High school football photographer Linda Gregory has died after an accident during a game she was covering caused her to hit her head.

Her husband Mel confirmed the sad news after it had been reported that Linda was on life support with “little hope left” after the incident in Kansas on Monday night.

Further details of what happened have come to light during the junior varsity game between Wichita Northwest High School and Bishop Carroll High School.

Two players were engaged in a block that carried on out of bounds where they collided with Linda. The photographer had her camera trained somewhere else on the field and noticed the players coming toward her very late. After she fell backward and hit her head on the concrete apron, the players immediately stopped to help her as the medics were called over within seconds.

Linda’s husband Mel made the decision to to take Linda off life support and move her to Kansas City where her organs will be donated. Mel says that this is what Linda would have wanted and she had requested a do-not-resuscitate order which the family conformed to.

Tributes for Linda have poured in, led by her husband Mel who revealed Linda’s photography enabled her to travel extensively — including to Romania where she was invited to take photos of various sports teams there and was even commissioned to shoot a wedding in the Eastern European country.

The incident highlights the dangers for sports photographers covering not only football but baseball as well. Photographer Tony Morano had to be taken to hospital after an incident during the XFL championship game. And YES cameraman Pete Stendel has only just returned to work after a two-month hiatus after he was struck in the head by a wayward baseball.

“Linda was an amazing person who breathed life into our students here at Northwest,” Northwest Grizzlies football coach Steve Martin says.

“Her passion for kids was amazing, but it went deeper than taking pictures for Linda and Mel. They were a part of our football team and always will be. They are family! She was a mentor and friend to some of our boys, past and present, and they are hurting right now.”

Chennai, India

Indian army training cadets perform ‘Kalaripayattu’, an ancient martial art from Kerala, during a combined display ahead of their graduation ceremony, at the officers’ training academy

Photograph: Idrees Mohammed/EPA

Visual artist Prince Gyasi considers the theme of ‘timelessness’ in his Pirelli Calendar 2024. Shot in both London, UK, and Ghana, his home country, Gyasi presents a colourful antidote to dominant Western notions of Africa in his playful and powerful images.

Angela Bassett, Naomi Campbell, Idris Elba, Margot Lee Shetterly, Amanda Gorman, Jeymes Samuel, Tiwa Savage, King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Teyana Taylor and Amoako Boafo are the latest figures to take their place in Pirelli history. 

For King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the year also marks a personal celebration, with 2024 being the 25th anniversary of the Ashanti Kingdom under his reign.

Gyasi, who translates his personal experience of the neurological phenomenon synesthesia into a vivid and boldly coloured universe, creates photographic artworks synonymous with fine art in their attention to detail. 

His work has often included portraits of children from his hometown, Jamestown, in an elegant questioning of traditional standards of beauty.

Work by Gyasi, the founder of the nonprofit Boxed Kids, features in collections including those of Jean Pigozzi and the Pinault Foundation. He is the latest photographer to work with Pirelli, which launched the calendar in 1964 under the hands of art director Derek Forsyth and British photographer Robert Freeman.

Photographers and art directors who have since taken the helm include Harri Peccinotti,  Martyn Walsh, Terence Donovan, Barry Lategan, Arthur Elgort, Herb Ritts, Richard Avedon (recently celebrated at Gagosian), Peter Lindbergh, Mario Testino, Bruce Weber, Nick Knight, Patrick Demarchelier, Peter Beard and Steve McCurry, Helmut Newton (the subject of an exhibition in A Coruña in November 2023), Steven Meisel and Annie Liebowitz. 

pirellicalendar.pirelli.com

Terraforming: Olana’s Historic Photography Collection Unearthed is now on display at Olana State Historic Site. Inspired by Olana’s significant collection of nearly 2,000 19th century international photographic prints, artist and guest curator David Hartt reflects on the ways in which human culture and activity shape the land, eroding the boundary between human construction and the natural world.

Through the selection of historic photographs from Olana’s vast collection, the exhibition also explores what this global photographic collection tells us about Church’s painting practice, travels, and ways of knowing and collecting the world.

We get a preview of the exhibit this morning with the President of The Olana Partnership, Sean Sawyer and independent curator and historian of photography, Corey Keller.

Photographer Danny Clinch co-founded Asbury Park’s Sea Hear Now festival. Photo: Justin Borucki

Just a few feet from the beach in Asbury Park—an area rich with rock history—the Transparent Clinch Gallery celebrates music icons.

The space displays countless photographs by Danny Clinch, a renowned music photographer who started shooting for SPIN in 1991. It helps that the Toms River native can add a personal touch when customers are browsing images of legends like Eddie Vedder, Tupac Shakur, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Neil Young.

“Every photo there has a story,” Clinch says. “It’s the photograph, but then it’s like, ‘How did that photograph happen? What were the things surrounding it that were of that moment?’”

For example, Clinch shot the cover art for Bruce Springsteen’s 2020 album Letter to You. The two were walking in Central Park when it started to snow, and Clinch immediately broke out his camera, as he often has throughout his career.

Danny Clinch photographed the album cover for Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You during a snowy walk in Central Park.

He did the same in 1992 when high school friend Tim Donnelly invited him to meet Eddie Vedder at Lollapalooza. Donnelly had an interview scheduled with Vedder for the environmental group Surfrider Foundation.

Years later, the three remain friends. In 2021, Vedder’s band Pearl Jam even played at Sea Hear Now—a massive, annual, Asbury-based surf and music festival that Clinch and Donnelly cofounded. Clinch himself joined the band on stage.

