R.I.P. Bob Feller

A while back I had the opportunity to photograph hall of fame pitcher Bob Feller. Today, he passed away. When I met him, he was in his late eighties, and was conducting a pitching workshop for middle schoolers in Westport, CT.

Here's a few images; click on the image if you'd like to use them in your publication:

Bob Feller Hall of Fame Pitcher - Images by Shelley Cryan

First Base Collision

Baseball Highlights - Images by Shelley Cryan


On a recent baseball assignment for the Stamford Advocate, I caught these two players in a collision at first base. The batter had laid down a bunt, bringing both the pitcher and the first baseman in. The second baseman (dark blue) ran over to cover first, took the throw, and tagged the bag for the force. A micro-second, later, the runner collided with him and they both went airborne.


For a minute it looked more like lacrosse than baseball....

Bridgeport Schools

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been assigned to photograph in two Bridgeport CT public schools. There, I could see the impact an educator can have on students, and how much of the real work of building society happens within schoolhouse walls.

Those who know Bridgeport, Connecticut's largest city, know Bridgeport's challenges. Those who know Bridgeport public schools know those challenges are met on a very tight budget.

The first school I visited was Hall school. That day, they were being presented with a prestigious award for academic achievement. The principal sets the tone in this building -- one of respect, love of learning, and neighborliness. While she'll be the first to tell you the school's success is a team effort -- and it is -- it's also a testament to the impact of an individual.

Here are the Hall school students and their principal:

A week or so later, the newspaper was invited to Bassick High School, where a science teacher from India was just finishing a three-year teaching assignment. He said it was quite an adjustment -- when he teaches in India, the schools are better equipped and staff lab assistants handle duties he's been asked to do in Bridgeport. But he said he enjoyed his stay immensely, and, judging by the rapport he has with his class, his students will miss him dearly.

The day I visited, he was guiding his class -- mostly juniors and seniors -- in a physics lab involving sound waves. Here he is with his students:

From grade school to high school, these Bridgeport students are reaping the benefits of learning with professionals who love their jobs.

Thanksgiving Football -- Greenwich at Staples High School

An annual tradition -- wake up early, make side dishes, then shoot a football game. Come home, put the turkey in the oven, and send the pictures to a newspaper client. Works for me.

This year's matchup was Greenwich High School vs. Staples High School in Westport, CT.

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller

Baseball? In November?

I'm not sure why I'm thinking baseball today. Maybe because it's gray and cold, and I'm sending my thoughts to a warm summer day....

Anyway, when I think of baseball I sometimes remember the afternoon I spent taking photos Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller. He was giving a baseball clinic to middle-school-age kids in Westport, CT. I was on a freelance assignment for a local newspaper.

Feller came dressed in his full Cleveland Indians baseball uniform. Feller showed the kids his secret (or not-so-secret, I guess) grip, shared some tips about the mental aspects of being a successful pitcher, and stayed as long as he needed to, to sign autographs.

Here are some images from that day, available for editorial license if you click through to the gallery:


Bob Feller Hall of Fame Pitcher - Images by Shelley Cryan

Happy Halloween 2009

Ghouls and goblins roamed the earth, or at least Norwalk, CT, on Saturday night. I was lucky enough to be working for the Norwalk Hour that day -- truly a fun day to be a photojournalist.


10 09 Halloween - Images by Shelley Cryan

Earthplace Water Testing Detectives

Sometimes everybody's happy.

Take this recent example from a Stamford Advocate photo assignment.

A local oysterman, Norm Bloom, hates it when the Long Island Sound becomes polluted, because when bacteria levels are too high, his operation is shut down until the water is safe again. Shellfish filter the water, so if the water's toxic, the shellfish are no good. It's in Bloom's best interest for the source of the problem to be located quickly, so he can get back to work. It's also in the best interest of everyone who lives near the Sound to have good water quality so they can swim and fish in it, too.

Enter the good folks at Earthplace. They're watchdogs for water quality -- they test it regularly. Many of the testers are volunteers, including enterprising high school students who do some testing as part of a senior year project. Their lab, though, is in Westport. It's a few miles from the waters they test, so they need to factor in manhours for transporting water samples.

So Bloom was putting up a new shellfish processing building on his property on the edge of the Sound. I don't know who asked who, but in any case Bloom ended up donating lab space in that building to Earthplace, so they could test the waters more easily. He even lets them use dock space for their boat.

Here's a photo I took of Dick Harris, Harbor Watch/ River Watch Director, at the new lab:



The new lab, right on the water, will enable the Earthplace team to work more quickly. As an example of what they can do, they told me that last summer they had been doing their regular testing and noticed a dramatic spike in bacteria levels.

They quickly shifted into detective mode.

What would cause such a spike? There hadn't been significant rain, so they figured it wasn't runoff. Standard seepage wouldn't cause such a big spike. There had to have been a change somewhere in one of the storm drains. Because they test so often and so regularly, they were able to quickly narrow down the general area of the source of the problem.

