Veteran visual journalist Red Huber retired in September after 46 years at the Orlando Sentinel.
Huber joined Intersection to reflect on a career documenting Central Florida, the importance of connecting with the community and telling the stories that need to be told.
When Huber joined the Sentinel in 1972, there were 17 people in the photography department, and they were shooting in mainly black and white film.
Some of his most iconic photos depict the shuttle program. One photo in particular is important to Huber: a rainbow arcing low over the horizon with the shuttle at one end. Huber took the photo in 1998, just after his mother had passed away.
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The fifteenth anniversary ,December 4, 1998, of historic shuttle launch,STS-88, Endeavour first Space Station assembly mission. Photo: Red Huber/The Orlando Sentinel[/caption]
NASA sent the photo to the astronauts on the space station, says Huber.
“And the next day, they woke up, and it was somewhere over the rainbow.”
“That photo was very, very dear to my heart, because I was very uncomfortable about covering the launch, because my mom had passed away,” he says.
“And I really feel that she was looking down at me, and giving me something that no-one else had. And no-one else had that picture.”
Huber says his mother was the biggest supporter of his work, from when he started taking photos as a kid, converting the single bathroom in their small home into a dark room.
Huber is equally enthusiastic about video. One of his most popular videos was shot using a go-pro camera strapped to an eagle at the Avian Reconditioning Center in Apopka.
“It was a lot of work, a lot of hours, but that’s what we do,” he says.
A longer version of this interview aired on Intersection in September. Click here to listen