Rest in Peace, Stan Bohnhoff; terrific photographer and a great guy

These past few days I've been in Samson, Alabama, working for NBC on those horrific murders. Whenever I'm sent to something like that, I know I'll run into some old co-workers and friends. A photog I know named Robert came up to me and said, "Did you hear about Stan?"

"No," I said, thinking he'd won an Emmy or something. He was that talented with a camera.

"He died."

Suddenly, I was grieving as much as the people I was covering.

So let me tell you about one of the best photogs I had the pleasure to know and work with.

I met Stan when I was doing some work for a company that produced fishing shows for ESPN and The Nashville Network back in the early 90's. I was writing scripts and doing some field producing while Stan was the principal photog and editor of a show called "Sportsman's Challenge." I, like just about anyone who watches television, assumed that a fishing show was sort of slapped together as content was probably the only thing of interest to the people who watched fishing shows.

Was I ever wrong. These shows were pure art.

I would see a guy in a boat casting into the water. Stan saw a backlit man gently tossing a line so that it caressed the lake, which was no longer water but a bed of shimmering crystals. To Stan Bohnhoff, light and shadows were simply forces of nature to be manipulated by his camera so that the rest of the world could see what he saw; nature in its raw, pristine, powerful beauty. Stan could shoot a blade of grass and make you feel guilty about cutting the lawn. A blank tape was a canvas, and he wielded his electronic brush like a master. His work resembled the cinematography of the movie "A River Runs Through it"...taking something simple, something we'd take for granted, and showing us the hidden beauty we'd missed.

I'd think we were done, and he'd always spot another shot. Or I wouldn't see anything special and he'd be putting his camera at some weird angle, getting ready to capture something with his 20-photog vision that was invisible to the rest of us. He treated every shot like a money shot, and the results always backed up that philosophy. His work was top quality, pure artistic genius.

Stan was in his element on the water, and he even looked the part. Part Jimmy Buffett, part Beach Boy, his sandy hair and devilish eyes were complimented by a shirt that was rarely tucked in and a pair of sunglasses that always hung on a cord around his neck. The guy was born to work and live on the beach, as if salt water flowed through his veins instead of blood. Laid back, even tempered. His company even reflected his love for the sea: Castnet Productions.

I once put together a political commercial that needed a little flair, and I asked Stan to shoot it. It turned into a work of art, something rarely seen in that genre. As always, he saw what I could not.

Stan loved Florida State football, loved and bragged about his only daughter every time I saw him. He had that sarcastic wit that seems to be a dominant gene with all photogs. The last time I saw Stan we'd gotten together in a sports bar to watch the Giants one Sunday afternoon. He wanted me to come see his new house he'd bought on the water and we talked about getting up a poker game with some old cronies. I hadn't heard from him for awhile, but just figured he was busy.

A heart attack took Stan from us. He was only in his fifties. He deserved the chance to literally sail off into the sunset or just float around in a boat docked at his house. While his life was much too short, he left the world a better place than he found it, and showed those of us who don't carry a camera just how beautiful nature really is.