JBS 1982-2010

When I was just starting out and interested only in capturing the running world I was immersed in around me (hey, it was without question the glory days of distance running and I was in mecca) I stumbled down to Hayward Field for the Nike OTC marathon on a typical Oregon Sunday morning. As you can see it was a miserable and rainy day, but Joan Benoit (not yet Samuelson) didn't care as she blazed to what was then an American Best in 2:26:11.

After moving to Maine a couple years ago, and having Joanie run up behind me on the roads, initiating a friendship and a continuing training partnership, I went through my old scrapbooks and there she was - three images I had snapped at the finish line of her victory.

And here we are 28 years later. I'm still snapping pictures of her (Runner's World magazine Heroes issue 2008) and she's still setting records.

ABOVE is the most recent picture I've taken of her, standing on an ice floe near her home in Maine - just down the road from mine.

Of course I missed the 26 years in between when she went on to an Olympic gold medal and world record.

TODAY SHE SET AN AMERICAN RECORD FOR 50+ WOMEN IN THE CHERRY BLOSSOM 10 MILER IN D.C. IN A BLAZING 1:00:52 (that's about 6:05 per mile!)

Wow! This is a great career I've chosen. Hers is not too bad either.

ANOTHER CONTEST

These images were submitted to the PDN Curator Photo Contest, which looks for undiscovered fine art photography. The top prize includes a solo exhibition in NYC.

My challenge on this submission was to take a documentary project and present it in a way that makes it stand alone without the storyline. Well, after many, many edits and shuffling of images I found these six images of disabled soldiers in the SUDS scuba-diving program in Florida that worked very nicely together.

These were picked because I found I couldn't present a group of images from this project without honoring the story of their journey from near-death to new life, but my hope is that the pictures will tell enough a story without the need for accompanying text.

I did choose to "treat" the images artfully by presenting them as toned black and white images. This was designed to distill the content of the image without being distracted by color. The power of these pictures is in the faces and body language of each soldier, and the vividness of the environment takes away from that.

So, is this gallery of images 'fine art'?

Does it appeal to you purely on its aesthetic and emotional merits, or is is just another news story?

Let me know what you think.....