July 21, 2005
Where are we? Celebrating the Masters of the Mystery Photo
It might be just the edge of an ivy-laden wall, the corner of an obscure bench or a half-forgotten icon tucked away somewhere on the UW campus. Or maybe it’s something familiar, caught from an unusual and disguising angle.
Whatever the clue is, University Week’s Mystery Photo tries each week to bend brains campuswide by asking readers to identify a location on campus from a photograph chosen to confound, confuse and hide more than it shows.
The feature has been running almost every week since the fall of 2001. “I thought up the Mystery Photo as a way to get our readers involved,” said University Week Editor Nancy Wick. “We didn’t know how well it would work, but over the years it’s had a loyal following. At times we’ve had over 100 entries.”
UW photographers Mary Levin and Kathy Sauber, who deftly illustrate University Week and other campus publications, take virtually all the shots for the Mystery Photo. The two talented photographers both say they enjoy the task, and work hard to keep the readers challenged from week to week.
“It’s changed over the years,” said Mary Levin, the UW’s chief photographer. “When it started I had all these favorite spots on campus to shoot, but then those wore out. Now, I just walk around and look for things. It’s evolved.”
The difficulty is making it difficult, what with so many campus experts around. The photographers said they mix up locations as much as they can when looking for spots. “I try to find places that are out of the way, that may be more obscure,” Levin said.
Levin’s associate in Mystery Photo fun, staff photographer Kathy Sauber, agreed. “I go to the most obscure places,” she said. “I go way down by Surplus, and I find little knobs — and I try to get to different places, because I want other people on campus to get a chance. I spread it around.”
The two said they often find their best shots hiding in plain sight, so to speak. “Sometimes I shoot in obvious places — something they walk by every day but don’t really look at — but just try to shoot it differently,” Levin said. She said she’s also not above using occasional Photoshop techniques to up the challenge a bit. “I’ve been known to increase the contrast,” she said. “It makes it a little bit more difficult.”
But no matter how obscure the location or skimpy the clue, you guys figure it out. Every single time. So — what’s the trick? How do you do it every week?
It helps to have been around the UW for a while, and that’s certainly the case with Alec Constabaris, perhaps the true campus master of the Mystery Photo, who figures it out almost every week. “Basically, I’ve been here forever,” said Constabaris, an administrator in the Medicinal Chemistry Department. “I started hanging around the campus 50 years ago, because my father was a graduate student here in 1955 or ’56.” Ditto Janet Ness, another excellent guesser, who said she has been around the University since she was a student here in the late 1960s (she now works in the UW Libraries’ Special Collections.) Other frequent correct guessers have been on or around campus for 10 to 20 years or so.
So OK, simple longevity is helpful. But as with any good detective story or investigation, there’s nothing that beats what reporters, cops and small-town politicians call the ‘ol shoe leather approach: Walk the streets and see what you see.
“I just kind of look around,” the eagle-eyed Constabaris said. “Only once have I ever guessed at it, in the sense that I didn’t go out and look at it to make sure it was right. That was in Tacoma, and I thought, ‘That’s a pretty big field trip.’” Ness, his fellow guesser, said, “I like to walk around campus and take pictures, and sometimes when I want to go out for a walk, having the Mystery Photo to look for gives me a little extra direction.”
The weekly Mystery Photo plays well at the University Police, said Earl Yamane, an officer who participates and identifies the photo often. “Part of our job here at UWPD is to know the buildings around campus in and out,” Yamane wrote in an e-mail. “As a field training officer, the mystery photo makes it fun for myself and the new officers to learn the names and locations of the buildings … it’s a great aid.” Gordon Yumibe, a UW lead gardener who also correctly identifies the photo often, said he has “an unfair advantage,” because he spends so much time working all over campus. Maybe yes, maybe no.
Some follow the photo choices so closely, they even come to have a feel for how the photographs were found and shot. Constabaris said, “Sometimes there’s a string of five or six where you can … kind of trace the photographer’s path.” Such was the case with several photos in the Stevens Way area, he said. Editor Wick and the photographers said they try to mix up the photos to prevent that strategy from working well.
Sad to say, however, our prizes are few. We offer a gift certificate from the University Bookstore (for which Wick offers sincere thanks) once a quarter. A few readers expressed frustration at guessing correctly but never winning the “big enchilada,” as one put it.
True, the odds of winning are against you — although for every photo you guess, your name goes in once, so if you guess all 10 photos in a quarter, your name will go in 10 times. But when those names go in the hat, it’s a matter of luck who wins. We only wish we had more enchiladas — er, gift certificates — to give away.
But if it were too easy, it wouldn’t be the same, would it? And what’s wrong with a little mystery in life?
After all, as photographer Levin says with a wry smile that hints at more obscure images to come, “I try not to be totally unfair, but I am a little unfair. I mean, I try to have fun, too.”
