high achievers

National Acclaim
Michael Tercha wins first
in San Francisco ‘Shoot-out’

by Laura A. Schmid

	Chris Jordan and Amy Nelson kiss before touring Alcatraz. Jordan said “Even the prison is romantic.” (Photo by Michael Tercha)

A dog wearing sunglasses licks its mouth. A hooker in a bridal veil lifts her shirt. A couple kisses by the bay.

These are photographs Michael Tercha, JM 2001, took in 48 hours to win the William Randolph Hearst individual photo competition in June. The Hearst award is the "Pultizer Prize" of collegiate journalism.

"It was a total nightmare," said Tercha, "I was thinking, 'Why did I even do this? I didn't want it this bad.'"

Tercha and Glenn Danforth, another UF photojournalism student, competed in a shoot-out June 8-10 for the final round of the Hearst photo competition. The organizers summoned them to San Francisco the day before.

To earn these spots, each had gone through a rigorous process. Earlier in the year, each placed in the top four of previous competition rounds. Danforth won first place in the news and sports category, while Tercha took fourth place in feature and portrait photos.

	Tercha photos (top to bottom): Simon Joo and Shin Aukim toured San Francisco sites on the Magic Carpet Ride at Fisherman's Wharf; dog with glasses; man on trolley.

Both shot portfolios to qualify for one of the 12 semi-finalist positions. From these portfolios, the judges chose six for the final shoot-out.

Associate professor John Kaplan, who advised Hearst competitors, expressed his pride in Tercha.

"Michael worked very keenly and effectively to become national champion. He is very analytical and problem-solving-plus he's just really a nice guy. He earned this award 100 percent," Kaplan said.

The Friday night they arrived, the six finalists met each other and received their assignment: shoot nine pictures covering seven different topics-by Sunday at 4 p.m.

Those topics were news, event, entertainment, feature, humor, San Francisco at night and three San Francisco travel pictures-the Golden Gate Bridge, a trolley car, and tourists enjoying San Francisco.

The contestants were limited to 13 rolls of film.

John Freeman, who heads the photojournalism program, said the shoot-out levels the field.

"It puts all six students in the same location with the same assignments to see who can perform best under pressure," Freeman said.

Tercha echoed that sentiment, saying that the shoot-out was about who can handle stress the best. Tercha felt he had an advantage over the other competitors because he is interning at the Los Angeles Times and already deals daily with stress and time constraints.

Kaplan observed that Tercha works best under that kind of deadline pressure.

Tercha took a different route to his award-winning pictures. He went to bed Friday night but didn't sleep because he was nervous and couldn't stop thinking about the assignment. He got up early and took a shower, but did not take pictures till Saturday afternoon.

Tercha initially planned to take pictures of gay night club life that evening.

Foiled by night club owners who would not give him permission to shoot pictures, he begged a prostitute in the seedy "Tenderloin" district to let him hang out with her on the street for the night. She agreed to let him photograph her.

Tercha's fear of not getting pictures allayed, he relaxed as he got some good photos and started 'having fun' with the process by late Sunday morning.

Monday morning, all the contestants met at 9 o'clock to develop, scan, color, correct and turn in their pictures for printing. Monday evening the winners were announced at a $100-per-person supper and slide show held on the "San Francisco Spirit" dinner boat.

"William Randolph Hearst treated us all right," Tercha remarked.

Tercha said he had a good feeling when he walked into the dinner and his seat assignment put him between the top Hearst competition judge and Dean Terry Hynes.

Still, Tercha admitted to being surprised when he won and getting "a tear in my eye."

Both Tercha and Danforth agreed that doing so well in the Hearst contest could help them get noticed by industry higher-ups and obtain jobs more easily, perhaps at bigger publications than they might have otherwise.

The two contestants also agreed that Freeman and Kaplan played key roles in not only their individual wins, but UF's overall win. Freeman has headed the photo program for 10 years. Kaplan came on board two years ago.

Tercha said that Freeman and Kaplan complement each other, a view Dean Hynes supported.

"I'm very proud of the work John Freeman has done over many years, and John Kaplan has added to that. They are a wonderful team. Without Freeman and Kaplan working with our students, this wouldn't have happened."

Hynes said that the mix of their complementary strengths-Freeman's in hard news photos and Kaplan's in feature/story telling photos-finally helped UF to get from second place to first.

Tercha proudly summed up UF's Hearst competition win.

"We've gotten the proverbial stamp of approval. We're now the best photojournalism program in the country."