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Newton Magazine Feature Article about Roger Gordy























A Unique Twist on Candid Photographs: The Viewfinder of Roger Gordy
Roger Gordy of Newtonville is in a category of his own, a stealth photographer who is definitely not a member of the Paparazzi

Jerry Seinfeld, Ted Kennedy Adam Sandler, Michael Caine, Jimmy Carter and many others all have been captured, if only for a moment in time, by Gordy.
“I watch a person for a period of time,” Gordy said. “When they are most pleasant, I fall in love with the person for a moment, then I press the trigger.”
At age seven, Gordy’s father introduced him to the darkroom and he said he has been hooked ever since. He was born in Philadelphia, PA and lived in Washington DC and the Buffalo, New York area as a child before moving to Newton in 1965.
In Newton, Gordy attended the old FA. Day Jr. High and the old Newton High School. In eleventh grade he became the photo editor of the school newspaper The Newtonite. Gordy then studied painting, filmmaking and photography at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. However, instead of photography he majored in film. According to his biography, studying film helped him learn more about the moving image.
After RISD, Gordy returned to Newton where he still lives today. Since then he has held a variety of odd jobs including puppet maker, board game designer, drill press operator, a position in health care and book and book cover designer. All the while he would carry his camera with him everywhere he went taking photographs of strangers, friends, and even some celebrities.
“I’ve always enjoyed pictures of people,” Gordy said.
Gordy said he is not like a paparazzi. He does not take pictures of people for profit; he does it for his own pleasure. Most of the pictures he has taken of celebrities occurred during a short span between 1989 and 1992.
The pictures Gordy took would always be in public places. He said sometimes there would be literally hundreds of people around. Often he would take pictures of the people without them knowing it.
“The challenge I gave to myself was to photo [celebrities] without paying,” Gordy said. “I tried to get as close as I could without disturbing them.”
Public speaking events, book signings and free concerts were all venues Gordy used to try and take a photograph of a celebrity when they came to town. He said the challenge was to take a picture of a person and make it appear as if it was a private session even though it was a candid public photograph.
Gordy said he had several tricks to capture his elusive photos. He would listen to WBCN and if they announced a guest celebrity he would rush onto the scene. This is how he took pictures of Adam SandIer and Jerry Seinfeld.
He would also attend Tom Bergeron’s show on the local channel 38, The People are Talking. If he arrived early enough he was allowed to photograph the shows guests such as Jimmy Carter and Michael Caine. He was allowed to photograph during the commercial breaks.
Some of the celebrities really enjoyed the pictures Gordy took of them. He said John Cage, the composer and writer, liked Gordy’s pictures so much Cage used them for publicity photos.
For a longtime Gordy had used a 35mm film camera. Some of his photographic prints would be copied and enlarged with a 5080 large format Xerox machine to achieve grainy hi-contrast images at very large size. Just recently he switched to using a digital camera and Adobe PhotoShop, according to his biography.
Last August Gordy had a retrospective show displaying his photographs at the Lincoln Public Library Gallery. Currently, he said, he is working on making a line of engraved greeting cards from his photos.
by Jonathan Mills Smith Newton Magazine January 2008