Heisler shows eye for life's telling moments, humanity

David Montero, Rocky Mountain News

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

The pregnant woman leans against a casket that contains her husband - the closest her unborn son will ever get to his father.

Todd Heisler, the 34-year-old Rocky Mountain News photographer, managed just two frames of that moment.

"It's not the most sophisticated shot, but it's all there," he said. "It felt so personal. It was a moment between a family."

For that photo, the now-famous shot of passengers on a commercial aircraft watching Marines unload a flag-draped coffin at Reno-Tahoe International Airport and a number of others in the newspaper's "Final Salute" project, Heisler won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography Monday.

Janet Reeves, director of photography, said she knew Heisler was special when she saw his portfolio before hiring him in August 2001.

He was a photographer for a couple of weekly newspapers in Illinois, and the images he shot primarily were the small events in life that were so huge for the subjects involved - moving into a new apartment or the first day of school. Reeves said his ability to catch those moments revealed as much about his eye for shooting as it did about his humanity.

"This is a good man who cares about people, and it really shows," Reeves said.

Heisler began his career as a photojournalist in 1990 at The Daily Vidette - the college newspaper at Illinois State University. He graduated in 1994 and got his first full-time job as a chief photographer and photo editor for a group of 13 weeklies in Illinois.

Heisler said the training in community journalism helped him to develop his philosophy as a photojournalist. It reveals itself when Heisler describes how he is "making a picture" rather than taking a picture.

"I believe when you're taking a photo, you're taking something from someone," Heisler said. "They're giving me something. That's a lot of trust that they let me capture a moment of their life and put it in the newspaper."

In 2003, he was a member of the News staff that won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news when wildfires ravaged Colorado. That was the year he first went to Iraq to cover the war. He's been back two other times.

In April 2005, Heisler and News columnist Bill Johnson survived a roadside explosion that ripped through the Humvee they were riding in.

Heisler said his experiences in Iraq helped him on "Final Salute."

"What (the experiences) did for me was humanize it," Heisler said.

At a gathering in the newsroom Monday afternoon, he said the experience of working on the project gave him an appreciation for the people in his life, adding that he "hugged his wife a little tighter" after dedicating his life to "Final Salute" for so long. Heisler has been married to Kelly for six years.

"I tried to think about things in my life that were important, and hopefully all of you here, everybody that reads about this, will take that away, as a way to find something positive in it. You can't take for granted what you have."