Tim Vizer:  

Hello everyone! Not sure if you remember me, but I was a photographer for the school yearbook and newspaper at GCHS-South. I attended Niedringhaus Elementary, Coolidge Junior High, then GCHS. I grew up near Wilson Park -- it was great having the park within walking distance. I am married (43 years and counting) and have two children, and two grandchildren. My wife had a long and varied career as an account systems analyst for an industry-leading manufacturer with headquarters in St. Louis, then at other jobs as we moved around the Midwest. She recently retired after 13 years as a teacher's aide at a local grade school. My daughter teaches art and is a teacher's aide at an elementary school. My son has his own business in Florida, plus works at a condo association, and lives on his sailboat. My son-in-law is a senior finance manager for a local car dealership, and my grandchildren are in high school. One has ambitions to be a professional video gamer and has thousands of followers on his YouTube channel. The other has plans for a career in law enforcement and is in police explorers with a local police department. Almost immediately after graduation, I started summer school at SIUE , taking pre-calculus math, and continued that in the fall semester of '74 with calculus, astronomy and a few other classes. I had ambitions to be a research astrophysicist. My dad had built a darkroom for me in the basement, for planetary and star photos I shot with my telescope and a simple film camera mounted on it. I was a member in a couple astronomy associations. But photography ultimately won out over astronomy, and I switched college majors to photojournalism and became a newspaper photographer, working first at the SIUE school paper, then for the SIUE News & Photo Service, then several newspapers (Collinsville Herald, Evansville (IN) Sunday Courier & Press, St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the Belleville News-Democrat) for the next 40 years or so. I started as a staffer at the Globe, but was promoted to assistant director of photography after a couple years. That paper went out of business and I did a little bit of freelancing before being hired at the Belleville News-Democrat, where I was promoted to Chief Photographer after one year, overseeing a staff of photographers and contributing freelancers ("stringers", as we say in the business). Even though it was the smallest paper (by circulation) of all the papers I worked at full-time, I worked there the longest - 30 years. I oversaw the transition from film cameras to digital photography, including the acquisition of an internet-based archive system and the introduction of other advanced technology. I left the BND in 2017, after being forced into early retirement (with LOTS of other employees), and then accelerated my freelance photographer career, which I continue today. I had seen the writing on the wall for the newspaper industry, and had actually started freelancing a full ten years before ending my time at the BND. I now shoot news and sports for a variety of clients: I cover news, features and sports for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Associated Press & AP Images and the Sipa USA news agency, and pro soccer and national and international news for several foreign-based news agencies (Agence France-Presse in Paris, Deutsche Presse-Agentur in Berlin, and Agencia EFE in Madrid). I also shoot for a few public relations firms and the occasional magazine or regional news and sports outlet or sometimes college sports at Saint Louis University. Recently, I was invited to join the USA Today Sports Images Photographers Network, where I will once again be photographing the baseball Cardinals and hockey Blues and major collegiate sports. I already s...Expand for more