Ordinarily speaking, as a sports photographer, you never expect to have to cover a tragedy, let alone one involving your mate.
Time, Hello and welcome to ordinarily speaking, today's guest is a little different. Ryan Pierce is a chief photographer at Getty Images, one of Australia's leading sports photographers. For years now, he has followed the Australian men's cricket team and is the man behind the lens of some iconic images. The ones most precious to him the pictures he took of Philip hughes Hughsey was one of those people that greeted everyone with a smile, no matter which side of the
fence you were on. He was cheeky and he was one hell of a cricketer. A photographer's dream. November twenty five, twenty fourteen, is a day that none of us will ever forget, a day where cricket changed forever. Ryan was there that day photographing his mate. In this chat, Ryan
shares the stories behind his favorite images of Hughesy. He has put together a gallery on Instagram to accompany this episode, so if you'd like to see those photos, head to Instagram and follow at Ryan Pearce or at Ordinarily speaking throughout this chat, our thoughts always remained with the family, friends, and teammates of Philip Hughes. He was someone special. Well, Ryan, thanks very much for spending some time with me. You're a bit of a different guest to what I'm used
to on this podcast. Tell me a little bit about your background.
So having me Nez. Yes, I'm a sports photographer. I've been working for Getty Images for sixteen years shooting a variety of sports in Australian around the world. But the last six or seven years I've fallen into shooting one of my great love's cricket so and it's taken me around the world and to some incredible places and met so many amazing people and got to work with some great cricketers and got to know their families. It's been an amazing a few years.
Why do you love cricket?
Well, I grew up playing cricket and I think there's no doubt that most Australian kids want to wear the baggy green and Captain Australia. And as a kid I was Alan Border had all the.
Kid because you're Captain Grumpy.
I only before my coffee in the morning. Yeah, I looked the part. I just couldn't play very well and I still hold my high school record for a number of ducks in a row.
So you're a bit like me. You love sport, weren't very good at it, so you decided to watch it.
Absolutely But I looked the part. I had all the best kid but no idea how to play.
So you are one of the leading sports photographies in the world. I can say that you maybe don't feel comfortable saying that, but as you mentioned, you get invited into those really intimate moments that no one else really is outside of the team. So if you take the Australian cricket team for example, you're there for those moments of celebration, giving the insight to the public of what they'll never experience and what a journalist like me really
doesn't get the opportunity to experience. So you're there in pretty intimate times with these guys.
It took a long time to get to a point where I guess you trusted and accepted, but I think that's the key in our jobs, and for me, it's just about just being a normal person to them. You know, of course you look up to them as their performances on the field, but as soon as they step off that pitch there, for me, they're just like normal people. And that I can definitely say that of the Australian cricket team. I think they're generally just normal guys who
happened to be really good at cricket. That's what I explained to everyone when they asked me what are they like?
You know, So tell me about the day that you met Phil Hughes.
I was living in the UK at the time, working for Getty over there. I was sent out to cover a Middlesex County cricket match in the outskirts of London. It was only a couple of months after he made his debut in South Africa and burst onto the scene captured everyone's attention, and so I'd only seen him on Telly read about him in the paper. I just wanted to get a great shot of Phil Hughes, you know, being a big cricket fan, I just know I'm going
to spend the day. I'm just going to sit on him as long as I can and get something good of him. I've turned up to the ground pretty early, you know. I set up as a beautiful ground, white pick at fence, lots of trees, just a classic English ground. Just after the toss, I think Middlesex won the toss and battered and I've moved around towards the change rooms, which I say change rooms was actually a tent under a tree. I poked my head around the corner and
there's this little fellow sort of side on. I couldn't see who it was, reading the paper, just sitting there. Heads turned around and I just said this, get a bruzzi. Here you gone, as if I'd known him from Millionaires. And it was Phil and he was sitting there with his pat it up, ready to go out, reading the paper. And I'll never forget that moment. I said, get a mate,
and he said you're an Aussie. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, work for Getty over here for a while, but I'm moving back next year, so hopefully I'll be shooting more of you when you're in the test team. That was the first time I met him, and he walked out that date about I'm pretty sure he got one hundred. I saw creatures played that day. I've never seen before him down on one knee, so unorthodox, so amazing to
watch and even better the photograph. I think cricket's such a game of patience for the photographers and he can get really bogged down sometimes waiting for something good to happen. But when you get a guy like hughsy Eddie's just you can't look away for a second. It was even in a county match. So yeah, that moment will stick with me forever.
