He was a quiet one. But he was also one of the guys.
He was a quiet one. But he could surprise you with a zinger.
He was a quiet one. But his photography spoke volumes.
Duane Hamamura was all of that, and more. While many of those in front of his camera knew very little about the man behind the camera, most everyone in South King County knew all about what came out of his camera.
Himself a picture of soft-spoken professionalism, Hamamura died suddenly late on Jan. 29 at the age of 57.
From the time he joined the staff of what then were the thrice-weekly Auburn Globe-News, Renton Record-Chronicle and Kent News-Journal newspapers in the mid 1970s and continuing through their subsequent reincarnations as the Valley Daily News, South County Journal and King County Journal, Hamamura could be found anywhere and everywhere around the Green River Valley.
Like any consummate photographic pro, he could snap any subject, any time. A high school graduation in Kent. An awards presentation in Renton. A civic dedication in Auburn. A youngster waving a sparkler on Independence Day. Or an grizzled warhorse with a crisp salute on Veteran’s Day. Firefighters battling a blazing building … and later cooling off under a refreshing hose.
But the man affectionately known as ‘Hammer’ worked most closely with those in the newspaper’s sports department. And in a bulging portfolio of award-winning work, those are the photos that often found their way onto pages of scrapbooks, onto doors of refrigerators, and into $5.99 Fred Meyer frames for a place of honor on Dad’s desk, Mom’s dresser, or Grandma’s fireplace mantel.
When someone hit a big shot in a basketball game, his eye wasn’t focused on who took the shot. It was focused on the bench, waiting for the celebratory reaction.
He could get the impossible photo of an impossible catch on the baseball or softball diamond.
His pictorial depiction of a cross country runner made it perfectly clear just how hard – not to mention how wet and muddy – that race really was.
And at a gymnastics meet? A Duane portrait of a girl who had just jumped 10 inches above the balance beam could make it seem as if she had leaped 10 feet above it instead.
Then, there were his beloved racehorses. The thunder-hoofed Thoroughbreds who thrilled thousands upon thousands, first at Longacres, then at Emerald Downs.
The sun coming up and the steam rising off a bay filly? Photo by Duane Hamamura.
A chestnut gelding winning by a nose? Photo by Duane Hamamura.
A program-waving railbird fan who had just turned a two-dollar win ticket into a nifty three-figure payoff?
That, too, was photo by Duane Hamamura.
He was equal parts walking encyclopedia and local history museum. A treasure trove of institutional knowledge, dearly valued by readers outside the newsroom and reporters inside of it. A last-minute assignment that he “might be able to get to” usually yielded a choice of half a dozen prize-caliber shots – even though there was enough room to run just one of them.
All of that being said, his camera caught some things that local newspaper readers never saw. It wasn’t unusual for a reporter or editor to come into the office one day and find a nice little surprise in the form of a candid photo waiting on the desk. Such photos typically elicited a laugh from just about everyone in the building – except from the person actually in the photo.
Zinger.
Conversations with Duane also could take the most interesting twists. One minute, the subject could be about a big play in a game, or an athlete or a coach. And the next minute – completely out of the blue – would come something like this from the photog extraordinaire: “You know, sometime, you should try those hot dogs at Tahoma.”
Zinger.
While Duane was with us – and that time was far too short, even though he was just one of those folks you figured would be around forever – he captured the world in a way that people could hold in their hands, whether on a newspaper page or as a crisp, shiny reprint. Contemporary consumers, who think the only way to get news is on some pixilated computer screen, with the accompanying tiny, pixilated photos, don’t know what they’re missing.
Someday, they will know – when they’re going through their parents’ things and come across a saved copy of one of those newspaper pages. And there it will be: A four-column picture of Dad carrying the football, or Mom powering through the swimming pool. The small type beneath it on the right-hand side will read, “Photo by Duane Hamamura.”
They probably won’t know who he was. But some way, somehow, perhaps they’ll be able to know this:
He was a quiet one.
But Duane Hamamura’s photography spoke volumes.
Mark Moschetti is a former sportswriter and editor for the King County Journal, South County Journal, Valley Daily News among other publications..
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Visit Duane Hamamura’s gallery: http://on.fb.me/i7VGX7
