STories

Divers from the Washington State Boys Swimming and Diving Championships. 

The ink is black
The page is white
Together we learn to read and write
The child is black
The child is white
The whole world looks upon the sight
The beautiful sight

And now a child can understand
That this is the law of all the land
All the land

The world is black
The world is white
It turns by day and then by night
The child is black
The child is white
Together they grow to see the light
To see the light

And now at last we plainly see
We’ll have a dance of liberty
The world is black
The world is white
It turns by day and then by night
The child is black
The child is white
The whole world looks upon the sight
The beautiful sight

The world is black
The world is white
It turns by day and the by night
The child is black
The child is white
Together they grow to see the light
To see the light

This song by Three Dog Night hit the top of the charts when I was 4 years old in 1972.   It was on the radio constantly and I remember vividly staring out the window of our station wagon and listening to the words intently.  My parents taught us to look beyond our somewhat segregated, racist community and emphasized the beliefs of Martin Luther King Jr. and John Kennedy.  Somehow all of that, this song, and the free thinking of the  70′s created a picture in my mind and when I stared out the window,  I “saw” what the song suggested.   I even remember having some remote thought of  “I am a child, and one day this will change because we are being taught differently.”

When I shot these photos, President Obama was just beginning his campaign when he visited a small ice cream shop in Oak Park, Ill.   I didn’t have a press pass and I remember pressing myself up against the glass and trying to shoot between people who were strategically placed around the window to block the view.   I came back to the office late, edited my photos and placed several on the desk of an editor.  I heard the next day that she supposedly “laughed” at my efforts.  I was very upset.

But now it does not matter.  A young Barack was somewhere on the globe when that Three Dog Night song came out and I feel so lucky and privileged to have documented  a new reality that my generation helped to create.  That editor has since left the business and it goes to stand that no matter how you feel about his politics or presidency, if you can’t see the magnitude of that moment as a citizen – let alone the editor of a newspaper – then you my friend, are dead.

Went through some of my old hard drives the other day and I found this photo I took off the pier in San Luis Obispo, CA.    I really love shots of surfers catching a perfect wave and seeing the ceiling of water curl over them, and I always admire the photographers who took on the challenging conditions to shoot them.   This was not quite as challenging, but you don’t often see a surfer losing a wave and biting the dust from an overhead perspective. 

And the great thing about Seattle snow days?  A lot of adults and dogs get one too!

Couldn’t help but notice the competitor’s team below her on the balance beam.  She didn’t fall, but she came close.

If there is one moment I wish I could freeze in time, it would be my father on Christmas Eve after everyone has gone to bed.  This year, I stopped wishing and shot it.  Happy New Year to all.

I love shooting sports of all kinds but do you know what I love more?  Shooting the less obvious happenings around the “main event”.   Even when shooting pro-sports I remember being just as/ if not more fascinated by what went on behind the scenes.  This was a high school gym, but so much more was happening in and around the basketball game I was photographing.  If you think about your time in the stands, I bet you know and remember  a whole world and experience unto itself.

Anyone who participates or used to participate in competitive sports can remember the tension before the start.  I photographed the Washington State Girl’s Swimming and Diving Championships a couple of weeks ago and in between events I became much more interested in the anxiety, excitement, and adrenaline of the competitors before they swam: the nervous chatter and the smiles, the jumping up and down, the looks of “what if?” in their eyes, the desperate search for songs on their ipods, and that one last breath on the starting block.  Even though it is an entirely different situation, the body must physiologically be responding in much of the same way that it does when preparing for war.

And for that reason, I didn’t envy the pit in their stomachs, because I also remember looking at the adults all bundled up with hot chocolate in their hands before the gun at cold, early cross country meets in high school while thinking “Why am I doing this? If only we could trade places”.   But spectators will never know the level of joy and relief that comes with working through that pain and discomfort only to come out on the other side saying, “Screw that hot chocolate, “I did it, I did it.”

“The scandal should start a national conversation—perhaps including congressional hearings—on how the pursuit of athletic glory has created sports subcultures on campuses in which no one is accountable to anyone….there is a common feature: a culture that turns athletes into gods and coaches into high priests. When eyes became so blind as to sweep child abuse under the table at one of the most revered programs in the country, the need for a culture of accountability in big-time college sports is more urgent than ever.”          Boston Globe editorial – author unknown.

Read this editorial in the Boston Globe and I can’t believe we even have to wake people up to this.  It jogged my memory back to an incident (which in no way comes even close to Sandusky’s crimes), but it shows how even on a smaller scale, the lust for winning can have everyone in a state of pathological denial.

I shot this frame at the Oak Park River Forest High School vs Fenwick High School Girl’s Water Polo Sectional in May 2009.  I spent many evenings and weekends covering sports at both of these schools and never ran into any trouble.   That day I was shooting at Fenwick in my usual position just behind the goal. There was a time-out called and I was just looking down at my camera when a huge hand slapped me and my camera so hard I went flying back.  After catching my camera I looked up and realized it was the Fenwick girl’s coach in a major huff after talking to one of the referees.  He was upset about a call and he chose to assault me because, well I guess I was standing there.

I looked up in disbelief and caught the eye of a few of the girls on the team and they had their mouths open but quickly said ” Oh, he just accidentally hit you with the ball.”  I was like “No, I don’t think so.”

I went over to confront him and he yelled back at me “Who are you anyway?” denying what he had done.  I looked over and I couldn’t believe that not one parent or coach was even taking my side.  All I could think was “this is a college preparatory Catholic High School?!”

I immediately went to find the athletic director and came across the boys coach who seemed concerned and listened to my story but that was about as far as it went.  After the game a couple of older female coaches were like “Oh, he didn’t mean it – he just gets like that and doesn’t even realize he is doing it.”

All I could think was, wow, scary that he is working with a bunch of young girls and exhibiting behavior like this and then they cover up for him?  But of course they would  and why?  They win state just about every year.

I immediately called the athletic director and the principal of the school and then reported it to the IHSA.  The principal called me back and was genuinely concerned and upset.  I eventually got a call from the athletic director and the coach himself who apologized to me and asked what he could do.  It turns out the entire incident was caught on camera, so there was no longer a way to deny it.

This made me feel better, but I was disappointed to learn that the coach was not suspended and he took his team down to win state a couple of weeks later.   So who cares if he slaps people around when he’s mad?

In the face of winning or not, when something bad happens, the power of denial is strong – especially when you want to believe the best in others.   After he slapped me I had to think “did that just happen?”    For a few days I even thought, “well maybe he did just hit me with the ball on accident.”

I was very thankful for the video that caught the incident.  I could feel like I wasn’t crazy and maybe he learned a lesson.

It’s just another reason to love cameras.

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”   Henry David Thoreau

WWII Veteran Marvin Kruse’s eyes: witnessed the beaches of Normandy when he landed there in 1944, discerned between comrade and enemy during street fights, kept a careful watch on mortars and artillery in 5 battles including the Battle of the Bulge, and experienced the cheers of the French while marching underneath the Arche de Triomphe during the Liberation of Paris. |

I was lucky enough to photograph those eyes last year in Franklin Park, Ill.    And after photographing and speaking with Marvin, it was also an honor to be  able to capture joy and hope in his eyes.

Thank you U.S. veterans and Mr. Kruse.