Professional photographer, Vincent Pugliese, shares his love of sports, one picture and one memory at a time.
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Editors Note: Vincent Pugliese has spent the past 20 years traveling the country taking sports photographs for a living. Each picture tells a story. Each picture stores a memory. Each a window into sport, and how we connect to it. In ‘Beyond the Lens,’ Good Men Project Sports selects one photograph and tells the story behind the shot.
. . . a sleepy rainy day at the ballpark…
HUNTINGBERG, INDIANA
My photography career has been built on the advice of successful photographers and editors. Any compliment I’ve ever been given can be traced back to the guidance from someone better than me that shared information that I didn’t already have.
This photograph above won a bunch of regional and national awards more than decade ago. I’ve been rewarded and complimented often for it. But it is more the results of following the successful people who guided me than any talent I possess.
I was assigned to photograph a Frontier League baseball game between the Dubious County Dragons and the River City Rascals in Huntingburg, Indiana. I arrived at League Stadium, where a portion of the movie “A League of Their Own” was filmed. I was greeted in the parking lot of the cozy stadium by a massive downpour and dark skies.
It was obvious there was not going to be a game that afternoon. My natural instinct was to call my editor, let him know the game wasn’t happening, and grab lunch at that Mexican joint I had just driven past.
Wired in my head were the words “Never come back without a photograph,” which has been instructed to me from all of the best editors I’ve worked for. I begrudgingly left my dry car for the soggy stadium. I walked through the dark, damp corridor to the aroma of freshly popped corn. It smelled like there was a game to play. Looking towards the tarped over field, there wasn’t a ballplayer in site.
Walking past the clubhouse of the Dragons, I stopped outside to see if I could make some sort of image of a player stretching, running or just joking around. It would be really awesome if a few of them decided to go play in the rain. None of that happened.
I walked to the seats behind home plate to see if I could make some type of pictorial rain feature but my creativity was stuck like a baseball in the mud. My mind was now shifting towards the burrito down the street.
It was then that someone from the team spotted me.
“The games gonna be cancelled, son,” he said dismissively while walking by. I nodded, knowing full well that it was easy for hm to say. I need to come back with a photograph.
I heard the voice of Bruce Baumann, my boss at the time and former National Geographic photo editor.
“There is always a photograph. You just haven’t looked hard enough.”
I wandered around the stands of the empty stadium. It’s somewhere, I kept telling myself. It wasn’t in the bullpen. It wasn’t on the field. It wasn’t by the locker rooms.
It was in the Lazy Boy chair in the stands behind first base. That’s always the last place to look.
For some reason, the team had a recliner placed inside of the stadium. Maybe it was for moments just like this. And nestled in this recliner was the Dubois County Dragon’s Pitcher Gavin Marshall napping comfortably while the rain fell.
I fired a few frames before Marshall heard me behind him. waking from his slumber, he turned and smiled. In a moment, I got my photograph.
Baumann was right, again. There is always a photograph. Sometimes it takes more time. Some you have to work harder to find. But there is always a photograph. And I even got my burrito two hours later.
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Photo Credit: Author
This post originally appeared on the Into The Uncommon Blog.
The more I read of Vincent, I am realizing that he does have a unique talent in media. Obviously, he is an excellent photographer and he is somehow able to access many top-notch venues and sports events. He is also an excellent story-teller and is able to weave in a lesson. I actually left this article, having learned something. “Never come back without a photograph.” This is true on so many levels and arenas of the creative arts and business in general.