A Thousand Words

     

Lane Hutson takes on the Lighting. John Mahoney photo published with permission

    If a picture is worth a thousand words, the Montreal Gazette's John Mahoney could have written the entire contents of the Library at Alexandria. Mahoney has been a newspaper photographer for fifty years, documenting everything from politics to protests to arts and, of course, sports. He was there in New York on 9/11 and when Covid-19 was ravaging Quebec. 

    For Canadiens fans, his best-known photos are those he's taken of the ups and downs, the stars and the duds of their favourite team over all those years. He captured the famous "too-many-men" goal by Yvon Lambert against the Bruins in 1979. He was there at Guy Lafleur's funeral. And these days he's recording the rise of the newest edition of the team and its young stars.

    "I grew up as a Montreal Canadiens fan and then later on as a Montreal Expos fan and an Alouettes fan," Mahoney recalls. "My dad was a big Alouettes fan as well. Once I covered my first couple of sports events, I kind of got hooked on it, you know, being being able to be that close to the players and going to training camps. And those days we were allowed to go in the dressing rooms. It was a bit of a thrill. I was 18 when I started. I was still a kid, so it was a big thrill for me to be able to be in that milieu."

    He says being a fan is partly what led to him becoming a good sports photographer, because that involves knowing the game and anticipating what might happen. Often, however, even though he's got an eye for the action, he doesn't realize he's snapped a keeper until after the moment passes.

    "You only identify it once the game is over pretty much. I guess it's pretty hectic in the in the moment," he explains. "Obviously there are certain scenarios especially during the playoffs, if the game is tied and there's 5 or 6 minutes left, you're pretty sure that the next goal is going to be the winner. So there are some situations where you can sort of predict it."

    "For the most part though, you'll only know once the game is over. You know what the decisive picture is gonna be."

    When you're clicking away all game long, not all the results are going to be meaningful.

    "Sometimes you'll get these really good pictures and they don't mean anything," he says. "They're really nice action pictures, right?  So as photographs, they're fine, but as news photographs, they lose their value because you know the goal that ties the game up at the beginning of the third is a nice picture, but it's eclipsed by the goal that wins the game."

    So what's a winning photo for Mahoney?

    "The context is important. I prefer pictures where the background is clean. I like pictures where you can see faces," he says.

    "Often, and especially shooting hockey in particular, you get these great goal-mouth scrambles where there seems in the moment like there's tons of action going on. But then when it's over, you look at your pictures and all you got is we call it backs and bums, you know."

    

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    Among the biggest changes over Mahoney's 50 years in the business is the quality of the equipment he gets to use.

    "Well, when I started in 1976, we were shooting black and white film," he laughs. "And motor-drive cameras were still fairly new at the time. So you were lucky if your motor-drive might have given you 4 frames a second, maybe 5 frames a second. Now we've got cameras that can shoot 20 frames a second. So that in itself is a is a huge change."

    The newer gear is a lot more forgiving as well, even as it produces more better-quality photos and creates more work for the photographer who has to sift through them after the game.

    "The current generation are just incredible. NHL arena lights are pretty bright. So that allows us to use really high shutter speeds. At the Bell Centre, I shoot at 1-2 thousandth of a second so you're able to freeze a lot of the action that way."

    "So the technology has been huge when it comes to sports photography. Also, when I started, you had to manually focus the camera, so you had to be constantly focusing, trying to keep the action in focus," he recalls. "That was a skill that is lost now because the auto focus on the modern lenses are so good and so accurate that the percentage of really good pictures is much higher than it used to be. When we were shooting film on manual cameras with manual focus, that was a real skill. I get a much higher percentage of sharp and usable frames nowadays than I did back then."

    The Lambert picture is one of Mahoney's favourites from his years of Habs coverage. Also a highlight was probably the most well-known shot of the Canadiens last championship in 1993.

    "Patrick Roy holding the Stanley Cup, celebrating after the last time they won. That's one of the most famous pictures that I shot," he says. "There were several other people that shot that same moment, but mine seems to be the one that has been used more often, and has shown up more often."

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    Although he's five decades into his photography career, Mahoney isn't quite ready to retire. He's enjoying being around the new generation and would like to see another Stanley Cup before he hangs up the camera. These Canadiens play the type of game photogs enjoy; fast-paced with lots of action and expression. And there are certain players that are a dream to shoot.

    "Oh, it's gotta be Cole Caufield. I would say because of the grin," he says. "When he scores or even when one of his teammates scores, he's just so expressive. He's just overjoyed. He seems to really find joy in playing hockey. He really does. It's so fun to watch, too."

    "Slafkovsky is very good too. He's quite uninhibited compared to a lot of others. He stands in a very sharp contrast to Nick Suzuki for instance, who's very, very stoic. He will celebrate and he will smile, but he doesn't have the same spontaneity that Slafkovsky or Caufield do." 

    "I love photographing Lane Hutson as well.  He's just so dynamic," he enthuses. "When you do action pictures of him,  his legs are going one way and his arms are going another way or he's jamming on the brakes. So we got a lot of really good pictures of the spray when he does that. He changes direction so often, you know, he plays that sort of that water bug kind of style. The pictures have a lot of tension in them, a lot of action, they're very interesting to look at because they tend to be a little bit more unusual than some of the other players."

    For a guy who loves to shoot action and see faces, taking goalie photos through their masks can be a problem. The Bell Centre gives photographers two options to set up. They can be upstairs with a familiar broadcast view, or they can be ice-level and shoot through the holes in the glass. That's where Mahoney likes to take pictures of Jakub Dobes.

    "Even if there's action going on elsewhere the last 10 seconds or so of the game,  I often will just focus right on him because he will let out a yell and he's expressive at the end of the game, especially if they win. So I have been able to get a few pictures where you can sort of see through the mask and see his expressions."

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    Mahoney says his family and friends are encouraging him to publish a book of his favourite work, but after all those years of  images, narrowing it down to a manageable number is tough.

   "I have to admit that I'm finding it a little daunting," he explains. "There's a lot of magic. There's some volume that you have to get through. At this point there's thousands of pictures and the "keeper" file is only since since around 2001 or so when we switched to digital. So you've gotta go back to the old negatives."

    He says a fellow photographer who's done books before advises him to develop a focus and stick to a particular subject to make it easier to organize. If ever he decides to share his years of Canadiens pictures he can be sure Habs fans will line up to grab a little piece of team history for their very own.

    In an age when traditional newspapers are disappearing, photographers with the skill and experience of John Mahoney are a rare and special breed.