by Eve Greene
Carrboro Commons Photo Editor

Georg Gordon’s personal goal is to photograph every home basketball game this season at Carrboro High School. This may not seem like a remarkably ambitious goal — except that Gordon is legally blind.

Legally blind photographer Georg Gordon stands ready with his camera during a triple-header on Jan. 25 at Carrboro High School. Walking the baseline, the experienced photographer is keeping his goal of shooting every home basketball game for the Jaguars. You can see his work weekly in the Carrboro Citizen.
Photo by Eve Greene

After multiple surgeries to correct developing macular holes, cataracts and the loss of pigment in his retinas, Gordon’s impairment forced him to retire from his career as writer, photographer and editor. Fortunately for the town of Carrboro, even the loss of his sight couldn’t stop him from doing what he loves.

“Digital [photography] has saved my life,” said Gordon. He knows the range of his camera and with help from the bold lines running the length of the court, he knows where to expect action.

Kirk Ross, editor of the Carrboro Citizen, where Gordon works, said “the joy of auto-focus” has kept Gordon in the field. “He really gets some great shots,” said Ross.

In August of last year, Gordon moved to Carrboro, just down the street from Carrboro High School. Needing something to fill his free time, he began to attend the home basketball games and take pictures. That’s when the Carrboro Citizen entered the picture.

Ross said Gordon just wanted to help, and offered his services to the Carrboro Citizen for free. When Gordon sent him some pictures in an e-mail, Ross wrote, “I was really happy to see someone interested in regularly documenting the teams’ first seasons.”

Journalism isn’t about the money, Gordon explained. “When I have a kid come up to me, just totally overjoyed that his picture is in the paper, I mean that just warms my heart.”

Gordon has had to adapt as his eyesight continues to slip away. Using a magnifying glass, he can still edit pictures from his computer. Although he can take simple notes of jersey numbers, he often uses a tape recorder to keep more detailed records. Gordon is able to walk to and from the school for games but parents and even Ross often willingly offer rides when they see him along the road.

After years of building his portfolio by writing and photographing as a freelancer — “with emphasis on the free,” said Gordon with a smile — he offered his services to a small newspaper in Thomasville, Ala., in 1996, beginning his third career. Born in Canada, Gordon was an office machine mechanic and an over-the-road truck driver before he was drawn to journalism.

Gordon shoots the boy’s basketball game between Carrboro and Cummings High School. The auto-focus on his digital camera allows him to continue to take clear photographs in spite of his sight loss.
Photo by Eve Greene

Soon, he was providing 90 percent of the material for the weekly newspaper. After four months, the editor left and Gordon was offered the vacant position. The Thomasville News quickly consumed Gordon’s life.

Gordon successfully ran the paper for more than nine years and became so involved that he was often forced to spend the night on a cot in the office. “My address where I was registered to vote was the newspaper office,” Gordon chuckled.

Throughout the years he spent editing stories for the paper, he constantly sought out intriguing stories. He was once threatened with jail time for requesting public records, and engaged in a political campaign, challenging the incumbent mayor.

In competing with The Thomasville Times, the established paper in the area, Gordon proved his determination by covering not only Thomasville but the surrounding counties as well. When funding dried up within the town because of pressure from the mayor, The Thomasville News found advertisers from outside the town.

“I knew nobody else was going to do what I could do,” said Gordon of his paper’s coverage of the broad area.
Even now, with the chronic decline of his eyesight, Gordon continues to write for three newspapers in Alabama. He writes on anything and everything, remaining hard-hitting and dedicated to the improvement of the towns his articles reach. “A fellow newsman told me,” Gordon said, “the duty of a newspaper man is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comforted.”

Gordon says he is even using this experience to help those at home. He hopes to take his work back and prove to the state of Alabama that even blindness can’t keep him from his photography and reporting. Gordon will be using his pictures and articles to push for improvements in vocational rehabilitation programs.

Ross wrote in an e-mail, “I’d never thought about the fact that a person with his knack and experience might through the aid of technology be able to continue doing what he loves doing.”

When Gordon does return to Alabama in February, it’s not just the pictures that the town will miss. It’s the khaki vested gentleman moving along the baseline with his camera and press pass proving that he can’t be slowed down, even by blindness.

Carrboro Citizen: www.carrborocitizen.com
Carrboro High School: www.chccs.k12.nc.us/chs/