The man on the spot

The skill set of a news photographer is not always appreciated by the reader, who enjoys the light-hearted moment of the prime minister snapping elastic bands behind his desk, or fears for the iron worker perched on a thin steel pillar high above the city as he reaches out to grab a beam.

These are descriptions of now-legendary photos from the portfolio of Toronto Star photographer Boris Spremo, who died this week at 81.

Spremo worked at the Star for 34 years and for the Globe and Mail for four years before that. When he retired in 2000 he had come to personify photojournalism in Canada.

Spremo won hundreds of awards and earned the Order of Canada for his compelling news photography. But he would be the first to admit he wasn’t the most skilled photographer when it came to the technical requirements of the job: determining shutter speed, exposure settings, depth of field.

Where Spremo excelled was putting himself in position to take the photos the competition did not have access to and getting subjects to loosen up, as he did when he persuaded Pierre Trudeau to clown around with elastic bands.

“He was able to talk anybody into anything,” said Star photographer Richard Lautens. “He had this personality, this drive. He would get in anywhere. He would never take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Through sheer force of personality, Spremo forged an unparalleled career in a type of photojournalism that doesn’t exist today. He hauled a 100-pound portable dark room into the war zones of Vietnam; poked his camera between the ropes as George Chuvalo went toe-to-toe and blow-for-blow with Muhammad Ali; and tracked retired prime minister John Diefenbaker to a lounge chair in Barbados as the setting sun emerged from behind a cloud. That shot won him a National Newspaper Award.

And at age 64, Spremo was in the centre of a riot at Queen’s Park between police and poverty activists. He was knocked down, his pants torn, but he never stopped shooting as police batons hammered down on protestors. Spremo was exactly where he needed to be — and where he wanted to be.

Boris Spremo excelled at putting himself in the position to take photos others did not have access to