Sports Illustrated publishes Catholic high school photographer's work

Published: 2004-08-17

ST. LOUIS (CNS) -- The photo capturing the intensity of the National Hockey League playoffs jumped off the pages of a spring issue of Sports Illustrated magazine. But the photo credit was most likely missed by most everyone except those who know Jonathan Brownfield, a senior at St. John Vianney High School in Kirkwood, just outside St. Louis. Brownfield has been focused on sports photography since his freshman year and often told people of his goal to one day be a Sports Illustrated photographer. "Yeah, sure you will, kid," people told him skeptically. But all along, he has received support and encouragement from the staff at Vianney, a private, all-male Marianist-run school. And he met and found a mentor in a real-life Sports Illustrated staff photographer who also had people chuckle when he was a Vianney student and told them of his aspirations. David Klutho, a 1978 Vianney graduate who has worked for Sports Illustrated for 19 years, saw an item in the newspaper two years ago about an upcoming Vianney homecoming football game and decided he would take some photos and donate them to the school for its newspaper or yearbook. It is a practice he has done occasionally in the past. "I'm shooting pictures on the field, and it's a night game. It was a surreal thing because 20 yards from me, basically on the same spot where I had started photography, there's Jonathan, and it's like me being there," Klutho told the St. Louis Review, archdiocesan newspaper.

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