The old and the new

Posted by on Aug 31, 2011 | Comments Off

I recently had published a story on a 90-year-old tennis player and this was the lead image of the print package:

Gracious in winning and losing, Mel Glenn, 90, gives a fist bump to his winning opponent following a match July 15, 2011. "He's the nicest guy on earth," says Shirley Berger, who has played tennis with Glenn for many years. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)

The image  is good in the usual ways – good expression (this is as much as Mr. Glenn ever smiles), clean background and nice backlighting.

But the main reason why I chose this as the lead image is the contrast of the old and the new. Mr. Glenn may be 90 years old but he’s adopted a thoroughly modern gesture – the fist bump.

And watching 90-year-0ld Mel Glenn still play tennis gives me hope that I can be as active as him at his age.

–Gordon King