Odd brushes with celebrities Part 1- Joe Pesci (2006)

Being in journalism for over three decades, you tend to run into celebrities, especially in the New York Metro area. Some encounters are fun, some, not as much (see future post on Lawrence Taylor) In 2006, I met Academy Award winning actor Joe Pesci as he attended his annual Pesci's Celebrity Skins Game at Brooklake Country Club in Florham Park, NJ.

This was also an annual assignment I enjoyed shooting because, well, it was June and I got to hang out on a golf course all day with A-list celebs like Pesci, Mark Wahlberg, Angie Everhart etc. I got a few images of Pesci warming up, hitting some drives for the cameras. Then I ran down the hill to get a different angle. As I was shooting, I noticed he was chipping and not driving as I heard a thump….thump…thump in my general direction. I looked away from my viewfinder to see Pesci taking a dead eye in my direction as he was chipping.

It was a great day, as a charity even, everyone is on their best behavior. Pesci always worked the crowd like a pro. Long story short, he never did hit me, (not sure if that was by design or not) and I quickly grabbed up a souvenir ball from that day to tell the story 14 years later.

Painful lessons

As any new employee, I’ve tried to learn painful lessons early and not repeat them over the course of my career. One particularly painful lesson was the one I learned during my very first major job for the Albany, NY bureau of United Press International.

As journalists, we are trained or born with the instinct to get the best story (or photo) and more importantly get it first. As a 24-year-old ‘photojournalist,’ I was assigned to shoot Vice President George H.W. Bush throwing out the first pitch at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Game at Doubleday Field in Cooperstown on July 29, 1985.

I have gained much wisdom over the past 35 years, and this day is never far from my thoughts. I got in position, my camera to my eye and BOOM a giant figure stepped in front of my lens. I shouted, “Hey, what the hell!!” and looked up to meet eyes with 6’ 2” 200 lb Red Sox left fielder Jim Rice, looking not so happy at my sudden cry. In that time I had missed the photo of the ceremonial pitch and moved positions to get a photo of George H. W. Bush shaking hands with Sox catcher Rich Gedman. The image was fine, enough to put on the wire without having to reveal my screw up, but not nearly as good as the image by veteran AP photographer Jim McKnight who was standing in a much better position.

By the nest morning, I thought all had been forgotten until I saw Jim’s photo in USA Today. I was crushed beyond belief. I vowed never to get my butt kicked like that again by the competition. In all honesty, of course it has happened over the past three and a half decades. When you are blessed enough to surround yourself with some of the best shooters in the country. Shit happens. But, thankfully, my win/loss percentage has been enough to keep me in the majors.

To keep myself always humble, from that day on, I have carried that photo with me. It has traveled through every job, apartment, relationship and has been the one constant in my ever changing life. Cherish your failures and learn from them, each has made me a better photojournalist, and as I continue to try and make that one perfect image, I make mistakes.

Luckily, for me and my clients, they are far less often and traumatic than that hot summer afternoon, when Jim Rice and Jim McKnight teamed up on me to teach me the photojournalism best lesson I ever learned.

Behind the Photos–Mike Tyson: 1990

One of my favorite portraits came (again) out of just dumb luck, both of timing and the way the light happened to fall on the subject. I was scheduled to cover a boxing program during the Summer of 1990 at Waterloo Village in Stanhope, NJ. We had heard that former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson might make an appearance. The timing wasn’t the best, Tyson had just lost the title (and his first fight ever) to Buster Douglas about 6 months before.

As I wandered around the restored 19th Century canal town in between fights, I saw a slight commotion in the distance. Following a faint light, I saw seated in a folding metal chair Mike Tyson, a larger than life character,  looking very reserved and humble. As people shouted to get his attention, Tyson just sat quietly, not rude, just seeming to be lost in thought.

It was extremely dark with only a couple tungsten lights shining on him for the interview he was about to give. I pushed my T-Max to about 6400 asa and held my breath as I dropped to one knee shooting about three frames at around 1/30 sec. After the interview began, I left thinking I didn’t get anything worth keeping. Arriving back to the darkroom I push processed my film to the limit still, the negatives were very thin.

Making a couple prints I was shocked that I had indeed captured a moment. Something I hadn’t even realized while pushing the shutter. This is what Ive always loved about photography. From viewfinder to negative (or digital card) to darkroom or computer, sometimes you’re able to pull out something from nothing. And on this night twenty years ago in Stanhope, I was lucky enough to captured a sensitive, introspective portrait of the “baddest man on the planet.”