photograph courtesy frank murtaugh
Frank Murtaugh (left) and Larry Kuzniewski during a company paintball outing in 1996.
Larry Kuzniewski has been adding 1,000 words to my columns for more than 20 years. In my side gig as a sportswriter for the Memphis Flyer, I’ve covered hundreds of Memphis Tiger football and basketball games … almost all of them with Larry and his camera nearby. We writers try to be vivid — even when the subject is merely athletes and ballgames — but the best photographers live in a vivid realm, as Larry has here in Memphis for almost half a century.
Among the most prolific photographers in the 47-year history of this magazine (we may not need the “among” qualifier), Larry is retiring and heading south to Florida, family, and new adventures waiting in the Sunshine State. Just like writers, though, photographers never truly retire. Their work simply becomes “work,” hopefully with no boundaries to what and whom they choose to capture at the right moment. This will be Larry Kuzniewski in 2023 and beyond.
To call Larry prolific in our early days would be to cheat the word prolific. He shot the cover for our fourth issue (in July 1976) and he was barely warming up. From 1982 through 1984, 28 out of 36 issues of Memphis magazine featured a cover that was shaped and shot by Larry Kuzniewski. From the silly (a faux Mark Twain) to the sunny (we actually had a swimsuit issue in the mid-Eighties), Larry made the most important page of our publication splash, as they say. Better than just a single, captivating shot, Larry’s images made you want to open the magazine, to see what’s next, what’s more. That, friends, is photojournalism.
Larry Kuzniewski and I have been arm-in-arm for more than a quarter century. Larry’s been arm-in-arm with Memphis magazine much longer than that. We’re going to miss having him in the neighborhood (to say nothing of downstairs). But we look forward to what his camera catches next. Because we know it will move us.
Larry is a master of fashion photography, and his skill ranges from Gulf Coast beaches to the mountains of Colorado. Models of myriad ages, shapes, and sizes launched (or expanded) their portfolio with Larry’s eye finding the right angle, the proper light, the required mood to make a photo beautiful. He’s contracted for work with corporate catalogs, chambers of commerce, and retail businesses. He’s covered a spectrum of subject matter that ranges from AIDS to murder — heavy stuff. But always in gentle hands.
Even with the volume and variety of assignments Larry pursued, he never — not once — told me he was too busy for a Tiger game. There were times when he had a conflict and couldn’t be in two places, but he always took my call and circled dates on the calendar. That’s a devotion that comes from something deeper than the business of journalism. It’s friendship, and it’s what we at the magazine appreciate most about Larry.
For the better part of two decades, Larry lived in a home/studio downstairs from Contemporary Media’s offices on Tennessee Street. My colleague, Michael Finger, describes Larry as “our Kramer” (of Seinfeld fame), the neighbor you get to see without the formality of an invitation, in one form of operational mode (and attire) or another. Making magazines (and weekly newspapers) is cluttered work at times, days and nights bleeding into one another as a deadline is reached and the next one looms. Within that culture, Larry Kuzniewski was a happy constant for Contemporary Media. No matter the stress level … Larry lowered it. Better yet, he often made us laugh when laughing was hard.
About my own friendship with Larry. He shot the photo for my wedding announcement (we did such things in December 1993), and then a family portrait (with my wife and two daughters) on the occasion of our twentieth anniversary in 2014. He brought a professional touch to high school graduation photos for each of my daughters. I look at these priceless images almost every day, from their frames reminding me that they were shot not just with a photographer’s trained eye, but with Larry Kuzniewski’s heart.
And then there’s the paintball picture, one with Larry actually in the image with me and not behind the camera. Another colleague took it in 1996, surely with a bruise (or dozen) from a “team-building” exercise in east Shelby County. Never will you see a pair of softies look more tough, more ready to attack, more ready to defend the honor of …something or other.
I’ve come to love this image so much. It was taken before we all carried cameras in our pockets, so there was chance involved. It’s a pair of friends, arm in arm (with almost-harmless “weapons”). Larry Kuzniewski and I have been arm-in-arm for more than a quarter century. Larry’s been arm-in-arm with Memphis magazine much longer than that. We’re going to miss having him in the neighborhood (to say nothing of downstairs). But we look forward to what his camera catches next. Because we know it will move us.
