A Photo A Day interviews the IPPA's own Scott Strazzante
The APAD blog has interviewed IPPA president Scott Strazzante. Check it out:
Interview: SCOTT STRAZZANTE
Scott Strazzante, 40, joined the staff of the Chicago Tribune in October 2001. Prior to that, Strazzante worked at The Herald News in Joliet, Illinois and the Daily Southtown in Chicago. Strazzante has a slew of awards under his belt, including the title of Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 2001. Usually when I hear his name mentioned at conferences and workshops people attach the words “rock star” to it.
Here’s the unofficial first-person bio:
As a chubby bespectacled teen growing up in Chicago in the late 1970s I spent many a day watching the error-prone Chicago White Sox from my family’s box seats at old Comiskey Park.
After receiving a subscription to Sports Illustrated on my 16th birthday, I started to cover the walls of my bedroom with images of sweaty men in uniforms and buxom women in bikinis. I enjoyed the action and the eye candy, but ultimately the best thing SI did for me was provide the impetus to start lugging my dad’s old Canon AE1 to the ballpark.
One fateful summer day in 1980, I snapped an under-lensed ill-composed frame of Sox fan favorite Chet Lemon sliding into second base and promptly entered it in a local photo contest.
A month later I was bestowed a certificate proclaiming me the winner of 3rd place in the First National Bank of Evergreen Park Snapshot Roundup.
It would take 5 more years for me to realize that I wanted to pursue photography professionally but at that moment the seeds of my future career were planted.
Read more here:
http://www.aphotoaday.org/apadnews/2007/02/interview_scott_strazzante.html