{"id":1918,"date":"2013-05-16T23:45:39","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T03:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/?p=1918"},"modified":"2014-06-07T07:41:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-07T11:41:00","slug":"track-and-the-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/track-and-the-camera\/","title":{"rendered":"Track and the Camera"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Rachel Deena ’13. Click images to enlarge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Preparation for the inauguration of the Williston Northampton Athletic Hall of Fame<\/a> — whose first class will be enshrined on Reunion Weekend, June 6-8<\/a> — has involved looking at a great many photographs.\u00a0 I hadn’t thought about this much before, but it has recently occurred to me that some sports are more photogenic than others.\u00a0 Before I sink my own ship by suggesting that, for example, all field hockey photos look the same (they don’t!), or that golf images tend to be ruined by golfer’s outfits (can I get back to you?), let me go out on a limb and suggest that one of\u00a0 the sports that has produced an awful lot of really exciting photography over the years at Williston is Track and Field.<\/p>\n

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Golf, late 1930s. Those checked trousers and two-tone shoes have never gone out of style. (William Rittase)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are undoubtedly reasons for this, some of which, truthfully, may reflect this writer’s prejudices.\u00a0 I mean, preferences.<\/em>\u00a0 So we won’t delve too deeply into the psycho-sociological issues of why, for example, from the photographer’s point of view, helmets and sticks can both be dealt with, but not usually at the same time.<\/p>\n

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(Yu Chen Wang ’15)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OK, let’s be serious.\u00a0 Is it that track and field athletes, perhaps more than any others, achieve pinnacles of effort and passion that are concentrated in the briefest of durations, perhaps a few seconds, perhaps even less?\u00a0 Yes, this happens in other sports, but I submit — without meaning to diminish any athlete’s accomplishment — that most of the time the brilliant goal-out-of-nowhere, the impossible catch, is reactive<\/em>.\u00a0 For the track and field athlete, successful execution is entirely studied<\/em>.\u00a0 And the great jump, the winning acceleration derives from someplace deep within the athlete’s psyche, a place where the soul is quite alone, where all that remains is abandonment to the moment.<\/p>\n

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(Yu Chen Wang ’15)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Or perhaps this is nonsense.\u00a0 But the camera has captured some extraordinary track and field moments.\u00a0 The older images on this page are the work of William Rittase (1894-1968), a Philadelphia-based photographer who specialized in industrial images, but who did some very special catalog work at both Williston and Northampton School in the 1930s and ’40s.\u00a0 His photos are even more remarkable when one considers that he favored a large-format camera that was not conducive to “action” photography at all.<\/p>\n

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(William Rittase)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As many are aware, there is a photographic tradition at Williston Northampton.\u00a0 Bob Couch ’50 mentored student photographers beginning in the 1960s and began to teach photo courses in the ’70s.\u00a0 That program is now in the capable hands of Edward Hing ’77, himself a Couch prot\u00e9g\u00e9.\u00a0 We offer seven different photography and film courses plus evening lecture programs that bring world-class photographers and photojournalists to campus.\u00a0 And wherever one looks on campus, there are talented kids with cameras looking back.\u00a0 We’re proud to feature some of their work here as well.<\/p>\n

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(Rachel Deena ’13)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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(William Rittase)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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William Rittase<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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(Yu Chen Wang ’15)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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(William Rittase)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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(Rachel Deena ’13)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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(William Rittase)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We welcome your comments and questions!\u00a0 Please use the reply form below.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preparation for the inauguration of the Williston Northampton Athletic Hall of Fame — whose first class will be enshrined on Reunion Weekend, June 6-8 — has involved looking at a great many photographs.\u00a0 I hadn’t thought about this much before, but it has recently occurred to me that some sports are more photogenic than others.\u00a0 … Continue reading Track and the Camera<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[111,13,12,43],"tags":[230,229,106,232,227,228,231,233],"class_list":["post-1918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fine-performing-arts","category-sports-history","category-williston-academy","category-williston-northampton-school","tag-bob-couch","tag-edward-hing","tag-photography","tag-rachel-deena","tag-track","tag-track-and-field","tag-william-rittase","tag-yu-chen-wang"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1918"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2630,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1918\/revisions\/2630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}