A check with the city's building department uncovered that some construction was going on in that area. The building department had gotten a recent call from a contractor with a question about the location of sanitary and storm drains. Aha! There must have been a mixup -- the contractor had inadvertently connected a sanitary line to the storm drain. That was it! The repair was done, the levels returned to normal, and the Sound was safe again. The detective work had taken a mere four hours.

Bloom's happy, the Earthplace scientists are happy, the student interns are happy, and the large population who lives near the Sound is happy. And of course, the shellfish are happy. Until they get eaten, I guess.

Gone Fishing

Nick Cardillo, Darien, casts his line out into Stamford Harbor from the east side of Kosciuszko Park on Friday afternoon, June 12. Cardillo grew up in Stamford and remembers when the park wasn't as inviting. Now he comes to the park frequently, often to fish. "If it's bass I like to eat them... otherwise I throw it back," he says.

Vlad the Wrestler

I've been lucky to have photographed many performers during my career, but a recent Friday night was a first -- I was assigned to cover professional wrestling.

The men on this circuit are looking to break into the big time, the WWE, and barnstorm local halls to gain a following.

One of the wrestlers is Vlad Joseph, aka Vicious. Wrestling "is really hard to do," says Vicious, who trains extensively. He cultivates a reputation in the ring as a tough guy. "Being disliked isn't enough," he says, "you have to be hated."


He told me he feels destined for wrestling somehow -- he said his mom liked to watch wrestling when she was pregnant with him, and he grew up in a family that enjoys tuning in to WWE.

Preparations backstage are serious:



This night, Vicious was happily wrestling Snyper when Jalil Patel surprised them by jumping into the ring. Patel dispatched Snyper quickly, then turned his attention to Vicious, launching him airborne:


When the dust settled, Patel's surprise entry forced the refs to nullify the match. Later, Vicious signed autographs for some loyal fans.


All in a night's work.

Summer's Here!

The Memorial Day parade kicks off my favorite season...

Senegal Guide Published

Hot off the presses: Insight Guide to Gambia and Senegal. I'm happy to say it includes a handful of images the publisher licensed from me. Most of those were images I created in Podor, Senegal.

Quite the multi-continent transaction. I'm located in North America, I created the images in Africa, the publisher is in Asia, and the publisher's representative (who contacted me) is in Europe.

100-year-old artist and portrait phobia

Update May 2009: The image at the bottom won in a photo contest and is hangs in a gallery in Fairfield, CT.

The 100-year-old artist I photographed recently was perhaps the most reluctant photo subjects I've come across. Her aide warned me as I walked in the door.

Glenora Richards is famed for her beautiful miniature portraits, complete paintings just a bit larger than a book of matches. She still creates them, without the use of a magnifying glass. Dozens of them -- each one exquisite, some perhaps created 70 or more years ago -- lined her living room walls.

"I look like a rhinoceros!" she yelled after looking at a head-and-shoulders image of herself on my LCD.

Her aide said, "so why don't you smile? You'll look better!"

"You try smiling when you have no teeth!" She had a point.

Another challenge was that I was reluctant to ask her to move from her chair, since she looked pretty comfortable there, and hey, she is 100 years old. Gotta respect that.

Richards is a great conversationalist, and her winning personality, plus my professional pride, had me trying to figure out how to get three different images, given the constraints. I knew the newspaper had planned a lovely feature on her, and figured they'd need three: One for the lede, one for the jump, and one for insurance, in case they were lucky enough to have a bit more space in that day's paper.

After Richards rejected yet another head-and-shoulders image -- a go-to composition -- I started looking around the room and spied a poster on the wall. It was an enlargement of a magazine cover, featuring a seated young woman with her head resting in one hand. Miniature paintings decorated a table in front of her.

"Is that you?" I asked.

"Yes," she looked up.

"Do you like that picture?" I asked. The picture was likely taken nearly 70 years ago.

"Yes, I do," she beamed.

"So let's recreate it, OK?"

She loved that idea, and I asked her aide to help me set it up. The aide directed me to a TV tray in the kitchen, and I set that up in front of the artist's chair. I asked if I could bring over some of her paintings to place on the table, like in the old poster. She agreed, and I used some tissue boxes and salt and pepper shakers to prop them up. I asked her to put her head in one hand, like in the poster, and she did. We got this frame:





The second picture was easy. I asked her to hold one of the miniatures -- a painting of her late husband, when he was in his 40's -- and I snapped a detail shot:




I got the idea for the third and final image while I was taking the detail shot. I noticed I had to position myself carefully so as not to get a reflection on the glass of the miniature. I figured I'd use that type of reflection in the next shot, which took only a moment -- with careful attention to positioning -- to compose:




Happy 100th birthday, Mrs. Richards. I hope I get to photograph you for your 101st.

Soccer star Marcus Tracy

One of the things I like best about this job is that I get to meet some interesting people, from all professions. Recently I caught up with Marcus Tracy, a soccer phenom who won the Hermann trophy, awarded to the best college soccer player of the year.

