Grip and Grin | Scene Through the Lens

They are called grip-and-grin photo ops.

Googling the phrase, I actually came across this description in an images search result: “two males standing together with a certificate.”

At my very first newspaper we covered them all the time, along with groundbreakings, check passings and ribbon cuttings.

They’re a photo mainstay of local newspapers. If anyone in the community called and asked us to come and take one of those pictures, I was dispatched. Without hesitation.

They’re a real trifecta of everything that is disdained by serious photojournalists, but I understood their importance. (I also photographed the homes for sale in our real estate section, and used cars on the lot for our automotive ads.)

And, when the town’s largest employer - and my newspaper’s biggest advertiser - our local hospital promoted someone, received a sizable donation or bought new equipment, we covered it. And I took the pictures of Dr. Important grinning as they gripped the hand of Mr. or Ms. Special.

It’s not much of an admission for me to say I was really glad when I started taking pictures for big-city newspapers and could forget about taking pictures like those.

I still covered ground breaking and announcements and cars and houses and hospitals, but there were so many other ways to photograph them - or to visually tell the story without resorting to a cliché.

Then I was assigned to the VIP preview of a new $45 million Proton Therapy Center this week, the first in South Jersey offering the beam therapy to cancer patients. It was presented to me as, “if you’re available...If not, no worries! It’s not imperative.”

Maybe it was my feeling a tinge of nostalgia, but I replied right away, “not a problem. It’ll be fun.”

And it was. There was a big tent in the parking lot, hors d’oeuvres, music, (short!) speeches, interesting equipment, and even a dramatic unveiling.

I covered it like I would any other event,not like the ribbon cuttings early in my career. I arrived early, and didn’t leave until the three-piece band had stopped playing their jazz standards, the caterers were taking away the tables and the staff was taking home the floral centerpieces.

In between, I looked for moments and scenes that told the story visually, even knowing that most of the pictures would not be used with our story.

If I could talk to my younger self, who knows what I might have done with those long ago grip-and-grin assignments.

Since 1998, a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:

» SEE MORE: Archived columns and Twenty years of a photo column