Clinch and his Transparent staff have been preparing for this year’s Sea Hear Now Festival, which takes place September 16-17. They’re installing a Sea Hear Now section at his gallery, and curating art for a Transparent pop-up tent.

The tent sells art that festival musicians volunteered to make, and proceeds go to local charities. “That’s always really fun,” Clinch says, “because you discover people that you didn’t realize made art.”

[RELATED: 24 Hours in Asbury Park]

For a building dedicated to still images, Transparent Clinch Gallery features plenty of sound. With a small stage and instruments tucked into a corner, Transparent often hosts small concerts highlighting local bands. 

Since Clinch is so cozy with musicians at every level of fame, it’s not unusual for big-name bands to play pop-up shows at the gallery. The Head and the Heart and the Revivalists did that over the summer before a July 9 show at the Stone Pony. The likes of Nathaniel Rateliff, Gary Clark Jr., Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, and the E Street Band’s Max Weinberg have also performed at Transparent. 

“I forget that we’re basically there to sell my photography,” Clinch says while recalling how, after that July 9 show, members of the Head and the Heart and the Revivalists returned to the gallery for an impromptu jam session that went past 2 am.

This year’s See Hear Now festival is fronted by the acts including the Killers, Foo Fighters, Weezer, Sheryl Crow and the Beach Boys. It remains to be seen who Clinch will play with this year, but he’s already thankful for a lifetime’s worth of unforgettable memories. 

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Inside Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre is a red carpet, highlighting images of the world’s biggest celebrities and the famed photographer who snapped them.

The exhibit, “30 Years of Red Carpet Style with George Pimentel,” draws people into the work of iconic Toronto-based photographer George Pimentel. The iconic photographer is based out of Toronto and often found on the red carpet at TIFF, which is getting underway now, but he’s revered around the world, spotting A-listers at Cannes Film Festival, the Academy Awards and many more.

“People love to star seek and these photos are life-size so it gives them a glimpse and it gives them an energy that they’re actually near a star,” said George Pimentel, standing amongst his work as he spoke with CTV National News.

Massive prints of Hollywood elite hang from the atrium, glistening in the September sun shining through the mall’s skylight. Others are printed and placed on temporary walls, allowing shoppers a chance to wonder the red carpet, looking through the lens of Pimentel.

“I just want people to say, ‘Oh wow, this is my favourite actor,” says Pimentel. “In the end I just want beautiful quality and I don’t want anyone to look at it like its paparazzi or a dirty photo. I want it to be like old Hollywood.”

Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio are seen in this red carpet photo taken by George Pimentel. (George Pimentel)

Pimentel’s career was built on honesty and integrity, forging genuine connections with those he was capturing. It was relationships that helped get him to the centre of the red carpets, trusted by not only stars but event organizers, producers and media teams.

“I was never in the bushes, I would approach them,” said Pimentel “I really wanted everybody to trust me, I wanted to be the trusted photographer.”

Photos of celebrities taken by George Pimentel are seen in banners hanging in Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. (George Pimentel)

He recalls a time when a celebrity walked out with a baby and he didn’t take the photo saying to himself, “Nope, that’s not what I’m after” and he was thanked.

“It’s all about integrity. You have to know when to go in and when not to and you have to understand their privacy and no means no, that’s what I’ve always been about,” said Pimentel.

His talent traces back to his grandfather, a photographer in a small village in the Azores region of Portugal. By the age of 12, Pimentel was shadowing his own father, whose photography studio served Toronto’s Portuguese community.

“Photographing those Portuguese weddings in the basement, photographing festivals and communions. It was just an honest business that my dad did,” said Pimentel. His father was at the opening of the exhibit.

George Pimentel is seen with his father in this handout photo. (George Pimentel)

George Pimentel and is father are photographed together at the opening night of Pimentel’s exhibit in this handout photo. (George Pimentel)

But it was his love for movies and Hollywood stars that would secure his place on the red carpet. It was 1993 and Robert De Niro was in Toronto for the premier of “A Bronx Tale,” Pimentel headed for the Elgin Theatre to try and catch a glimpse, with his camera in hand.

“De Niro came out, the flash bulbs, the excitement and the energy and I took this photo and I said this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

He was 26 and a fresh graduate from Ryerson University and that was the Hollywood snap that would alter his career.

Three decades later and his portfolio is filled with Hollywood elite, skillfully capturing moments to remember. The bright lights, over the shoulder looks and the “old Hollywood” style make for some of his favourite shots. But from Pimentel it’s not about the actual image, it’s the story behind it, the work it takes and the directing it takes to land the photo.

Jennifer Lopez is seen at TIFF 2019 in this photo captured by George Pimentel. (George Pimentel)

“No one will ever know the most stressful photo I’ve ever shot in my life” Pimentel says, walking towards a life-size print of Jennifer Lopez on the red carpet at TIFF in 2019.

Before she even arrived, Pimentel was directing, clearing out security and managing publicists. They listened, as soon as she got out of the car, chaos ensued, the crowd was screaming but he went directly to her team and said exactly where he wanted her. Suddenly people were fluffing the dress and doing her hair.

“For me, it’s such a TIFF moment. To have it clean, have the fans, it’s hard to do, and it’s surreal” said Pimentel, adding she posted the photo to her Instagram that night.

“It’s just nice to compose one frame, all the chaos the security, everything around you, and it’s such a challenge and then to get that shot. It’s just a rush,” he added.

An unwavering dedication and passion for his craft, he says is far from fading. As age 56 he’s promising to have another exhibition similar to this when he celebrates 50 years.