Ever wonder how baseball pitchers make the ball dance up, down, in and out to baffle batters? Boston Red Sox left-handed ace Jon Lester showed photographer and sportswriter Steve Wilstein how it’s done with the positioning of his fingers on the five pitches in his arsenal: four-seam and two-seam fastballs, change-up, cutter and curveball. Wilstein photographed Lester in spring training this year using a Nikon D700 and a 105mm micro lens. Working with Christopher and Eric from Digital Silver Imaging, Wilstein created a 4-foot wide composition of five square close-up images, printed in color on HARMAN inkjet paper and framed by DSI . A framed print sold recently at Panopticon Gallery, which also is showing Wilstein’s other color images of the Red Sox and fans in spring training, as well as black-and-white images of Muhammad Ali that Wilstein made in 1978.
Wilstein, a longtime sports columnist for the Associated Press, can be seen discussing baseball’s steroids era in Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s two-part documentary, “The Tenth Inning”, on Sept. 28-29, on WGBH public television.
Contact Jason Landry at Panopticon Gallery to purchase this image.
