Disruptions are everywhere at the moment. Businesses are going bankrupt. Schools are closed. College and professional sports have been shut down.
And as a result of the sports world being put on hold, a well-deserved recognition for a pair of local celebrities has been postponed. Actually, it’s not accurate to just say “local” when talking about the two celebrities previously mentioned.
One is Jeff McCurry, a noted wildlife photographer from Edgewood. His photos have been admired by worldwide audiences in countless print and online publications. He’s also the best sports photographer I’ve ever worked with, and that list includes some outstanding shooters.
Harambe, a 17-year-old silverback gorilla who died in 2016, has become a global icon. (Photo by Jeff McCurry)
Since Harambe’s untimely death in 2016, McCurry’s photographs have morphed into iconic images used worldwide. His photographs of Harambe have been featured in numerous publications and online resources, including The New York Times, National Geographic, The Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, and The Washington Post.
McCurry was the Zoo’s photographer and spent countless hours with Harambe. As Harambe became a global phenomenon after the tragedy, McCurry’s photos became the center of thousands of memes and internet stories. The Edgewood resident became a worldwide brand in publications such as National Geographic, Time, Forbes and People Magazine, to name just a few.
Earlier this winter, the Fredericksburg (Va.) Nationals — the Class A affiliate of the Washington Nationals — announced a “Harambe Night” promotion that would take place on May 30. The FredNats promotions officials asked McCurry to attend the game and throw out the ceremonial first pitch.
They announced the first 1,000 fans in attendance would receive a custom Harambe beer stein. The FredNats also produced a Harambe-themed replica jersey displaying many of McCurry’s iconic photographs.
“I don’t know who was more excited on the phone call,” McCurry said of the conversation with the FredNats officials, who aggressively promoted the “Harambe Night” promotion for May 30. “When they sent the photos of the jersey, I was pretty much speechless and so proud that my photos of Harambe would be on the jerseys.”
The Fredericksburg Nationals have produced a Harambe-themed replica jersey displaying many of Jeff McCurry’s iconic photographs. (Image provided by Fredericksburg Nationals)
McCurry is still shocked by the reaction. “I’m still not sure how to process how people all over the world have made my photos of Harambe a part of their world,” he said. “I miss my friend Harambe. We spent many afternoons alone with each other. I always stopped by his area when I was leaving to see if he was outside.
“When he was outside, some days we would have a portrait session. Some days we would just stand and stare at each other. He seemed to be able to sense when I was ready to go home, and he would jump off the rock and watch me as he went into his cave. Then I would leave knowing I could see him again tomorrow.”
All that ended four years ago.
McCurry vividly remembers the events of May 28, 2016, when Zoo officials — fearing for the life of the 3-year-old child who had crawled into the gorilla compound — made the decision to kill Harambe with a single rifle shot. Harambe died just a day after turning 17.
“I left an hour and a half before he died, and getting home and seeing what happened on the news was horrible,” McCurry said. “I still have a hard time accepting I will never see my friend grinning at me as he tells me to go home.”
While Harambe’s life ended prematurely, McCurry’s photos continued to help build the animal’s legacy into a global phenomenon. Hollywood celebrities use his photos. Famous singers wear T-shirts with his photos. Google the name of Harambe and there is a Jeff McCurry photo.
“I still don’t know how to describe it almost four years later, how good but strange this experience has been,” McCurry said. “Going from occasionally having my photos used by local media, to overnight my photos were and are still being used by media outlets all over the world.”
Jeff McCurry’s photos of Harambe have been featured in publications such as The New York Times, National Geographic, The Associated Press, Reuters and CNN.
It has also brought McCurry’s talent with the camera to the attention of the world. Local sports fans, though, were already familiar with his skills.
SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY AND NKU
While working at Northern Kentucky University as sports information director, I first met Jeff McCurry in 1995. It was at a soccer game at the old NKU field that is now a parking lot. John Toebben was the NKU head coach. It was still two years before NKU added women’s soccer as a varsity sport.
Prior to a game, McCurry and a very young boy (his son, Daniel McCurry) approached the scorer’s table that was located on the track at the old field. He introduced himself and handed me an envelope of printed color photos. They were of a previous NKU soccer game and he said we could use them for media guides or other publications if they were needed.
It turned out McCurry was a photographer at The Northerner, NKU’s student newspaper. And his work was outstanding.
Nearly 25 years later, his work continues to be outstanding — and historic. McCurry is the only photographer to capture the moments at all three national championships that NKU won at the NCAA Division II level. He was there in 2000 at Pine Bluff, Ark., as the NKU women’s basketball team claimed the first national crown in school history.
In 2008, McCurry was in Kearney, Neb., as the NKU women’s basketball team again won the NCAA Division II national title. Then, during a driving snowstorm in Louisville in 2010, McCurry captured the action as the NKU men’s soccer team won the NCAA Division II national championship.
NKU’s Nicole Chiodi hoists the NCAA Division II national trophy in 2008 at Kearney, Neb. (Photo by Jeff McCurry)
“As a photographer, having your photo be called viral or iconic is always a dream, but one you accept that you have no chance of achieving,” he said. “Having others say both about my photos is still unbelievable to me.”
Not bad for a guy who nearly died 35 years ago in a horrific car crash. In the early-morning hours of Dec. 24, 1985, a drunken driver crashed head-on into McCurry’s vehicle on North Bend Road in Cincinnati. McCurry’s car was completely demolished and he had to be cut out of the wreckage.
NEAR-FATAL WRECK INSPIRES HARAMBE NOVELLA
The injuries McCurry suffered were ghastly. The photos taken of the accident scene and of him in the hospital are haunting. McCurry even recalled being transported by helicopter to the University of Cincinnati Hospital.
“The route the helicopter used,” he recalled, “went directly by the compound where Harambe lived — 31 years later.”
A near-fatal car crash back in 1985 and a fascinating present-day situation inspired Harambe: A Tragic Coronation.
“Dr. Jenny Blundell is a Texas-based ophthalmologist with degrees from Harvard and Johns Hopkins. She has traveled the world and helped countless numbers of patients with their sight. She has traveled the world and helped countless numbers of patients with their sight.
But Blundell saw something as a 12-year-old in 1983 that has produced an extraordinary spiritual convergence in the present between herself, a photographer in Cincinnati, and a silverback gorilla called Harambe. The visions from 1983 are found in a series of sketches Blundell drew as a seventh-grader, when she became withdrawn from classmates because of a horrific situation involving a well-respected teacher.
Now the flashbacks from that episode have led Blundell to an animal she sketched 33 years earlier — even though the gorilla had not even been born. And the present-day realities have convinced Blundell that she is connected to Harambe in an eternal metempsychosis.
Her suspicions are confirmed following the tragic killing of Harambe, when she meets the photographer and learns of his near-death experience in 1985 — something Blundell foreshadowed in her sketches in 1983 — and his unique bond with Harambe.”
Unique bond is a vast understatement. Harambe and Jeff McCurry are kindred spirits, united by tragedy and photography.
Not to mention a Harambe-themed replica jersey and a first pitch that will hopefully be tossed on Aug. 29 prior to a Fredericksburg Nationals home game.
Contact Don Owen at don@nkytrib.com and follow him on Twitter at @dontribunesport
Woman should have been watching her child. She had to many children that she had to keep an eye on. It was a shame that Harambe had to be killed due to a parents negligence. So so sad.