Homage to Al Paglione

I had a fun assignment the day before New Year's Eve to shoot some footage of the preparation in Times Square and of the testing of the famous New Year's crystal ball. One thing stopped me in my tracks. It was like a huge flash bulb going off triggering a memory from more than 30 years ago. I realized for the first time in a very long time that I see what I see and the way I see it in part because of a few special people who "raised" me when I was not quite 20 years old, eager to learn everything I could about photojournalism. My dream growing up was to be a newspaper photographer as I spent most of my teens reading the bylines under the amazing photos published in The Bergen Record of Hackensack, New Jersey. While I was a college intern at the paper, I would often ride along with some of the photographers. It was like sitting in the dugout at Shea Stadium with my heroes.

One, Al Paglione, made a great impression on me. He passed away in April, 2010 while I was away on assignment and I didn't hear about his death until several weeks later.

Al had a way with people--always happy, smiling, and complimentary. He put his subjects at ease. He loved being a photographer. And he had an extraordinary passion for finding great angles, using light as his palate, and capturing great moments. In the late 70's and early 80's newspapers were experimenting in color. He was child-like with his enthusiasm to master color photojournalism. Once, when I was assisting him on a shoot I mistakenly plugged his radio remote strobe trigger into the wall outlet. It exploded in my hands. He ribbed me about that for some time, but you could tell he loved teaching, talking tech, and discussing story ideas. He was the master of the photo essay.

So the other day while capturing some of the activities in and around Times Square (including the police installing barricades, men in cherry pickers fixing a Jumbotron's LED screen, and a Mickey Mouse Santa posing with tourists in front of the Disney store), I saw something and immediately thought of Al.

High above a riser a technician on a ladder was installing some lights. Nothing earth-shattering about that. But, when I shifted to my left a few feet, my line-of-sight placed him in silhouette between the Times Square tower (the one where the ball drops) and another building in the distance. Just that slight move made your eye go directly to that area of the frame first where the man was working. Had Al been driving by, I know he would have spotted it, too. He would have stopped, grabbed his 180mm, and fired off some images. He would have "worked it" if there was something else he could find that would have added meaning--or humor--to the shot.

With my tripod, I leveled the camera, shifted the lens using the 2X converter in super telephoto, and framed the technician very tight in the viewfinder, under-exposing a stop so the sky wouldn't blow out the image. Then I began zooming out to reveal a busy Times Square, slowly opening up he iris to compensate for the dark landscape. What worked was that the figure of the technician stood out and told the story I was assigned to tell.

Al would have liked that.

I last saw him about 18 years ago and I wish I stayed in touch. I'm sorry I missed saying goodbye to him. But I realized the other day, that Al is with me more than I'm conscious of whenever I have a video camera on my shoulder or my still camera up to my eye.

Thank you, Al Paglione.



















You can read about what a special person Al Paglione was and about his accomplishments here: http://www.northjersey.com/obituaries/042910_paglione.html