This year marks SPORTS ’N SPOKES’ (S’NS) 50th anniversary, and as part of the yearlong celebration of this major milestone, this special department is dedicated to the best columns from founder Cliff Crase. This month’s Classic Cliff from the May 1980 issue prominently features longtime S’NS photographer Curt Beamer, who passed away May 25.
The old saying “one picture speaks a thousand words,” is an axiom that publicists live and die by. Photos not only make a story, but they display dimensions that cannot be described in writing since the meaning is in the eye of the beholder.
Why all this philosophical prattle? Well, some people think a photo is a photo is a photo. But magazine editors will go into a conniption fit if readers even think that.
There are photographers for umpteen different subjects, but there are only a few rare photographers talented enough to use the proper setting, angle and range to capture the great photos. It takes years of work and a great deal of imagination to shoot wheelchair sports and end up with good action shots. A novice can snap a racer zipping along the track at breakneck speed, but the photo when developed pictures the athlete standing still. A perfectly executed maneuver if taken at the wrong angle, or just snapped with no timing, may be developed into a photo with a super athlete draped over the wheelchair like a dead chicken.
It is quite simple. Poor photos do an injustice to wheelchair sports.
SPORTS ‘N SPOKES is very fortunate to work with two photographers we think are the best in the country. Their professionalism, imagination and creativity resulting in excellent photos have contributed greatly to the success of this magazine and to the image wheelchair sports leaves with the uninformed public. We use the best photos of the best athletes to educate, as well as entertain the sports-mided public.
Curt Beamer, chief staff photographer for The News-Gazette in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, (cornfield capital of the world and site of the University of Illinois) is our number one camera toter east of the Mississippi. Curt is the best in wheelchair basketball and football. (Tim Nugent from the U. dragged Curt out to shoot football many wee hours of many Big Ten football Saturdays.) Beamer is no slouch with track and field, swimming and all the other NCAA sports, but his forte is wheelchair basketball. Curt is the master of innovative camera angles and has decades of experience in and around the University wheelchair sports program, which is steeped in wheelchair sports history.
John Brennan, on the west side of the Mississippi in San Jose, is the other photographer that we rate up on top. John has only a half dozen years of wheelchair sports action to his credit, but this gentleman has ideas and an imagination that is second to none. John is not at a lack for wheelchair events in his immediate area. De Anza College has a top-notch sports program, as well as the Bay Area, which has a whole armful of wheelchair basketball teams and dozens of long-distance racers. So, John has quite a sports sector to cover.
After working national events with John and Curt, I have drawn many parallels. Both shutter snappers are friendly, quiet, hard-working, deep thinkers, very professional and take pride in their work and are fun to be around.
Photos don’t come easy and good photos are at premium. If you think the art of clicking a camera is easy, just follow Curt or John around an event someday. Not only is their paraphernalia heavy (photographers tend to carry two of everything and a few more for good measure), but their antics throughout the course of an event are strenuous.
They have to be contortionists and long-distance joggers; they pray a lot on their knees and some of their positions are questionable but when the photos come out of the bath, the readers love ’em.
Curt Beamer and John Brennan are a credit to their profession; indispensable to wheelchair sports in creating a superb image for the public. Curt and John make us look good.