So you've brought in a lot of your photos today because you've shot him a lot of times over the years and you got to know him pretty well.
Is that fair to say? Yeah? I think when my first Test tour was twenty thirteen, so probably a year after I met him for the first time, and that was the Ashes in England twenty thirteen and I walked into the team. It was a new role for me. I didn't know anyone. I knew the media manager that was it. Two guys during that period really took me under their wing and made me feel really welcome and took me out for a beer, maybe one too many beers, and one of them was Phil that was David Warner.
Dave was going through his own struggles during that tour off the field, but he finally got back in the team where Phil started in the team and then ended up out of the team halfway through the tour, so there was I think Daveon said to me that it was good at the time to get away from cricket and hang out with someone just away from the team just for a night and someone else's opinion on things, and I felt the same, although I don't think you
ever said it. I think Phil felt like he could talk to me and I wouldn't talk about cricket to him. It would just be just generally, you know. So yeah, I definitely viewed him as a mate and someone that always put a smile on your face generally because he had a smile on he's one hundred percent of the time, even when things were going bad for him.
And I think what a lot of people listening won't understand is that when you're on tour as media, often the person that's out of the team in the twelfth man is the person that you spent the most time with because whilst the team is off being professional and playing, often they're socializing a little more. So you often get to know that twelfth man better than anyone.
Very well. Yes, I think if you'd if you ask me now to roll off the people I was closest to in the Australian cricket team, most of them have spent quite a bit of time mixing the gatorade.
Good at mixing drinks. The reason why you're doing this podcast. It's a hard one for you, and I know you are very clear about the fact that there's a lot of people that were closer to him than you. But at the end of the day, the truth is you also lived through what happened to feel Hughes, and you live with it. Is that fair?
Oh? Absolutely? I live with it every day. There's every time I think about cricket, you think about that day, anything about him, anything about how he made you feel, You think about how he made others feel. And absolutely, I'm nowhere near the closest person in this tragedy. But I was there that day and I've obviously continue to
be involved with the team after that. And yeah, I've never really spoken about I never felt comfortable to speak about it, and even when family and friends bring it up and ask me about it, I tend to remove myself of conversation or the room pretty quickly because I
just really struggle to talk about it. I think just recently hearing some other people talk about things they've gone through, and yeah, I just feel like I'm ready to talk about my feelings during that time and how I still feel about it.
Tell me about that day. Why were you the SCG?
Yes, So, Sheffield Chield was pretty pretty rare for me to cover Sheffield Chield matches because most of them are clashing with Test matches or other tours. So it was an unusually Sheffield child day because both teams were packed full of players that are even in the team or about to be picked in the Test team. And I
feel went well this day, which he did. No doubt he would have been picked in the team for the first Test that was going to be at the Gabba a couple of weeks later, so or the week after. It was a very relaxed day of It was one of those days where you turn up to work and it was a blue sky, nice breeze. SCG is the
best place to work in the world, hands down. I remember walking out with Brad Hadden to the middle he was capped and then he put his new South Wales caps and check it on that he hadn't worn for a while and on the way out to the toss, Hughsley was hitting balls into a net just to my left and he seen me out of the corner of my eye and just shout out again, get a Brusie. How you going? What are you doing out at Sheffield Chair? And I thought you only do test matches and I'm like, yeah,
I know. I said, I'm just here to shoot you, mate, Just here a photograph you. He's like, good, make sure it make me look good, make me look good. So yeah, I can't remember who won the toss, but anyway, South Australia he came out all guns blazing, playing again shots that you just never rarely see, rarely see from most cricketers. Everyone was just looking at each other sideways going just
not of approval. I was there that day shooting with two other photographers, Phil Hillyard from the Daily Telegraph and my colleague Mark Metcalfe. Have We just kept looking at each other going yeah, okay, he's in. He's in in that form where you're just like, no one's going to keep him out of this team. And we got the lunch, went up to the press box, grab a quick sandwich and that was the buzz. All the journals were like,
who's he's in? You know, I think the journals are probably started writing their copy for that night, you know, even though the team wasn't going to be picked till a few days later. I left the press box, probably earlier than I would for after lunch, because it's pretty rushed up there generally, to get back down under the ground, because I wanted to do a picture of hugh'sy walking
out of the change rooms. Obviously, the SCG change rooms are the original change room in the members pavilion, and for a photographer, it's the best place to shoot a player walking out to bat anywhere in the world. So I thought, why not do a bit of a feature picture for Hughsey that might get used at some point.
