Doug Stewart 1975

This image is a photographic print made by Mike Mandel, who was born in 1950. I think about the moment the shutter snaps, freezing Doug Stewart in time, the glove held up just so. What was he thinking? Maybe about the game, the next pitch, or just the feel of the leather in his hand. I imagine Mandel, the photographer, circling his subject, searching for the angle, the light, that would capture something true. There's a certain intimacy in this kind of portraiture, a quiet exchange between subject and artist, each revealing something of themselves in the process. It is like painters circling around an idea, adding layers, scraping back, searching for that elusive something, that spark that makes a painting come alive. In painting as in photography, it’s about finding the unexpected, the thing you didn’t know you were looking for.