Go, Ben Garvin!

It may not surprise you to learn that I am not a sports fan. I don't even glance at the Sports section. But on Friday, January 18, I was flipping between the Metro and the Daily Life sections of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and saw this amazing photo.

Shot by Ben Garvin, it made me stop and pick up the sports section. That's when I noticed the beautiful integration of the photo with the story itself: the Minnesota men's basketball team had lost an important game to Indiana, and the headline writer came up with a great headline to reflect both that loss and the photo.

And Garvin's photo is one of those classic sports moments, an image that would have defied human imagination before the invention of photography -- like Muybridge's photos that proved a horse's hooves leave the ground all at once in mid-gallop.

A fine example of professional journalism at its best.

Later addition: You can see a much nicer version of this photo on Ben Garvin's website, filed under Recent Work.