The Sunday Still: This Little Light & Shooting Star

Photojournalist Patrick Farrell has joined the blog with his weekly feature, The Sunday Still. Farrell selects one image each week that showcases the best photojournalism by photojournalists from around the world. The feature runs weekly in The Sunday Long Read. The goal of the newsletter, edited by Don Van Natta Jr. and Jacob Feldman, is to put the week’s best journalism in your hands every Sunday morning.

This Little Light “Available light is any damn light that is available,” said American photojournalist and photo essay master W. Eugene Smith. Korean photographer Ahn Young-joon spotted the light from a smartphone while shooting a mass wedding ceremony on Feb. 7 at the 25,000-seat CheongShim Peace World Center in Gapyeong, South Korea. By choosing not to expose for the dimly-lit scene and waiting patiently for the fleeting moment when the light illuminated a bride’s face, the photographer captured a compelling image as South Korean and foreign couples exchanged or reaffirmed marriage vows in the Unification Church's mass wedding despite coronavirus fears. ________________________________ Shooting star It takes a split second—and endless preparation—to snap an iconic sports photo. When tasked with covering one of the greatest athletes of all time like LeBron James, you need to think of every possible angle to capture the many superhuman ways he gets the ball through the hoop. Andrew D. Bernstein, team photographer for the Los Angeles Lakers, employs five remote cameras carefully sunk in different locations aimed at the front of the basket, all triggered by a remote on his handheld camera down court. Bernstein’s prep work and timing paid off Feb. 6, when he captured a panoramic image of James’ two-handed reverse windmill dunk from a remote camera, freezing an eerily familiar moment during the game against the Houston Rockets at the STAPLES Center in LA. “There’s an element of luck in there,” Bernstein told Sports Illustrated the next day, “but as the great Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss said, ‘luck benefits the most prepared.’ Patrick Farrell, the curator of The Sunday Still, is the 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winner for Breaking News Photography for The Miami Herald, where he worked from 1987 to 2019. He is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Journalism and Media Management at the University of Miami School of Communication.