New Photo Exhibit Tells a Long,
Detailed Story About Life in the City
Story by Matthew St. Amand
Photography by Nick Brancaccio
A conservative estimate of how many photographs Nick Brancaccio took during his forty-one-year career with The Windsor Star comes out around 15,000. No one in the Star’s 136-year history has taken more photos.
An exhibit of 50 of these photographs is open at the Chimczuk Museum—inside Art Windsor-Essex at 401 Riverside Drive West.
Selecting photographs from the massive trove was no easy task, but the skills honed over four decades as a news photographer—sizing up situations, framing scenes in seconds, making snap decisions—were helpful in choosing what to exhibit.
“The photos I find most compelling are the ‘spot news’ images,” Nick explains, “being on the scene when our first responders are in the act of saving lives, sometimes putting their own lives on the line.”
Nick’s photo exhibit, however, offers a much wider view of life in the area. Patrons will encounter an image of Mick Jagger performing with the Rolling Stones at MSU stadium in 1994. There are pictures from the Detroit Tigers’ championship season in 1984. And the many faces of daily life in Windsor are amply represented, too.
One such photograph, showing three girls on horseback at a drive-thru window, is so perfectly framed, one might believe it was a staged event.
“The kids on horseback were at the Manning and County Road Forty-Two Tim Horton’s,” Nick recalls. “Had I pulled up ten seconds later, I would have missed the picture.”
Up until the early 2000s, Nick often didn’t know what he had until he got into the darkroom.
This was the case with the image of Detroit Tigers’ manager, Sparky Anderson, bleeding from the head in the Tigers locker room after they won the pennant in 1984.
“I was at Tiger Stadium when they won,” Nick says. “I went into their clubhouse during the champagne celebration. One of the Tigers got a little close with the bottle while showering Sparky Anderson and clipped him on the head, cutting him.”
Chronicling life in Windsor came naturally to this lifelong city native. After graduating from W.D. Lowe, Nick attended two years at the University of Windsor before transferring to the Journalism program at St. Clair College. There, he had a few influential teachers, including Al Trotter, whom he remembers as a source of continuous encouragement to the students.
“Later, Bill Bishop, photo editor at The Windsor Star taught one day a week at the college,” Nick says. “He saw what I was doing as I worked in the darkroom when his class was in there. He eventually hired me at The Star.”
Learning to be an effective newspaper photographer, Nick found there was no shortage of opportunities for capturing images of life in Essex County.
“Your day was planned ahead of time,” he says. “The paper had multiple editors, and I received a lot of assignments from Lifestyle, for instance, or the sports desk, or the city desk. The police scanner was always worth monitoring.”
The Star also used to send Nick to photograph new medical procedures at area hospitals.
“I have an interesting photo of a skull being opened in preparation for brain surgery,” he says. “I photographed total knee replacements.”
For many years, Nick was paired with reporters whose notes provided background information needed for his pictures. It was helpful being pointed in the right direction by editors, but it always came down to Nick’s eye, timing and good luck to capture images that won him three Canadian Press Photo of the Month Awards, among other accolades.
Many of the more interesting photographs are a study in contrast. There is the March 9, 1985, image of the Niagara Trojans high school basketball team rejoicing after winning the OFSSA Senior A basketball title.
As Nick lined up his shot, Niagara’s opponent, Gananoque, had a player on the free throw line, shooting two. All eyes in the gymnasium were focused on him—all, except for Nick, who made a conscious decision on the shot he wanted to capture.
“I didn’t shoot the player at the free throw line,” he says. “I realized, if he missed, the Niagara team would erupt.”
Nick’s calculation was correct, and he caught a moment that the original caption described as “pure, unrestrained joy,” while at the same time the team coach stood among his celebrating players, arms folded, “show[ing] self-restraint.”
The photo exhibit is augmented by a slideshow comprised of pictures Nick took of celebrities performing or visiting the area, including images of Michael Jackson in concert, Madonna performing, Diana Ross and Mickey Rooney as he golfed at Essex Golf & Country Club.
The exhibit shows Nick’s evolution as a newspaper photographer, beginning in 1980, until his retirement in April 2021. He still recalls the first time he went out with a camera to capture an event:
“I was still at St. Clair,” he says. “I called the Detroit Redwings PR person and said I wanted to get some pictures of Gordie Howe—a legendary Redwing player—who came out of retirement and was returning to Detroit with his new team, the Hartford Whalers.”
Nick arrived at Joe Louis Arena that evening with his camera. “I didn’t get a shooting position; I was given a roving pass,” he says. “I was nervous, but I got a few OK photos of Gordie Howe on the ice.”
Nick is still amazed by how many photographs he took during his career.
“Going back, looking at these photos, they are still so relevant—just the sheer impact of some of them: the spot news photos, on-the-scene when first responders are saving lives. It was all a team effort, a collaboration between me and the reporters, and the editors.”
“Windsor in Focus: Forty Years Through the Lens of Nick Brancaccio” is open to the public at the Chimczuk Museum until March 2025.
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