I’m willing to wager that Stephen Green’s office is better than yours. You’ve got a stapler, a phone, an odd looking thing that may be a paper weight or something that fell out of the ceiling, an outdated computer, a lovely photo of your family, and the view of the drab cubicle in front of you. Green has ivy, soft dirt, and manicured sod. While your excitement for the day may consist of left over coffee cake in the conference room, Green’s is a grand slam or a play at the plate or maybe a diving catch.
What, you still don’t think so?
Your office isn’t surrounded by 40,000 people. You don’t have the sun shining directly down upon you during the day, stars flickering in the night’s sky. And you don’t have potential Hall of Famers, as well as current Hall of Famers, mulling about the office, stopping to chat with you.
Stephen Green, an Oak Parker, is the official photographer for the Cubs, and he has been for the last 24 years. Oh yes, it most certainly is a dream job.
“I’m originally from Wilmette, and when I was in sixth grade or so I used to take the El down to Wrigley and sit in the bleachers,” says Green, 54, now sitting in the visitor’s dugout at Wrigley before a night game last week. “I’ve always been a huge Cubs fan, so I never take this job for granted.”
It all came about at an unprecedented age and in an unpredictable way. Green was 28, living in an apartment down the street from the Friendly Confines. It was 1982 and the Wrigley family owned the Cubs. He was shooting photos of Wrigley for a project under an Illinois Arts Council grant when the Tribune Company purchased the team and the current staff photographer retired.
“They already knew me around the ballpark because I was shooting things for a project I was working on, so I kind of fell into it,” he says. “They liked what I had already done, but it was like being at the right place at the right time.”
Green’s was a typical rookie season, sweaty palms, rattled nerves, and no film in the camera. He was taking headshots one day and the rookies, one of which was someone named Ryne Sandberg, were forced to go first, remembers Green.
“It was a group of five or six and I missed every single one of them. I had to bring them all back to re-shoot. Sandberg was here earlier today and he was still razzing me about that.”
Green’s been a victim of the pranksters as well. His shoes were once lit afire-Sandberg was the culprit-and he was handed a cup of Kool-Aid with a tiny hole in the bottom.
“I had new shoes and it got all over them,” he muses.
Hey, no one said dream jobs were all fun and games.
Off the bat
With a little help from the Cubs’ success in 1984, Green’s career began to take off. He started shooting several different sports for major magazines, poster companies, even trading card companies. His photos have graced the cover of Sports Illustrated twice, once with Sammy Sosa and once with Michael Jordan. His work has also been published in Time, Newsweek, Chicago Magazine, T.V. Guide, and ESPN Magazine. In-between all of this, he’s managed to publish four books and, along with his wife Lisa, build a photography business in Oak Park. He’s as multifaceted as Oprah, who by the way, he worked for from ’90-96.
That’s right; Green juggled being both the set photographer for the Oprah Winfrey show and the Cubs photographer for six years. He’d shoot Oprah in the mornings and if the Cubs were at home, he’d be at Wrigley in the afternoons.
“It was quite a juggle back then,” says Green. “I think it got to a point that I needed to pick one or the other and this [the Cubs] was where I wanted to be.”
The big moments
Ask him what photo stands out prominently in his mind and he can’t give you an exact one. It’d be like picking a favorite child. Pete Rose tying Ty Cobb’s all-time hits record comes to mind. It was Sept. 8, 1985 at Wrigley and Rose singled off Cubs pitcher Reggie Patterson.
“The photographers went nuts,” remembers Green. “They flooded down behind the backstop every at bat, thinking he would break the record in that game.”
The game was later suspended due to darkness, enabling Rose to break the record in Cincinnati.
The home-run record chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in ’98 was also a thrill, says Green. Oh, and then there was that run in ’03 which made the beginning of ’04 all the more exciting … until the collapse.
“It was supposed to be the year. The expectation was there, no doubt. We contracted with a publishing company and everything, then, you know the rest,” he says with a hint of derision. There’s no question Green, along with the team he shoots, is suffering through a lackluster year. The Cubs are so far under .500 it’s hard to breathe.
But heck with baseball, there are celebrities to shoot. Mike Ditka, Bill Murray, Jennifer Aniston, Ozzy Osbourne, you name them, they’ve been through Wrigley and Green has taken their photo.
“It’s a nice distraction from what happens on the field,” he says, which this writer interprets as Jennifer Aniston is gorgeous!
Green isn’t all about the movers and shakers. His Stephen Green Photography business he runs with Lisa, an Oak Park native whose mother Anne Bradley ran a well-known children’s portrait studio for years in Oak Park, covers family portraits, weddings and all sorts of social events.
“It’s actually very rewarding to cover a wedding or something non-sports related,” says Green. “I enjoy it.”
The craft
“You have to pick and choose your moments,” says Green regarding the right time to shoot pro athletes off the field. But photographers aren’t just for the moment; they’re for the art of an image. There’s background to consider, lighting, angles. They are thinking so far ahead than just a snapshot. That’s why Green’s so well-respected in his profession. Former players call him up years later and request images.
For game shots, Green has free reign to go anywhere in Wrigley. He’s usually got headphones on and is listening to either jazz or classical music (or Hillary Duff, courtesy of his 9-year-old daughter, Shae).
“It puts me in more of a relaxed mode,” says Green, a music aficionado. “It can help me see the action in more of a creative light, so to speak.”
With both Stephen and Lisa being professional photographers, one would think they’d have thousands of photos framed on every wall of their house. “No. I mean we have some things, but we get tired of our own stuff. We have other people’s stuff.”
Vacation with the Greens? Shae and her younger brother Aidan, 2, probably feel like celebrities with all the clicking and flashing.
“I tend to put the camera down when we go on vacations,” admits Green. “It’s tough but it has to be done.”
As for another possible book, Green says right now he’d rather watch Shae play ball. She was an All-star this year. “It’s a pretty time consuming business. Luckily, we get great support from family and friends. I don’t want to miss out on any of those special moments.”
