After Snapping Scalia Exclusive, Boston Photog Loses Freelance Gig

It could have been a humdrum assignment ? photograph a visiting Supreme Court justice for a weekly Catholic newspaper.

But by chance, photographer Peter A. Smith captured the only picture of Antonin Scalia making a dismissive ? and to some, obscene ? hand gesture in a Boston cathedral.

What followed was a week of sensational controversy that saw Smith's photo splashed on the cover of the Boston Herald two days in a row and caused Smith to lose his freelance relationship with The Pilot, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Smith, an assistant photojournalism professor at Boston University, says he felt a responsibility to make the picture public. He wanted to set the record straight and support the reporter who wrote about the gesture, whose account was challenged by Scalia.

Though Smith made money selling the picture to The Herald ? he declines to say how much ? he says it won't offset the lost business from his ongoing work for The Pilot.

It all started Sunday when Smith was on an assignment to cover a special Mass for politicians and lawyers at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. At the end of the service, a priest indicated that Scalia would be toward the side of the cathedral and Smith went there to get a photograph.

Herald reporter Laurel J. Sweet was there, too. She asked Scalia if he "gets a lot of crap from your critics," about ruling on matters related to religion, according to Smith. While Supreme Court justices rarely speak to reporters, Scalia has a record of making controversial public statements.

"I really thought he would have a standard answer ready," Smith says.

Instead, the justice did something spontaneous. "He turned right into my camera and looked into my camera and flicked his fingers under his chin," Smith says.

While certainly not the middle finger, it's a gesture some people interpret as an obscene dismissal. Smith says he also heard the justice utter a popular Italian obscenity before adding, "That's the Sicilian in me." Sweet only reported hearing the justice say, "That's Sicilian."

"I was shocked. I even asked the reporter afterwards, 'Did I just hear that?,'" Smith says.

"It was almost like he wanted to perform. It was almost like he wanted to be defiant," Smith says. "The next moment, he regretted it." Scalia kidded Smith about not printing the photograph.

Smith says he's not sure why Scalia turned toward his camera to make the gesture, but wonders if Scalia realized Sweet was with The Herald.

"Maybe he assumed we were all Catholic press and that we were all going to play to his base," Smith says.

Smith sent several photos to The Pilot, including the image of Scalia making the gesture, but assumed the paper wouldn't print that picture. Sweet says he told Antonio Enrique, the editor at The Pilot, about the picture and said he had no reason to publish it.

Sweet's story in the next day's Herald described the gesture and mentioned the existence of the photograph, and Herald editors began calling Smith several times a day to ask for the photo. Smith declined.

But the story took a leap in importance Wednesday when The Herald published a letter to the editor from Scalia himself.

"The story is false," the letter said, and explained the gesture was not obscene. Scalia cited a book on Italian culture that interpreted the gesture as, "I couldn't care less. It's no business of mine. Count me out."

Scalia's letter describes the gesture as, "[t]he extended fingers of one hand moving slowly back and forth under the raised chin." The picture, however, shows Scalia's hand in front of his chin.

After seeing the incident characterized inaccurately, Smith decided Wednesday evening to provide the picture to The Herald.

"I kind of felt like it was their story and their reporter who had been undermined," Smith says. At the paper's advice, he also made the picture available through Polaris Images.

The picture dominated the tabloid's front page Thursday and also ran on the cover today next to the headline, "WHAT'S SICILIAN FOR... YOU'RE FIRED?"

As for The Pilot, Smith says he notified his editors about his decision to provide the picture to The Herald and knew it would cost him future assignments. Enrique, the editor of The Pilot, is quoted in The Herald today saying, "It's nothing personal.... I need to try and find people I can trust."

Though he was working for The Pilot when he took the Scalia picture, Smith was not under contract and retains the copyrights to the photos he takes. He says he had been shooting two or three assignments a month for the Catholic paper. "They've been a joy to work for," Smith says.

Smith showed the picture to a class of students before it was published Wednesday, and has been using the situation to teach about the ethics of photography. The picture itself isn't terrific, he says, except for what it shows.

"Anybody could have done it with a cell phone," he says.

Related link

• Boston Herald