“Can you call me back in three minutes?”

The photographer, driven out of the country not by the controversial nature of his photos but by economic concerns, wanted to make sure his two daughters slept. Living space in the United Arab Emirates is not as plentiful as the financial opportunity.

“I never intentionally went to make a photograph that would be considered controversial.”

Rich-Joseph Facun, a former staff employee at the Virginian-Pilot, raised a firestorm with his ground-level shoes photo of a wife awaiting her husband’s return on the aircraft carrier Harry S Truman at Norfolk naval station.

“She was just standing there,” Facun said of his eventual choice among the many expectant family members. He missed the photograph he wanted, the one he had spent over 15 minutes shooting: a mother and daughter anxiously awaiting their soldier’s return.

“When I asked her name, the woman didn’t want to give me her name even though her name and her daughter’s name were on the sign they were holding,” Facun lamented.

The body language of the woman standing there, Candice Knilans, spoke energy and a possible story-leading shot. Facun asked her name and permission before shooting, and she agreed. He started taking a few photos, then walked away.

That’s when the shoes caught his eye.

“I asked, ‘Where is the shot?’”

Facun was in front of a barrier behind which the majority of the crowd watched as he crouched down and examined angles. He placed the camera on the ground, about five inches from Mrs. Knilan’s heels, and waited for nervous energy and opportunity to intersect.

Facun went back to his office frustrated. Having won an award for a similar photo of a boy awaiting his father’s return at Oceana Naval Air Station, Facun despaired at the seeming misfortune of settling for a few seemingly insignificant shots of one of the many Navy wives.

“I had to walk outside,” Facun said.

His frustration was short-lived. His fellow employees at the Virginian-Pilot were taken by one photo: Mrs. Knilans’ pink shoes.

“Everyone liked the line, the composition. They said, ‘That’s the shot.’”

The team decided to use the pic of Mrs. Knilans, legs crossed, tattoo, and sales tag still showing under the shoe. The photo ran as lead in a story covering the sailors’ return after a 7-month deployment. “The phones have been ringing off the hook about that photo,” Virginian-Pilot employees informed Facun the next morning. He was greeted by community reaction ranging, as he remembers, from, “It’s nice,” to, “It makes her look like a streetwalker.”

“The funny thing,” he said, “is there were more men angry than women. They were saying it was demeaning to women. We even had a local radio station do a morning show. That’s where I mostly heard from men. Women said, “It’s nice.”

Read community response

“I don’t see any controversy at all,” remarked Associate Professor, Fred Nelson, Illustration Program, Columbia College. Professor Nelson has a unique perspective, having been Art Editor for Playboy Magazine during the period the U.S. Supreme Court was defining the limits of free speech.

Kate Elston, journalist and contributor to the media-critical website, About-face.org, feels the photo is in itself aesthetically pleasing, but pushes stereotypes of women.

“At first glance, the picture is quite stunning and interesting…I’m concerned because just shooting the woman’s shoes once again represents isolating a woman’s body parts to represent her whole self. It also reinforces a stereotype that women are waiting for their men, when, perhaps, it would be appropriate to shoot a husband waiting for his wife to return from service.”

Facun doesn’t see the photo as controversial at all, but a statement on family life. He was once that young boy waiting for his father to return to port.

“Those very docks, I can remember being 3 or 4 years old standing on those very docks as I waited for my dad. My mom dressed up.”

Links: Rich-Joseph Facun at  http://www.facun.com

The Virginian Pilot Newspaper at http://thevirginianpilot.com/ or http://pilotonline.com/

View Kate Elston’s web stories at http://www.kate-elston.com/