Language of pictures gives fresh voice
to scientist-storyteller

Rachel Willis is a labor economist trained to view the world through the lens of the social sciences. But she discovered years ago that a picture could be worth a thousand regression coefficients.

Numbers, of course, have a special place. They can be used to measure things, to quantify and track. But a picture can capture broader truths that sometimes are hidden in a human face – or feet – or footprints.

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It is important to understand Willis’ appreciation of photography as a central documentary instrument to understand why she decided to apply for an unpaid position as a staff photographer for the Yakety Yack for the 2008-09 school year.

She is a faculty member at the University since 1982 and holds dual positions as Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Associate Professor of American Studies and an adjunct professor of economics. She is also the 2009 GSK Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Emerging Issues at N.C. State University.

Her service within the University community included being on committees ranging from APPLES (from its start in 1990) to Building and Grounds (since 1997) to the Johnson Center for Undergraduate Excellence Student-Faculty Advisory Board (since 2003).

The first question on the application asked why she wanted to be on the yearbook’s photo staff. In response, Willis described herself as a “26-year participant and observer of the campus’ physical, intellectual and cultural development” who had found that “an image is frequently the most effective way to describe the University community, its past and the transitions to its future.”

She also explained that she had called upon her students in various courses to use pictures, video and oral histories to better “understand the challenges, opportunities and context of Carolina at a point in time.”

She added that she believed that is the role of the yearbook as well.

Willis said she is not quite sure what surprised her more – getting the job or surviving it – but she had no regrets, including being pushed to the ground by a Smith Center security person when she got in the way of a video shot during the national telecast of the Carolina-Evansville basketball game.

In anticipation of an important time out, still photographers were asked to dash in front of the visiting bench and slide to the floor. Television and video camera operators would follow, but could stand.

The problem arose when, during the 30-second timeout, Willis failed to take the instruction literally. “I walked past the sidelines and started to slowly lower my old body and the pair of 300-mm Yack lens to the court floor,” she said.

“A floor official grabbed my shoulders and pushed me to the ground fast. I was blocking the video shots. ‘Slide’ meant slide into position! He was no doubt wondering to himself who had let this old lady down on the floor with cameras.”

But moments later, after the official discovered that the woman was a credentialed photographer and a faculty member, he apologized and promised to make amends. “At the end of the game don’t go anywhere and I’ll come get you,” he told her.

It happened that this was the game that Carolina basketball player Tyler Hansbrough passed Phil Ford’s all-time scoring record. And at the game’s end, Willis walked with the official out to midcourt to take pictures of Hansbrough and his father behind him in the stands.

She went home that night feeling euphoric, despite her slight limp. The record books would later show that Hansbrough scored 20 points that night to give him a record 2,302 points. But only Willis has the close-up shots of Hansbrough and his father tearing up with emotion as they watched a video montage of Hansbrough’s career that linked him with past Carolina greats.

Her 15-year-old son punctured her pride as she walked into the house. He asked, “Mom, did I just see you knocked down on national television?”

“Yes,” Willis told him, “but wait until you see the photos I got!”

The only thing Willis doesn’t like about this particular story is that it represents the opposite of what she sought to accomplish during the year she served as a Yack photographer.

Hansbrough would get his picture taken enough times with or without her, she said. But as a longtime teacher and student of the University, what she wanted to capture and share through her pictures was a deeper understanding – and appreciation – for all the people whose contributions are made outside the spotlight.

Most people who work, study or teach here experience the campus through a fixed lens of their own routines. As a photographer, Willis was able to capture the changing rhythms and pulse of the place beyond those boundaries, to see the hands and feet that make a million things happen – things that are necessary for the campus to work.  

Through her pictures, she found a way to deepen her appreciation for a campus she had come to love years before. 

“It is the ordinary folks – the people who paint the fences, make the coffee and entertain us or protect us during the exciting basketball games that we usually miss seeing,” Willis said. “These are the unseen heroes who are necessary to make the University work so well.”

What she hoped to reveal through her pictures, she said, is “why we all need to value each other’s work.”