"It was luck," he tells anyone who listens. "If he'd have missed the field goal I might not have transmitted the picture at all and who knows where my career would have gone from there."
That picture led to a 25 year career with UPI that started in Buffalo, N.Y. and went on to stops in Rochester, N.Y. and Philadelphia before making his final transfer, to Dallas in 1969.
Along the way and with the encouragement of another mentor, UPI Photo Editor Larry DeSantis, Edwards pioneered the use of longer lenses to cover NBA basketball. While other photographers sat at the end line of the court waiting for the action to come to them, he used a 300mm 4.5 lens to photograph the action at the far end of the court. In his one and only year in Philadelphia his photograph taken with the 300mm lens placed second in the statewide photo competition.
And his career continued to thrive as he moved to Dallas. Over the years in Dallas he would cover three Olympics, eight Masters Golf Tournaments, 14 Super Bowls, World Series, and numerous NCAA athletic championships in a variety of sports.
In his career he has photographed the very best in their sport, from a retired Mickey Mantle trying to play golf and Wilt Chamberlain battling with Bill Russell in the NBA Finals to Rod Laver, John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Conner in tennis.
He remains an award winning photographer who remembers clearly that luck and good fortune are a part of the experience.
How he and others at the very top of the food chain of news and sports photography accomplish what they do, will be discussed in another section of East Texas Reflections.
Edwards now lives in the quiet of the Piney Woods of East Texas, his adopted home, after retiring from his position as a full-time journalist.
He is married to the love of his life, Debbie, and between them they have five children and a growing number of grandchildren.
It is his hope that in the classroom section of this website (to be added in the near future), titled from Speed Graphics to Digital, that he will be able to help some aspiring photographers become passionately connected to the art form he made his career.
East Texas Reflections is intended to be a living and growing project so we hope you'll enjoy visiting us over and over again.
