Lamb on the Run: Best photographer, ever, retires from Green Valley News

I hope you noticed that our photographer nonpareil Mario Aguilar has retired…

…No picture was ever too tough for him to take, no unwilling subject was ever too stern to refuse him and no befuddled assignment by a scatter-brained reporter was ever too confusing…

…He always got the picture…and, in his case, each picture was worth a thousand words…

…Going with him to an assignment was often heart-stopping…

…He flew his pickup down the interstate, chugged his chariot up hills that were way too steep, and hugged the side of gravely, rocky roads to conquer some of our lofty mountains…

…I never went to the top of a mountain with him where there were railings along the road…Just air and desert vistas a thousand feet below was all our protection…

…He never flinched…

…Over the years, I’ve worked with scores of photographers, including an AP Pulitzer Prize-winner in central Pennsylvania…

…But none had his energy and zest…

…I sat with him once on a street curb awaiting the parade on a Cinco de Mayo celebration in Nogales, Sonora…

…He pointed out that the faces some of the elderly, stooped and apparently impoverished spectators could tell more than any band picture could…

…He and I referred to the city as Nogson as opposed to Nogales north, or Nogalaz…

…We had other assignments in Mexico, including one to Puerto Penasco, or Rocky Point…

…The story was to depict some of the attractions of Green Valley’s closest Rivera…

…At one point, I was negotiating a boat ride for us and our U.S. guide…

…And where was Mario?…Mingling with a half dozen dock workers, swapping stories, sharing personal photos…

…They waved enthusiastically as we chugged toward the open waters…and the wind whipped the sea to white caps…

…It was bumpy, rocky…And as Mario pointed out, “did you notice there were no life jackets on board?”…

…We circled back to the docks and Mario told the skipper to pull up near one of the docked boats…

…With little warning to us, camera-laden Mario leaped to the other boat and while I was quaking, took pictures and leaped back over open water…

…One of those pictures turned out as a cover shot on the original Santa Cruz Valley Sun…

…In the past couple of years, the idea of border fencing and observation towers along The Line, has become big news…

…Mario and I set out to Arivaca, where we were told one of the new towers had been built just south of town…

…It wasn’t a marked road and had had little maintenance in the past 20 years…We drove south, and I feared we’d wind up south of the border…

…We finally stopped a rancher driving a pickup and asked him where the tower was…“Never heard of it” he said…

…A bit farther west we found a tower at Sasabe and drove right on to the site…The caretaker had neglected to close the gate with “No Trespassing” painted on it…

…Mario’s a good boy…He lives in southeastern Tucson, about five blocks from his mother’s home…

…He checks the house at least once a day…

…One assignment took us to a south Tucson neighborhood where he’d grown up.

… “When you lived here, what did you call it,” I asked, “The Hood?

…Mario shook his head looking at me… “We called it the barrio, Jim,” he said, the barrio”…

Jim Lamb’s a Green Valley News reporter and said it was hard to compose a tribute “to the best photographer and friend…ever.”