Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Sometimes, the best photos aren't published

  Sometimes, the best photographs that I take aren't published in The Mercury or online. And that's what happened Monday night when I covered a wrestling match at Spring Ford High.
   I was shooting the 106 pound bout between Parkland's Tom Yankanich and Spring Ford's Nick Suero. It was very competitive and a good match to shoot photos. Both wrestlers were active and they attacked and countered each others moves. When Suero was down, he constantly tried to get to his feet only to have Yankanich take him back to the mat. Up and down and then they faced me and I shot the photograph, at left, that didn't get published.
   Suero was in mid air as Yankanich swung him to the mat. Click. The photo is probably one of the better wrestling pictures I've taken this year. It didn't run due to the fact that even though it was my favorite shot of the entire match, to use it would have been inaccurate. Parkland won the match overall 41-15 and the shot would have been good if the Parkland wrestler would have won the bout. But the fact is, Suero of Spring Ford battled back and won his individual duel by a score of 5-3.
   To use the photo would have been a disservice to Suero. The picture shows Yankanich in control making it look like he would have won the match. I have to be fair and honest with the coverage. It's tough sometimes when you grab a good shot that has to end up on the cutting room floor. Unused and unseen. But I want to properly portray what is going on and the right thing was to choose a different shot showing Suero being the superior wrestler on that day.


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