ABOUT
| ABOUT RUE |
| There was a time when Tim Rue defined danger in the workplace as dodging major leaguer's foul balls or fending off the sometimes foul barbs of some of Hollywood's heaviest hitters. But nothing in his career working for the nation's most prestigious newspapers and national magazines prepared him for the high risk and reward of shooting assignments at the behemoth Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Whether it's focusing high atop a gantry crane or side-stepping a monstrous top loader, photographing the nation's largest seaport complex offers Rue a routine that is anything but. One day he's leaning out a helicopter to capture a panoramic view; the next lying on his stomach, head and camera poking out a transom door, capturing a face to face interaction with harbor seals and brown pelicans. All of it lends a note of adventure to his contract assignments, but a note that Rue always tempers with common sense, not to mention self-preservation. "Everything here," he says "can kill you." Indeed, catching up with him during a recent shoot finds him preparing for the challenge of capturing a new container terminal in action by casing himself into some safety gear including the brightest possible day-glo vest. An 8000 TEU ship (term used for the amount of containers on-board) is about to moor. The frenetic energy of the docks begins to hum as yard hostlers line up truck chasis in anticipation of the big cargo off-load. Longshoremen sport gloves, hard hats, steel-toed boots and protective eyewear as the massive portainers grind into position. The visual drama of the scene is only captured when you're in the middle of it, with containers flying overhead, trucks whizzing by and supervisors barking orders. "You've got to have eyes in the back of your head and remember to never step anywhere without first looking in all directions," he says. "That's not easy to do when trying to frame giant, fast-moving objects. Tankers are notoriously bad posers." His shooting style draws on his background of shooting sports and news where sight lines often get blocked. "It's really a lot about anticipation and predicting where the action is going to happen," Rue says. So as you view some of these images, know that a certain photographer has scaled a Jacob's ladder, climbed out on a catwalk, chartered a helo, put on a wetsuit, hung from a harness, and at times, waited and waited and waited to get the shot. |
 |