SUMMER 2002
   
 
  ONE OF US
BY BOB CAREY 
A Marriage of Necessity
riving six hours across Tennessee to do an editorial assignment for People Magazine is nothing new for Patrick Murphy-Racey. Even when he completes that assignment, plus a second one, all in one day.


Murphy-Racey’s first assignment was for a commercial client less than 10 minutes from his studio. Done by noon, he found himself heading for Mississippi, having made more for the three-hour shoot than he would for the editorial work he loves.

“Commercial work pays the bills and allows me to do the editorial work,” Murphy-Racey says. “The editorial work just doesn’t pay as well.”

Murphy-Racey (or PMR as he refers to himself) should know. Several years ago he was working 80 to 90 days a year for Sports Illustrated, taking more than 500 assignments for them. When that work came almost completely to a halt, he began to rethink how he would make a living. Today he does commercial work, weddings, editorial work and sports work for the University of Tennessee.

He is using all of the skills he learned in J-school: shooting black & white film, developing it and making contact sheets, adding basic reporting, and then laying out pictures and designing a layout on boards. Today he uses those same skills in putting together bridal books.

Murphy-Racey loves doing photography. He began shooting pictures at age 12 when he traveled with his family to Ireland. His father, not wanting to mess around with a camera, designated his son as family shooter.

Later, PMR couldn’t imagine making a living as a photographer. He feared it would ruin the excitement he felt when he picked up a camera. But while attending Marquette University, he took a photojournalism class, and that all changed. “I realized I could do something I liked and not have to wear a suit,” he says.

While at Marquette, he got a break when a part-time photographer at the Milwaukee Journal suddenly quit. Murphy-Racey met with Director of Photography Erv Gebhard less than an hour later. He convinced Gebhard to give him a chance by telling him Gebhard could let him go if he wasn’t pleased after a week. Murphy-Racey was simply looking for an opening; he had been turned down for five internships (including one at the Journal).

Gebhard gave Murphy-Racey his chance, and Rick Wood and the late Bob Goessner took him under their wing, helping him develop his skills as a photojournalist. They also introduced him to CIP.

“I’d never seen or heard of CIP until then,” Murphy-Racey says, “and from that point on, I’ve been on the mailing list.”
“I treat a wedding just like a Sports Illustrated assignment,” he says, “with available light and photojournalism. It’s all about capturing moments. I’ve gone full circle from hating it to embracing it.”

After a series of internships, he began working full-time at the Knoxville Sentinel.

In 1992, PMR decided to begin freelancing and leave the security of a daily newspaper position. He told his wife his goal was to have a picture in Sports Illustrated. He reached that goal less than six months later. His work has also appeared in Fitness, People, Time, Newsweek, ESPN The Magazine, The Sporting News, Forbes, Fortune, Omni, Ladies Home Journal, WCW Magazine and Sport, to name just a few.

As he’s discovered, through his ventures into new areas of photography, what he learned back in the beginning is still applicable to the commercial work that pays his way to do the style he loves. In fact, he is also preparing to enter the world of self-publishing. His work on University of Tennessee football, “Run Through the T,” will be available in the fall.

Just as he learned to modify his photographic work, his spiritual situation has grown and changed over the years.

Murphy-Racey ‘s growth as a Christian began at an early age when he was introduced to God through the Catholic Church. As a youth, he says, he loved God but didn’t know Him. In high school, that changed when he truly discovered God.

“I feel like God had to pull me out of the Catholic faith to teach me some things,” he says, “but not so I could abandon it. Rather, that I could come back to it as a fired-up Christian who’s a Catholic. I feel that I’m to be salt to the church.

“I see a revival occurring in the Catholic faith that is exciting, and I want to be part of that.”

In fact, Murphy-Racey believes that the changes in his business are God’s way of preparing him for ministry to the local church, while still allowing him to continue with the photography he loves dearly.

“Photojournalism is changing. We need to be attune to the opportunities that we have to use our skills as photojournalists,” he said. For Murphy-Racey, business has changed but so has his ministry, and he’s excited about the prospects God has placed before him in both arenas for the future.
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