The first modern sports photograph and the latest

Scanning the New York Times this morning (online - I hardly ever pick up a hard copy of the Times. Which means that, more often than not, I’'m scanning headlines instead of reading articles. Totally changed my habits. When I was very young I used to get the comics section, spread it out on the floor and practically lay on top of the paper reading them. The paper seemed enormous to me then. And also, a time apart –- based on my dad’'s example. He’'d sit and read the paper in his chair before breakfast or dinner and he was gone behind it. It seemed like such a nice little wall between him and the racket going on around him. Anyway...), I came across this picture.



It’s a shot of Queen Quedith Earth Harrison moments after finishing second in the women's 400-meter hurdles at the Olympic Trials for track and field. Although this photo seems to depict “the "agony of defeat"” she'’s actually very happy with her finish. She has just come from behind, deftly avoided a fallen competitor in her lane and qualified - becoming one of the youngest competitors on the US team.

It’'s a very emotional shot. Something I love about sports photography. It's eminently possible and easy to capture the essence of the thing, the story, the inner thoughts and emotions written right across the face and sewn into the body language. Winning and losing, trying your hardest and succeeding, trying your hardest and coming up short, giving up, seeing hope fade, witnessing the improbable happen, making the unbelievable believable. What we'’re experiencing or watching has to with some of life'’s largest lessons - hope, faith, and determination. In real life, it’'s harder to see these play out. You don’'t necessarily know what trials and tribulations people go through, how they approach them, how they pick themselves back up and keep going. In sports,– all of this can take place during the course of one meet, one tour, one trial, one game.

Morris Berman, a sports photographer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is considered the genitor of this type of shot. In 1964, he captured the now famous image of Y.A. Tittle –- legendary New York Giants quarterback -– kneeling, battered and bruised in the end zone, after being hammered by John Baker of the Steelers. The ball was picked off by the Steelers who returned it for a touchdown, giving them the momentum to ultimately claim the win. This image was not chosen by the photography editors at the Post-Gazette to run in the paper accompanying the story on the game. Instead they chose an action shot of Tittle in the midst of being taken down by Baker right after the ball has left his hand. That'’s what sports stories of the time demanded –- the action. Berman's non-published image ending up winning awards and notoriety for the way it depicted Tittle'’s story, the game’'s story, beyond just the action. Sports photography has not been the same since.

you're in good company

The "it's been done before" thought can be paralyzing. You come up with and idea and you believe it's completely novel, completely yours. But you mention it to someone and they come back with "oh yeah, you should look at so and so, they did a whole book on that..." Or something like that.

I used to feel frustrated by these other photographers who'd been there before me. 'Oh, Evans has already documented rural farmers?... What do you mean Eggleston made his name with color shots of seemingly random curiousities!'

Not really...

But I can remember almost ten years ago, walking up a hill in Somerville, Mass. - on the street where I lived at the time. Looking into these windows at dusk. The lights behind curtains glowing blue or green, here and there a softer yellow. The aluminum siding on the houses and the chain link fences reflecting both the setting sun and the rirsing moon. I wanted to do a whole photo project on that. Capturing these houses at night, or dusk. And then I see Todd Hido's work a bit later. Damn you Todd Hido! Not saying I could do it in Hido's style, but his work is out there. It's beautiful and all the night shots I see now, I automatically compare to his.

Anyway - so it was until I heard a lecture where this photographer said something like.. "don't worry. take all the photos everyone's taken before until you know you're taking your own." That's good advice because the weight of past prodigy never quite paralyzes me.

All this to bring up a great book I read recently - "The Ongoing Moment," by Geoff Dyer. Dyer's work has to do with how he amassed all these photos that really stand out for him, from various famous photographers. And he sees these patterns, where these guys photographed the same things over and over - like barbershops, benches, roads, signs... He tries to understand how these photographers - Steigliltz, Strand, Evans, Weston, Lange, Arbus, Eggleston, etc., were drawn to the same subjects and continued a conversation, unconcsiously for many of them, through these photos.

I'll have a few more posts about this book. But for now I'll leave with this quote from it. "All the great photographers are capable of metamorphosing themselves, if only occasionally and accidentally, into other photographers. They have all taken photographs which look like photographs by other great photographers."

first entry; first shots

I read about photography (sporadically) and (from time to time) think about my own work and what I'm trying to achieve. I have post-it notes stuck in books, torn out images and articles piling up in drawers, and random URLS stacked in favorites. Sometimes it I remember that I want to do something with these. Even if it's just to put it all in one place, so that i have easier access to it. And then when someone asks that constant first question "what kind of stuff do you shoot?" I have an answer. Or at least one that's considered and within reach.

So this first entry is dedicated to why I started this thing (see above) and why I started shooting in the first place.

I never considered photography as a creative path. Since I was kid I thought writing was my creative outlet. Though I never called it that. I just wrote a lot. I liked putting words together. I never directly pursued writing though. Or maybe I should say I was never truly dedicated. It actually began to hurt when I got older. I would stare and think, stare and think. It would take hours for a paragraph. I don't think I ever thought about going back later to edit. It had to be a certain way right from the beginning.

The first photographs that I took that I remember really liking I took just after college. It was on a trip to Europe and they are totally tourist pics taken with ... it might even have been disposable cameras... I can't completely remember, but I know I didn't have a camera then. Anyway, when I got my pictures back these two just stuck out.


Louvre

Venice

I didn't actively compose these, nor did I usually look at my pictures afterwards with anything like a critical eye. But from the first I loved how the line of the I.M.Pei glass pyramid cuts into the older Louvre building. And the one in Venice, how foggy it was and muted the colorful palazzos. The way the river bends around. The yellow of the boat lights. I kept these. Put them in little 4x6 frames. But never thought about photography in any other way for years.

This is going to sound corny, I know. But one day I was driving up to Portland from Boston. It was for work, I was going to a conference. Anyway, it was like my vision shifted or something. I describe it as... like all of a sudden I could see pictures! The way a fence stood out against a lawn I was driving past. The shadows and lines. The contrast. It became very vivid during this drive. I kept seeing pictures in things I was passing. It made me want a camera just so that I could shoot these things and not have any regret that I was passing them without marking them. I don't have any images from this drive. I didn't have a camera.

Soon afterwards I bought disposable cameras just to have in case I really needed to capture something. And I continued to see things that I had to take. These few snaps are among the first I ever took after that. Some are with disposable cameras. Some with a Pentax point & shoot I got when disposables became costly and hard to keep track of. And when I knew that I really wanted to preserve what I was seeing, not just to stave off the regret of not having done so.

learning to shoot shots...

contrast, shadows, defining boundaries with chimes


light on a building in new york city


scaffolding and clouds, new york city


san francisco light


porter square, cambridge


telephone poles in pittsburgh