Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2011 22:43:10 GMT -5
The photo below is one of my favorite from my news photographer/reporter era. The image shown here isn't great because it's made off the one existing print I have. The negative was sent to a magazine for an article they were doing and it "disappeared."
This shot was taken in the summer of 1982. A year earlier, two Idaho Fish & Game officers had tried to arrest the man in the wheel chair, a self-styled "Mountain Man" for illegally poaching bobcats. The violator pulled a pistol and killed the two officers then fled. A year later, after a nationwide manhunt, the man was run to ground in Nevada and wounded in his foot during a shootout with officers. There were a lot of people who live in the Western backcountry who considered the guy a hero. So when he was brought back to Idaho from Nevada--a400-mile trip, there were plenty of guards.
I shot this photo as the fugitive was wheeled into the county courthouse at the end of the trip. He looked up and saw me shooting pictures and I thought the expression on his face was interesting. Despite his problems he appeared to be interested--even curious--about what I was doing. He didn't speak but as the passed me he sort of nodded his head in acknowledgement.
At his trial he convinced the jurors he "feared for his life" and was only convicted of manslaughter--even though he had shot both men in the back of the head after wounding them. Fortunately the trial judge imposed the maximum sentence and he wound up serving almost 30 years in prison--probably a worse sentence for someone like him that death would have been. He was released a couple of years ago.
Even as contrasty as this image is, (it was a bright sunny day) I think it is much more effective in black and white that it would have been in color.
This shot was taken in the summer of 1982. A year earlier, two Idaho Fish & Game officers had tried to arrest the man in the wheel chair, a self-styled "Mountain Man" for illegally poaching bobcats. The violator pulled a pistol and killed the two officers then fled. A year later, after a nationwide manhunt, the man was run to ground in Nevada and wounded in his foot during a shootout with officers. There were a lot of people who live in the Western backcountry who considered the guy a hero. So when he was brought back to Idaho from Nevada--a400-mile trip, there were plenty of guards.
I shot this photo as the fugitive was wheeled into the county courthouse at the end of the trip. He looked up and saw me shooting pictures and I thought the expression on his face was interesting. Despite his problems he appeared to be interested--even curious--about what I was doing. He didn't speak but as the passed me he sort of nodded his head in acknowledgement.
At his trial he convinced the jurors he "feared for his life" and was only convicted of manslaughter--even though he had shot both men in the back of the head after wounding them. Fortunately the trial judge imposed the maximum sentence and he wound up serving almost 30 years in prison--probably a worse sentence for someone like him that death would have been. He was released a couple of years ago.
Even as contrasty as this image is, (it was a bright sunny day) I think it is much more effective in black and white that it would have been in color.