He lives in the area, having graduated from Wake Forest, and stays in shape with the help of trainer E.J. Zebro.

Driving over to the gym, I'm expecting grey cinderblock walls, high ceilings, ugly flourescent lighting, ya know, standard gym decor. When I saw the red walls, I knew this was gonna be fun.

Bonuses: the ceilings were low and painted an orangey-yellow, perfect for bouncing a flash and warming up the light. The windows added a cool blue contrast. There were lots of mirrors that, once I positioned myself to stay out of 'em, added some nice depth.

Tracy and Zebro just went about their business, and I had a great time experimenting with angles, light bounces, and composition in this super room.

Rock Concert

When I walked into the club concert venue, I figured it might be tricky getting images for the newspaper. The band was playing, but the lights were off, as in no light at all.

Sure, there was a faint glow from the streetlights outside coming through a window, but that was only good enough to keep me from tripping over people. Even at a high ISO, no light is no light. I had a flash in my bag, but I hate to use that at a concert. Wrecks the mood and the resulting image only captures that wrecked mood.

So I waited. Surely there must be SOME lights, sometime, right?

Fortunately, there were two strobes set up on the side and slightly behind the band that would go on for a second or two every few minutes. I positioned myself to take best advantage of those lights, adjusted my settings, then waited some more.

Sure enough, the lights blinked again. When you're shooting at 1/100th of a second, a full second of light is really plenty of time to get an image. Two seconds is plenty long enough to wait for some decent emotion, especially when your subject is an energetic rock band.

The images below are of one of the bands, Ice Nine Kills. The image up top is Mercury Sky.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

For Monday morning's assignments, I hopped between neighboring New Canaan and Norwalk, CT for MLK Day celebrations. People in both towns seemed eager to embrace the teachings of Dr. King. It was heartwarming to see how one man has touched so many lives.

New Canaan (1% African-American, median houshold income $142K):




Norwalk (16% African-American, median household income $60K):

Trumbull Band at Obama Inauguration

The Trumbull High School Band will perform at Tuesday's Obama inauguration. Here they are last month at Trumbull Town Hall, performing for Good Morning America and loading donated coats into a truck:

High School Ballet Dancer

It's not so surprising that many photographers enjoy photographing dancers, especially a dancer as talented as Raymond Pinto. It's a challenge of trying to capture such grace and beauty in a fraction of a second. Perhaps it can't really be done, but I enjoy trying.

Sunset Runner

Recently I photographed some high school athletes during pre-season practices. I had finished up all my assignments, thinking how happy I was that I got everything done before dark, and before the predicted rains came.

As night began to fall, I was walking east toward my car with my gear. I turned around and enjoyed one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen in a while. I hurried back to the high school track, pulled out a small flash, and snapped a few frames. The red sky lasted maybe 3 or 4 minutes. As the sun dropped behind the horizon, the sky turned black and the clouds opened up. Everyone scurried for cover, and it was over.

High School Basketball Portrait

I took a photo of the Norwalk High School girls varsity basketball team to run full-page on the cover of a local paper's winter ports preview section. The team had posted an impressive record last season, and the sports editor figured they'd be a good team to highlight. Turns out the captains are also good sports, too.

We did the photoshoot moments before their first scrimmage of the season. It worked out great, since the players were all suited up already. I had scouted the location earlier, and had come up with this courtyard in the school. It had three things going for it: I liked the warm lights in the background, it was close to the gym so we'd maximize the short time we had together, and since it was freezing outside, no one else was around. I used a couple battery-powered strobes in umbrellas to light 'em.

We did a couple of traditional poses first. The toughest part was getting them all to be serious, since we all had a hard time not laughing. The photo above gives you an idea. It works OK. We had a couple of minutes before the game started, so we figured we'd try something different. Sometimes the best -- and most fun -- shots come when I know I have a "safe" shot in the camera already.

The players climbed up on a rock in the courtyard, figuring we'd get a "we're tall and tough" pose, with the added benefit of getting that nice blue sky in the background. While they were getting ready, I snapped this unposed frame for kicks:



But we weren't quite done. We were having such a good time together, that I asked them if they might be willing to jump off the rock. I was a bit nervous, because I sure didn't want anyone hurting themselves. But they insisted they could do it. We talked through how everyone should position themselves. We only had time for two shots.

The first shot we got a hand out of the frame. Below is the second shot -- my favorite and the girls' favorite from the whole session. It's the one that ran full page.

Bridgeport Sound Tigers -- Back at the Arena

I was back at the Arena at Harbor Yard last night, this time on assignment for the Connecticut Post for professional hockey. Same place as last post, only this time it was on ice. That's Pascal Morency of the Sound Tigers blowing by Lowell's Benoit Mondou.

It got me thinking that I'm on a theme here, since the second-to-last post was about a guy who was helping to put an ice rink into a theater.

Below, Sound Tiger Kurtis McLean gets horizontal for a shot on goal against Lowell goalie Jeff Frazee.