing and sending files along with captions rather than transferring them from the steps outside or, as one photographer did, a nearby Starbucks.
Hirsch and Hermann cordially share the space with their visiting colleagues, but it clearly belongs to them. The walls are papered with old covers from the Post and Daily News. Broken umbrellas with which one or two unhappy subjects have beaten the photographers hang on the wall, as does a Twizzler, given to Hermann by Remy Ma, who shot her boyfriend in the stomach and is serving an eight-year sentence.
“Look, those two guys live and breathe down there,” explained court spokesman David Bookstaver of Hirsch and Hermann. “They have found a niche and they have found a home… They know the drill.”
For the regular courthouse press corps, the trial’s latest delay — a hearing scheduled today was pushed back two weeks — was something of a welcome reprieve.
“They cover the goings on in that building,” Bookstaver said. “Not every case is DSK or Puff Daddy.”
