The Journal’s first long-distance photo coverage: A deadly school explosion near Lansing in 1927.

Photographers have snapped up many awards

Strong tradition of photojournalism began in 1930s

You’ve seen the picture — not so much because it was taken in Flint, but because it has so often flashed before our eyes as a part of the American collection, an artifact of the 1950s.

BRUCE EDWARDS Journal Staff Photographer

There’s the aristocratic and intellectual Adlai Stevenson leaning back in his chair, legs crossed, exposing a hole in the sole of his right shoe during a political rally at Flint Park in 1952. Flint Journal photographer Bill Gallagher extended the camera at arm’s length and released the shutter, capturing the moment on film before Stevenson could withdraw the flaw from the public view.

The photograph won the Pulitzer Prize for Gallagher and The Flint Journal in 1953, the only time the newspaper has claimed the prize.

Though it is perhaps The Journal’s most famous photograph, Journal photographers have continuously been at the forefront of daily newspaper photojournalism, winning awards and supplying the nation with local-angle reportage of national stories.

Dante E. Levi, The Journal’s first staff photographer, covered some of the biggest stories in area history, including the Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37, the downtown flooding of ’47 and the deadly Beecher tornado of 1953. He also assembled the first darkroom, in The Journal basement, in 1934.

THE FLINT JOURNAL FILES Dante E. Levi, the Journal’s first staff photographer, covered some of the biggest stories in area history, including the Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37, the downtown flooding of ’47 and the deadly Beecher tornado of 1953. He also assembled the first darkroom, in the Journal basement, in 1934.

Also covering the Beecher tornado in 1953 was Russ Scott, the paper’s second staff photographer. He later became The Journal’s first photo editor, a position he filled until he retired in 1980. The former World War II combat photographer’s favorite and most famous photograph — of a snow-covered dog standing vigil over a frozen canine friend that had been struck and killed by a car — won Scott second place in the 1948 National Press Photographers Association “Best Picture of Your Life” contest.

In earlier days, starting in 1930, an editorial staffer took photographs part-time using a 4-by-5 Speed Graphic camera — the kind you see news photographers waving around in old movies. The film was developed and prints were made for the newspaper by Crooks Studio in Flint.

Tradition of excellence

Gallagher’s Pulitzer, along with a number of other awards during the ’50s and ’60s, anchored The Journal’s reputation for news photography.

The work of legendary photographer Barry Edmonds graced The Journal beginning in 1955. For 27 years, Edmonds demonstrated his gifts of eye and heart.

Edmonds was the Michigan Press Photographers Association Photographer of the Year four times in the 1960s, more than any other photographer at the time. He was the only Journal photographer to serve as president of the National Press Photographers Association.

Contributions and awards from Robert Parks, Lloyd Moebius and Leo Johnson, as well as a MPPA Photographer of the Year award for Michael Hayman in 1974 continued that reputation. Hayman won runner-up honors for the Pulitzer Prize in 1981 in feature photography for his “Portrait” series, which mirrored the lives of Genesee County residents. That same year, then-Director of Photography John Dickson was MPPA Photographer of the Year.

THE FLINT JOURNAL FILES / RUSS SCOTT In 1942, Russ Scott — The Journal’s second staff photographer and, later, its first photo editor — took this award-winning photo of one loyal dog keeping a freezing vigil over the body of another.

Led by Director of Photography Brian Masck, The Journal currently has a staff of five full-time photographers: myself, Stuart Bauer, Lisa DeJong, Jane Hale and Steve Jessmore, plus assignments editor Steve Kleeman, part-time photographer Erik Holladay, who joins The Journal on May 1, and one student photographer filling the year-round college internship program the paper offers.

Jessmore came to Flint from The Saginaw News in 1999, bringing a long-standing national reputation. Aside from Barry Edmonds, he is the only photographer to be named MPPA photographer of the year four times, earning those titles in consecutive years. He also has served as MPPA president and as a staff member of national workshops and seminars.

The newest full-time addition to the staff is DeJong, a state and regional award-winner who joined the paper in February from the St. Petersburg Times in Florida.

March of progress

Technologically, much has changed since Dante Levi scorched the ceiling of the new County Children’s Facility in the 1930s when his flash powder ignited.

Journal photographers now use state-of-the-art digital cameras, completely eliminating the need for photographic film — the first metropolitan daily newspaper in the state to do so.

Photographs are recorded on memory chips, then downloaded in a computer system.

The snowstorm that brought the area to a standstill in December made it necessary for some of our photographers to photograph the struggle within walking distance of their homes and then e-mail the pictures to the office.

By the end of 2001, all Journal photographers should have the technology to photograph a news scene from the farthest reaches of our coverage area (or anywhere in the world, for that matter) and — equipped with laptop computers and cellular phones — transmit those digital images from their cars to the newspaper.

Despite an increased ability to manipulate images digitally, the capability has met a determined resistance to do so.

During the 1950s, photographs were, at times, literally cut and pasted to lessen the physical distance between, say, Mr. and Mrs. Jones.

One photograph pasted Alabama governor George Wallace over an elevated scene of crowded downtown Flint streets, giving the impression of Wallace overlooking the throngs.

Today’s photojournalism ethics forbid misleading treatment of news or documentary images. Our photos are manipulated only to adjust color tones for the best possible reproduction in the newspaper.

PHOTO / THE NEWSEUM William M. Gallagher’s photo of presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson with a hole in his shoe won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. The photo is currently part of an exhibit at the Newseum news museum in Rosslyn, Va., near Washington, D.C.

Staff photographer Bruce Edwards started at The Journal in 1978. He can be reached at (810) 766-6252 or bedwards@flintjournal.com.