Serena vs. Venus: How a Photograph Spotlighted the Fight for Equality
Serena’s powerful play won out in her semifinal match against Martina Hingis Blake’s lens later found Serena in the audience watching her sister’s semifinals match Again and again Venus slung well-placed forehand shots and powerful backhands at Jennifer Capriati of the United States Capriati was losing and Blake photographed her during a break with a towel over her head cradling her face Later Capriati admitted that Venus had made her work so hard that she ran out of gas Together the sisters had made history by reaching the finals as African
Americans But facing each other across the net was a different challenge altogether They had grown up training together and sharing the same bedroom They had shared hotel rooms while traveling to competitions They had even helped each other win games by pointing out the weaknesses of opponents But now only one could have her named etched into the U S Open’s silver trophy Their mother Oracene Price watched from the player’s box wearing pins with each daughter’s name Unable to handle the stress their father Richard Williams had flown home to Florida to avoid watching his daughters play each other Fireworks burst into the dark sky from the top of the roofless stadium Venus in white and Serena in yellow each took a side of the court Microphones soon caught the sisters grunts as they served balls at well over 100 mph 160 kph Blake’s lens caught their faces tensed with the effort They were well-matched and viewers enjoyed their exciting volleys In the second game of the match the sisters tied four times and struggled for the winning point after reaching deuce ALWAYS CHANGING TECHNOLOGY Reuters photographer Mike Blake right covered the 2016 election campaign
News services are in the business of providing information to news organizations More than a century ago Reuters News Agency used telegraph cables and even carrier pigeons to send stories and photos to newspapers Today images and stories travel wirelessly but Mike Blake has seen technology change dramatically since beginning work at Reuters in 1985 In the days of film cameras Blake had to develop the film himself He usually transformed a hotel bathroom into a makeshift darkroom He then made an 8 x 10 print of each photo on special paper After drying the print with a hair dryer he said he would wrap it on a drum transmitter called a 16S The picture would spin around a drum and an electronic eye would scan across the image We would have to take the mouthpiece off the hotel phone and clip two of the transmitter wires to the inside of the handset The transmitter would convert the spinning image to sound and send it down the line to a picture desk who would then send it around the world In the late 1990s photojournalists started using digital cameras to gather images on computer chips In 2001 they could take two images per second today they can take up to 14 They can send images to editors even while an event is happening Photo editors sort through hundreds or even thousands of images to select those that best capture an event Since moving to digital photography the process is much quicker and simpler Blake said I can transmit a picture wirelessly from my camera to our picture desk in Singapore where they send it to our clients around the world instantly Yet despite the changes a photojournalist’s job remains a practical one The camera is really just like a hammer and nails Blake said We use a camera to record what we see just as a carpenter uses a hammer and nails to build a house The technology has changed we are able to record images with better quality and more speed than ever before yet the essence of the still image has not changed It’s a moment frozen in time that will never happen again in any of our lives
Venus stretched to return the ball to her sister Serena worked hard but the accuracy of her match against Hingis was gone She lashed out backhands and ground strokes that sometimes missed their mark or flew into the net Blake captured her eyes clenched in frustration when Venus broke her serve in the first set Serena’s own mistakes also cost her many points By the end of the match she had made 36 unforced errors compared with Venus 19
