An Empathetic Eye on the Paralympics

September 10, 2012, 2:15 pm

By MATT MCCANN

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The first Paralympic Games since 2009, when Emilio Morenatti lost his foot to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, ended in London on Sunday night. For Mr. Morenatti, who does not consider himself a sports photographer, the Paralympics were a priority, a more personal assignment and project that better connected him with a community he recently joined.

While he also photographed the regular Olympics - when he pitched the assignment to his editors at The Associated Press, they gave him those Games as a bonu s - Mr. Morenatti was at liberty to shoot what interested him at the Paralympics. He was not required to be at every finish line - and the different vibe allowed him to abandon the zoom lenses and get close to his subjects, quite unlike the frenzied, hyper-competitive intensity of the regular Olympics.

Upward and OnwardEmilio Morenatti

Previous posts featuring Emilio Morenatti's career on Lens.

Not that the Paralympic Games lacked for intensity or frenzy - it is a competition, after all, and the athletes' feats are stun and astound. For Mr. Morenatti, who stands on a prosthesis, some of their challenges are familiar to him.

“This a competition for 10 days,” he said recently, reached by phone. “But I also have the feeling that this is a life competition for those people. I think they have to deal with daily competition away from this competition, as I am doing.

“This is the common thing that I think we are sharing here. In my case, with these athletes, they are doing their sports as I am doing my job.”

The convivial atmosphere, shared among Mr. Morenatti's colleagues, but also among the photographers and the athletes, provided an opportunity for learning. Mr. Morenatti would exchange tips or seek advice with athletes who are similarly disabled, to get better use out of his own prosthesis or find better ways to navigate the day-to-day. He was fascinated by swimming, how people missing multiple limbs could propel themselves through the water, seemingly so adapted to their disability.

Of course, the conviviality is also a symptom of lesser interest in these Games - fewer sponsors, fewer viewers, for example, than the Olympics - and Mr. Morenatti was disappointed that there has not been more media coverage of the event. It's an opportunity, after all, to better understand the challenges of disabled persons, and to address a stigma. For Mr. Morenatti, it is important to discern that just because a person is labeled an “amputee” does necessarily mean that he or she identifies that way.

“I used to say that I am not - we are not - amputees, or amputated guys: we have a member of our body amputated,” he said. “This kind of thing should be known by the society, and here I have my chance to show through my photography this kind of situation. Which is really, really amazing.”

The Paralympic Games have competitions for many different disabilities of varying degrees, and in a sense, it's a diverse display of a human ability to cope, to persevere, and to demonstrate courage. It was in some of these inspiring moments that Mr. Morenatti was reminded of the limits of his profession. Witnessing the blind long jump, for exam ple, Mr. Morenatti recalled the cheering crowds interfering with the silence needed for the blind, sprinting athletes to hear their guides, who indicate to the Paralympian when to jump.

“In this kind of situation, to see a blind guy jumping, like three or four meters in silence - he's blind, he's covered his eyes - this is an absolutely incredible moment,” said Mr. Morenatti, who is Spanish. “This is nothing compared with, let's call it ‘normal competition' - it's absolutely strange to see somebody blind jumping into nowhere and landing in a place where he supposes he's going to land. How can you photograph this moment? It's absolutely impossible - photography cannot judge this situation.”