Remembering Legendary AP Photographer Ed Reinke

photograph by Mark Corneliso Indy cars blazed around the track at the Kentucky Speedway in the heat of a lazy, autumn Sunday afternoon earlier this month.  On October 2nd, I sat in the post-race traffic jam, passing Sparta on my way from Louisville to Northern Kentucky.  Little did I know, that inside the gates of the track, a legendary figure in Bluegrass photojournalism had sustained an injury that would cut his life short. Ed Reinke, Kentucky's lead AP photo man for many years now, snapped shots of the cars that day.  After parting ways with his freelance companion to have a smoke, Reinke fell and suffered a head injury. Hospitalized since that Sunday slip, Ed Reinke finally passed away last night at the age of 60. Some of you may be wondering who exactly Ed Reinke was or why he was important.  Others may be racking their brain for where they know his name from.  You've seen the name before.  Probably many times.  In tiny print underneath the thousands of his pictures that made their way into publication across the world.  In fact, you'll spot his name under several pictures in the KSR archives.  Reinke covered sports and news from behind a lens all over the planet, but his true bread and butter came in the state of Kentucky.  Despite growing up in Indiana and attending IU, he eventually made his way to being an AP staff photographer while living in Louisville, KY.  His path took him through places such as Cincinnati and D.C., but the Bluegrass was his final landing spot. His Kentucky work involved numerous University of Kentucky sporting events.  Plenty of iconic Kentucky Derby photos, as well as UK photos, came from the fingertips of Reinke.  But as death often reminds us, there are more serious matters in life than sports.  The most recent Indy car tragedy shows this solemn truth.  And Ed Reinke knew this, too.  Some of his most influential work came from two of the most infamous newsworthy tragedies in recent Kentucky history: the 1988 Carrollton bus crash and the 2006 Com Air Flight 5191 crash in Lexington.  Here is the AP article memorializing Reinke.  Also, check out this piece containing some of his photographs. If you do a google image search, you will see plenty of Ed Reinke's UK based pictures.  He even took group shots of Calipari's first recruiting class at Kentucky to go along with game pictures.  Here is one of my favorites from the past year: one last photo credit to Ed Reinke on KSR