This is a recurring column by Daily Item Creative Director Spenser Hasak, featuring and discussing his favorite photos of the month.
September has come and gone, the air is starting to get crispy, and the leaves are turning colors. Fall is my favorite time of year to photograph. Everything becomes more vibrant right before winter. School is in session, high school sports are up and running, and communities are coordinating events before the deep freeze of winter sets in. This month had me photographing a giant tomato, an epic soccer save, high-fives for Henry, haircuts for school kids, and the celebration of Lynn Harbor Park.
1) I honestly thought Bob Seelley, of Saugus, was playing a prank on reporter Elizabeth Della Piana and myself when we showed up at J. Pace & Son for the weighing of his tomato. I was convinced he had just grown a cute little pumpkin that he was passing off as a tomato, but I was wrong. Seelley had actually grown a Massachusetts record-setting 5.33-pound tomato! The look of pride and twinkle of a tear in his eye as the number appeared on the scale struck me and easily could have been the photo I chose, but him holding up his finger indicating a #1 with such confidence before the tomato graced the scale perfectly summed up the story. As a fellow gardener (definitely not up to par with Seelley), I hope to grow veggies like that someday.
2) I don’t claim to know a lot about sports, but 10 years of photographing high school sports has taught me how to anticipate when a big play is coming. I was photographing a match between Marblehead and Saugus when Saugus keeper Cesar Sosa-Martinez raced out of the net to block a shot from Marblehead. He unfortunately missed the ball, leaving the net wide-open as the ball rolled down the field. I was tracking the ball through my viewfinder when my eye caught Daniel Ganda at a full sprint chasing it down. He slid and caught the ball JUST before it rolled completely over the line and made the save.
3) For the past few years, the Peabody Police Department has teamed up with the public schools for a morning called High Fives for Henry, honoring the legacy of the late Peabody Police Officer Henry Breckenridge. It’s a morning full of smiles that I was looking forward to photographing. It’s one of those assignments that makes my heart feel full, and those are some of my favorites to cover. This photo of Welch Elementary School student Eloa Moreira high-fiving Peabody School Resource Officer Eric Ricci was one of the first that I took that morning, and I raced after her mother to make sure it was OK to use it for the paper.
4) I’m not sure I was ever a kid that disliked the start of the school year. Sure, having the summer off was great, but I would always start to miss getting to see my friends on a daily basis. I know I’m in the minority, and Connery Elementary School in Lynn set up a huge welcome back party the day before school started to help ease the transition from summer to school. There was dancing, meet-and-greets with new teachers, and even free haircuts so kids could go into the school year looking their best. I hung around as barber Randy Salvador volunteered his time to make sure Remi Delaney would look great on his first day of kindergarten.
5) Ribbon cuttings aren’t something I typically expect a great image to come out of. Sure, there will be smiling faces and cheering, but rarely is there something surprising to photograph. Luckily I wasn’t in a rush to leave the beautiful Lynn Harbor Park after its official ribbon cutting because I would’ve missed this gem of a photo. I love when politicians let loose and have some fun, and getting to photograph Lynn City Council President Jay Walsh, Lynn Councilor Fred Hogan, State Sen. Brendan Crighton, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, and Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson jumping for joy after the completion of the project really completed the photo story for me.
