They took a flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles but were stopped at the airport and sent to a detention center, where they were held for a week. Nearly a year later, Cortez, his mother, Rocio, and two younger siblings, Nancy and Carlos, made their first attempt to join their father and live in the U.S. He arrived the week the Dodgers won the World Series in 1988. His father, Julian, was the first member of the family to come to the U.S. The actual storytelling Cortez wanted to do was as a sportswriter covering the Los Angeles Dodgers. Photography was just a hobby - a supplemental way to document stories. So, he put it on layaway and made payments $10 at a time. The price tag was $200 - too much for a teenager to justify spending all at once, and too much to ask his parents for. An advertisement from the 1970s called it a “steal at the price.”Ī used K1000 sat inside a San Fernando Valley pawnshop and caught the eye of then 17-year-old Cortez.īut he couldn’t take it home immediately. The camera had a thin, boxy shape with a black body and a satin chrome top. The Pentax K1000 camera was regarded as easy-to-use - perfect for the experienced amateur or the professional photographer. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) A Passion Found in America flag upside down next to a burning building in Minneapolis on May 28, 2020. Give me a shot to work at a newspaper.”Ĭortez’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a protester carrying a U.S. All I wanted was just a shot, just give me a shot. It was a chance for me to make it whatever I could,” Cortez said. “This was a moment for me to step up and show that I can do this. And despite his fear and the surrounding chaos, he took it. It eventually led to Cortez winning a Pulitzer Prize for the Associated Press in 2021.Īll Julio Cortez ever wanted in life was a shot. on May 28, capturing one of the most iconic images of 2020 - a photograph that helped tell one of the most globally affecting stories of a generation. For the next few days, the picture appeared in newspapers, websites and newscasts around the world. He pushed the shutter button at 11:59:38 p.m. His ISO setting on the Canon was at 6400. flag flown upside down is a signal of distress or danger.Ĭortez shifted back to the present in Minneapolis, in the same city where three days earlier a white police officer knelt on the neck of a Black man, George Floyd, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, killing him.Ĭortez thought this lone protester may have been quietly sending a message of distress or danger, as others audibly decried Floyd’s murder.Ĭortez grabbed his camera, then followed the man for 40 seconds. Cortez recognized the symbolism: The U.S. An American flag had somehow come undone from a loophole and hung upside down from a pole with the Washington Monument in the background. The moment reminded Cortez of a December morning in 2019 after the first Impeachment of Donald Trump, when Cortez, an Associated Press photojournalist, snapped a photo. The man was holding an American flag upside down. Then he noticed a tall man walking alone down the center of the street. He freed a hand from his Canon 1DX Mark II and took a drink of water from a plastic bottle to soothe his dry throat. The 41-year-old had another fear - not returning home to Baltimore to see his wife and two toddlers again. To the enraged protesters, law enforcement was public enemy No. The fear of being mistaken for a police officer ran through his mind because he was dressed in black and wearing a Kevlar vest. His face felt the wave of heat one feels when they open an oven door. He stopped for a moment, then took off his gas mask. Electrical pops, the crashing sound of landing debris and angry voices provided the evening’s dissonant soundtrack.ĬSUN alumnus Julio Cortez walked down a Minneapolis street that resembled something he had only seen in apocalyptic movies. Bottles and concrete flew through the evening sky. (Photo by John Minchillo)įire walked across power lines like an army of ants marching toward a morsel of food. Hours later, he took a photograph that eventually won a Pulitzer Prize. Paul, Minn., during coverage of the George Floyd protests on May 28, 2020. CSUN alumnus and Associated Press photojournalist Julio Cortez poses in front of a police line in St.
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