Stockland Martel

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Got an email from Walter Iooss yesterday. It came in too late to post, so I saved it for today. Here it is:

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“50 years ago today I had my first paid assignment from Sports Illustrated. I was driven by my father to Groton, CT, from East Orange, N.J., to photograph an 83-your-old sailor named Archie Chester, who built a sailboat without plans, and sailed to Florida and back. This was for the weekly ‘Pat on the Back’ photo that ran on the last page of the magazine.

To say I was nervous was an understatement, but possibly not as much as Archie, seeing a wide-eyed teenager being sent to do a man’s job. I shot two rolls of Tri-X on my Asahi Pentax, and I was done. I could never have imagined what the future held for me in the decades that followed, but it was the beginning of a great adventure with Sports Illustrated and photography.”

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A little bit after I got that email, Walter wrote me again and included this photo:

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“I tried to find a picture tonight in Montauk, wanting to take something on this once-in-a-lifetime day. Weather not obliging. So I took out the 4×5″ camera and some Polaroid 55 film from the fridge, and took three frames, trying to make the past come to life… Lake Montauk, from Old West Lake Drive.”

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