Stan takes centre state after lifetime behind lens

Stan Shields has photographed thousands of college graduates getting their degrees over the past four decades and this week he got to wear the gown and cap himself when NUI Galway bestowed on him an Honorary Masters Degree.

Stan is probably one of the best known people Galway city and county because in the last 49 years he has covered an estimated 4,000 jobs (known in the journalistic world as markings), a mix of news, sporting, social and feature events.

It is no wonder then that the university decided he was worthy of an honorary degree for photographically recording Galway life.Rarely seen without his camera, Stan continues to take photographs in a freelance capacity having retired as Chief Photographer for The Connacht Tribune Group in 2007.

“I love taking pictures and I love meeting and talking to people so if I am asked, I still cover events. Looking back on my working life, I have been extremely lucky that I had a job I loved. I had the best of fun but I also covered my fair share of tragedies because when you work for a newspaper, that goes with the territory,” he says with the same passion and enthusiasm he probably had for the job the day he started in the early Sixties.

He was trained and mentored by the great Jimmy Walshe, a character known for his directness, much of which has rubbed off on Stan, who doesn’t suffer fools and calls a spade a spade – traits he needed sometimes to ensure he got the shot he wanted.

The Salthill native was only a year in the job when the US President, John F Kennedy, visited Galway in 1963 and his enthusiasm then almost got him shot as he stepped up onto the front seat of the open topped car to get a close-up!

“I looked at him and he looked at me. I pointed to my camera and just before two security men tried to pull me away, JFK said it was okay and I got my picture. That was in Eyre Square and when I tried to take a short cut behind the President’s car to get out to Salthill, where he was going next, I had to be escorted by his Press Secretary, Pierre Salinger, who told me there were 20 sniper guns pointed at me in case I was a hit man.”

Stan got his famous black and white pictures of the US President, made all the more poignant by Kennedy’s assassination two months later. Many of the images have been published all over the world. 

Things have changed. In those days he remembers going to the local Garda Station for his accreditation – there was a lot more paperwork when Ronald Reagan came to Galway 21 years later!

Another big story covered by Stan was Pope John Paul II’s visit to Ballybrit in 1979. He remembers taking his shots from a pedestal on a specially erected scaffold and still remembers the thrill he got when the Pope’s cloak was caught by the wind and he knew he had ‘the shot’. The photograph was captioned ‘Vat Man’.

When he talks about his career, there’s a twinkle in his eyes, such is his love of being in the front line of delivering the news to the public. He was hospitalised a few weeks ago but was determined to be discharged in time to make it to the conferral ceremony on Monday.“I was determined to be there. I have covered so many degree days in my time and it was a great honour to get one myself.”

And of course it is an event he enjoyed with his wife Kathleen and children, Louise and James, and their two grandchildren – after all, he has spent years recording other people’s events. For a change he was the focus of attention on Monday.

It’s not the first time his work has been recognised though, Stan having won five national photographic awards.

One of the best selling local publications of the past few decades was a book of photographs taken by Stan called Stan’s Galway. It sold 5,500 copies and was a labour of love.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.