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.
Story continues below photos

If the shoe fits With the mindset of a labor economist,
Rachel Willis (shown above in her Yackety-Yack photo badge) trains her camera
on the feet of a cheerleader and of former Carolina center Tyler Hansbrough to
show how foot size can influence what people do for a living. |
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.”
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