A thick red circle surrounded the camera with a straight red line jetting from one side of the circle to cut the circle and camera in half. Large white letters under the warning symbol read, “No Cameras.”

I seriously doubt any citizen of the land of the free would feel the need to take a camera with them when appearing before a judge. I know I never felt the urge to take a camera to traffic court with me when I was a rebellious teenager. I don’t think the judge would have posed with me for a souvenir snapshot to remind me of the day when he took my driver's license away. No, the warning symbol on the glass door was there to protect the citizens inside from lens toting members of the media like me.

Just because I’m banned from roaming the halls of justice doesn’t mean news happening inside won’t make the six o’clock newscast. Those of us behind the lens have to come up with different ways to find images to tell the story. The most common technique of acquiring video for a courtroom story is to prowl the sidewalk in front of the courthouse hoping to get a shot of the people involved walking into the building. This technique works well if you or your reporter knows what the person looks like. More often than not, the photographer has never seen the person he is supposed to capture on tape.

Last week I found myself pacing the sidewalk in front of the courthouse wondering if the people who passed by were the ones I needed to capture on tape. Moments earlier, my reporter provided me with a photocopy of a couple of mug shots the size of postage stamps. “If you see either one of these people make sure you get a shot of them,” she said as she pulled open the glass door with the red and white warning symbol stuck above the door handle.

I looked down at the grainy black and white images on the piece of paper and shook my head. There was no way I could match the blurry faces on the paper with a couple of faces in the massive crowd streaming toward the door. Even if I did see a face that I thought matched the image on the photocopy, how could I be sure I was shooting the right person? Do you think the person would tell me the truth if I walked to them with a fancy cam on my shoulder and asked them if they were the so-in-so appearing in court today? I don’t think so.

Lucky for me, a couple of the competitor’s photographers came trundling up the sidewalk with the same pitiful photocopy in their hands. Three sets of eyes were much better than one in the mob of police officers, attorneys, and wrong doers. Plus, if none of us punched the record button on a suspect heading inside, it was much easier to explain to my reporter that “the other guys didn’t get them either.”

The three of us surveyed the crowd until the time for court to start had passed. Once the crowd thinned out we relaxed a bit and struck up a conversation. One of my across town brothers pointed out a tiny flaw in the strategy we were using to find the people in the grainy mug shots. “They must have used one of the other two entrances to get inside.”

I knew there was a back entrance into the courthouse used primarily by the sheriff’s office, but I had no idea there was a third way into the building. I learned from these guys that this was the one attorneys like to use because most news crews either didn’t know about or forgot about it. Great. Another obstacle keeping me from doing my job.

The three of us may have lost the first round by not getting video of the folks in the mug shots. But the fight was far from over. The objects of our hunt had to come back out when court adjourned. This time we would have an advantage that would guarantee our success in defeating the “No Cameras” policy. We had reporters in the courtroom watching our quarry. With a flip of the cellular phone, our reporters could tell us when the prey left the courtroom and what entrance they were using to leave the building. With that kind of intelligence, we couldn’t miss.

Or so we thought. About an hour and a half after court started, my cellular phone rang. My reporter informed me that the lady in one if the mug shots had appeared before the judge and was on her way out. She was wearing a dark blue skirt with a pink ribbon tied around the waist and a white blouse. As I flipped the phone closed, the three of us lined up in front of the door like a firing squad preparing for an execution.

Long minutes passed as we waited with our fingers on the trigger. Suddenly my reporter burst through the glass door and yelled, “Did you get her?”

I instantly took off down the sidewalk with my camera bouncing up and down on my shoulder. If my reporter was asking me that question, I knew my quarry was escaping out of another door. I ran an entire city block at full throttle to catch the girl with the pink ribbon tied around her waist. When I arrived at the entrance I had only learned about a few minutes ago, I couldn’t find any ladies matching the description my reporter gave me.

“She must be gone now,” I heard from behind me as I scanned the concrete landscape. “I lost her through a door that said ‘Authorized Personnel Only’. I’m going back inside to see what happens with the other guy.”

As my reporter walked away, I took the camera off my shoulder and clutched at the piercing pain in my side. With my head hung in defeat, I slowly walked back to the spot where I started the chase. The other lensmen had followed me at a distance. They must not have gotten a call themselves. I guess they followed just in case.

My phone rang again. “She’s still in the courtroom,” the female voice boomed in my ears. No wonder the other guys hung back.

I had barely enough time to catch my breath when I heard the chiming of a cellular phone clipped to one of my buddy’s belts. This time she was coming out for real. All three of us got the call. But, we were at the wrong door. Our reporters were following her to the entrance I had just returned from.

This time we all sprinted down the sidewalk. Because I had already run this race, my compadres were out running me. I spurred myself to catch up and we arrived at the entrance with our cameras sweeping the area for the girl in pink, white and blue.

We all came up empty. After a few moments of us scratching our heads, a bailiff came out and pointed in the direction we had come. “She went back that way,” he called with a huge grin covering the bottom half of his face. We took off but this time we didn’t bother to run. We all knew she was gone. Her attorney could have taken her through the sheriff’s office and out the back for all we knew.

When we came back around to the front door a photographer from the local cable network stood on the sidewalk. “I saw you guys running when I walked up,” he said. “I decided to stay here and got the whole thing.”

We all stood there staring at the man with our mouths gaping open. He let the shock of what he just said sink in for a few moments then cracked a smile. “Aw, I’m just kidding fellas. I haven’t seen them either.”

We never did figure out how the girl with the pink ribbon got out of the building. As for the guy in the other mug shot, his court date was continued so we decided he wasn’t worth chasing all over a city block. The video for the story ended being the mug shot of the girl itself.