Sports photographer and Sony Artisan of Imagery Jean Fruth will be a keynote speaker at the SPOA International Conference for School Photography & Yearbooks, Thursday, July 13, from 2:00 PM – 3:30 PM, in Greensboro, S.C.
From a small darkroom to the most iconic stadiums flooded with lights, Fruth’s trajectory as one of photography’s preeminent visual storytellers has taken her on a round-the-horn tour of the world’s most indelible landmarks – from the world of baseball to the world at large.
Her first base was as a student in New York City, where she fell in love with photography. She then moved on to Healdsburg, Calif., where her focus turned to both in-studio portrait photography and on-location.
Unless that is, there was a game on. Sports have always been Jean’s most compelling subject, and from her earliest days in sports photography, she covered everything from wrestling to sailing, from basketball to volleyball to track and field. And, of course, football — on any given Friday, she could be found taking full advantage of those Friday night lights, shooting the sport’s storied rivalries, and eating at local snack shacks up and down northern California.
Soon she was called up to the big leagues herself, as she spent nearly a decade shooting the crown jewels of Bay Area sports — the Giants, the A’s, the 49ers. Her portfolio quickly expanded when she was invited to Cooperstown, where she helped build the archive of the renowned National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum. Fruth hit to all fields, contributing significantly to the museum’s exhibitions, the official magazine, social media campaigns, and print advertisements.
In 2019, Fruth co-founded Grassroots Baseball, a non-profit promoting and celebrating amateur games around the globe, with a singular aim: To grow interest and participation at the youngest levels. That year-round shooting schedule squares nicely with her commitment as a traveling photographer for La Vida Baseball and La Vida Sports, digital media companies that share the stories of Latino sports across the United States and Latin America through original video, writing, and social content.
Fruth’s first book, Grassroots Baseball: Where Legends Begin, was released in 2019. Her latest, Grassroots Baseball: Route 66, was published in 2022, with proceeds benefitting the non-profit organization.
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