©  2010 Dick Druckman.  All rights reserved.

 

New York Yankees Captain Derek Jeter Hits a Home Run Against the Los Angeles Angels (April 2010)

 

 

It was the annual rivalry between Trinity College and Princeton University squash teams, and the players were lining up to be introduced.  If Trinity won, they would go on to vie for their 13^th straight National Championship, unprecedented in college sports history.

 

© Joan Druckman.  All rights reserved. Dick Druckman Gold Metal Impressions Gallery Collectable Sports Photography

Against the backdrop of the white walled squash court stood a man dressed in black, his Nike D3 S poised and ready to pop. It was Dick Druckman, Trinity’s official photographer for the past 13 years, a sports photographer of international renown, and the owner of the largest sports photography gallery in the country.

 

Trinity was Dick’s alma mater, and he was nervous, even though he’d captured dozens of more famous sports rivalries at the past 10 Super Bowls, World Series, and Olympic Games.  Those once-in-a lifetime photos made the pages of Sports Illustrated, USA Today, USA Today Sports, Parade Magazine, and The Associated Press, which placed them in newspapers around the world, not to mention the covers of Squash Magazine and the recently published book, Run to the Roar, by Trinity Squash Coach Paul Assiante.

 

Druckman's rise to prominence in the world of sports photography is as remarkable as his pictures.  Born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, he went on to earn a BA degree from Trinity and an MBA from Columbia University.  He then married his sweetheart Joan before beginning a successful career at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) in Princeton, New Jersey, where he eventually became vice president of strategic planning.  Along the way, his passion for taking pictures remained relegated to the role of hobby.

 

“My interest in the camera began as a child,” he says.  “My dad, a salesman, was a camera buff.  He took moving pictures with an 8-millimeter camera and stills with a Kodak Brownie.  He had calendars made of my two sisters and me to give to his customers.  Like my Dad, my first camera was a Kodak Brownie, but I soon graduated to an Olympus and then a Nikon.”

 

 

© 2010 Dick Druckman.  All rights reserved.   © 2003 Dick Druckman.  All rights reserved.

Philadelphia Phillies Roy Halladay Pitches Second No-Hitter in Baseball Playoff History against Cincinnati Reds (October 2010)     At the start of the eighth inning, stadium fans soon realized that Roy Halladay had a shot to break sports history with a no-hitter.  The excitement was so palpable that everyone knew something “big” was about to happen.  I photographed every pitch Halladay threw, hoping to capture his last.  The winning photo, however, was Roy’s celebration with his catcher, Carlos Ruiz, following their 4-0 victory.  AP sent this photo around the world.             Michael Jordan Waves Good-By After Final Professional Game (April 2003)   One of my most widely published photos, this records one of history’s most admired and loved athletes.  Having played professionally for the Chicago Bulls (I also photographed his last game in Chicago.), Jordan retired, but returned to play for the Washington Wizards.  The day after he retired for good, my picture made the sports pages of most newspapers in the country.

In 1984, upon taking his family to the Los Angeles Summer Olympics, where he snapped hundreds of images, he began to view his hobby differently.  “I began to take it more seriously,” he remembers, “enrolling in courses, subscribing to photo magazines, mastering the technical side of the art, and concentrating on capturing what I call the ‘magic moments’ of sporting events.”

 

One of his teachers was the famed LIFE and Sports Illustrated photographer Bill Eppridge, who became a friend and mentor.

 

 

© 2008 Dick Druckman.  All rights reserved.

 

Michael Philps Wins His First of Eight Gold Metals:  Beijing (August 2008)

 

 

“Dick had such an intensity to learn,” Eppridge says.  “It was obvious he wanted to learn more about what he was already doing very, very well: shooting sports.  He wanted to know so much so quickly that he’d turn up everywhere!  It wasn’t until a few years later that I found out he was in the corporate world.

 

Breaking into the sports world is difficult, and Dick’s done an amazing job for someone who wasn’t brought up in that world," Eppridge goes on to say. "You have to know the players, the coaches, even what the coach is telling the players because you have to be ready for it.”

 

 

© 2010 Dick Druckman.  All rights reserved.

 

Blackhawks Goal Tender Antti Neimi: Stanley Cup (June 2010)
 

 

Unlike the paid photographers scattered along the playing field of any sporting event, Dick snaps from wherever he’s sitting in the stands, making it more difficult to capture those split-second moments, but also making each photo that much more unique.

 

“In football, for example,” Eppridge continues, “we’d move up and down the field along with the players, but there were always a couple of our guys in the stands.  Usually those were the good ones, so they were Dick’s competition.  But he just focused 100 percent and managed to take that position and turn it into something extraordinary.”

 

Druckman tries to capture the most significant moment in any event, which demands that he understands the nuances of both the camera and the sport. Consequently, he says, my efforts are focused on baseball, football, basketball, soccer, hockey, squash, and the Olympics. I rarely cover tennis, golf or car/horse racing.