So I've got down there early. He was also finished lunch early and ready, and he's just sitting on the massage table near the door, and I've walked up the stairs to the side and up to the railing and yeah, this is probably something I haven't told anyone. Still makes me smile thinking about it. He said, Now am I looking out there? How am I looking out there? BUSSI? I said, yeah, gone, all right, mate, gone, all right, not bad, not bad? He's got You've got any good shots? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
I got a couple. Did you get my good side? I said, I'm trying to, mate, I'm trying to you know, just keep going the way you're going. I'll get a good picture of you. And then he's walked out the bat. Probably one of my favorite pictures of all the time, probably because of what happened later on that day. Yeah, He'm walking out the bat with this really term of look on his face, out of the members of pavilion and down onto the ground. Yeah. Never forget that moment.
So it was all buzz really and celebration and typical Hughesy making everyone feel welcome and entertaining everyone, and then everything went very bloody wrong.
Yeah, did it ever? I was when you're on the side of the ground, you're constantly transmitting pictures on your laptop.
I didn't actually have the camera up to my face for that ball, so I was sending, finishing, sending, probably the pictures have been walking out onto the out of the change rooms, and I heard Phil Hilly are just sitting right next to me, just let out this sort of dull noise or grant, he's just like you know, and I've looked up and I've just got the camera, picked the camera up straight away, and obviously from the time he was hit to the time he ended up
on the ground, I was able to pick the camera up and photograph what happened next basically, and looking back at it now, that seemed like forever that moment, and then I think as soon as you ended up on the ground, that's when you knew something wasn't completely right. But as a photographer, and I guess a news gatherer, you keep shooting. You just kept shooting. But I remember saying the while I've still had my head up to the face up to the camera, I said, this doesn't
look good. This is not good. And that's when you you tense up your heart. I just I remember the feeling my heart just going million miles an hour, and I felt sick instantly, but I just kept shooting, just kept shooting because we had no idea obviously how bad it was. Yeah, that was definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to shoot in my career, just that that moment, and then what what I guess what followed was even harder.
And you're a sports photographer. This is not something that you go into your office and anticipate.
Yeah, I guess you never expect to have to go to work and as a sports photographer and photograph someone in a way any more than a serious injury like a knee injury or a broken arm or a broken leg. Maybe that's that's as bad as get let alone someone you know and who's mate laying there unconscious, not knowing what's next. I don't know what kept me shooting that day because I'm not trained to as a news photographer at all. I've always said I don't think I'd ever
risked my life for my job. But there's plenty of guys brilliant news photographer out there that do daily and I'm in total all of those guys. But for me, that was a total new experienced situation for me to be in.
There are obviously a lot of details that we're not going to go into because we don't need to what happened next, because there was a moment for you where you and Phil Hilly are decided that's enough, we're not shooting anymore.
Yeah, exactly, the three of us, Phil, myself and Mark. There was a moment where, just after they put Phil on the medicab and they started to drive him to the side of the members stand and the little tunnel there, I just heard this voice out of the corner of my my ear yelling just stop stop, stop, stop, And I didn't realize what it was at the time, but I looked over and it was Brad Hadden running over
towards us. I thought he was talking to a medical person or someone else in the stand, but as he got closer, his voice lowered a bit and he's like, guys, stop shooting. It's not good. And immediately we didn't just stop shooting. We put our cameras on the ground and just sat there. And then it seemed like an hour, but it was probably about twenty minutes where we were forced to sit there. There's security there by that time,
who just just told us to move there. It was obviously became a pretty restricted zone around that area where they brought him to the side of the ground and we just sat there and we had to watch the next probably twenty minutes unfold.
How do you cope in that moment, Yeah, because it's.
Not I did at the time, because I think the adrenaline kicks in and you're just like, Okay, I'm in the middle of this and you have to react. The first react. First reaction was to take photos. Second reaction was too told to stop when you're told, and we did that, but.
You're it's not for me covering the later days. It was having that, you know, the relationship, friendship, colleague, however you want to call it, with Phil. And then there's also the layer on top of that of being mates with a lot of the guys. So you were mates with all of those guys out on the ground who are also going through this. That is an incredibly traumatic thing to experience on a workday.
Yeah, in my way, it's the best situation in the world, knowing everyone you're photographing out there, But on that day it probably turned out to be the worst. But I can honestly say at the time when it all happened, all I was thinking about was was fel like I didn't really you know. The only I guess the only thing other person I remember really clear was was Dave Warner, who was on the medicap with him and stuck with him, with him all the time, holding his hand. That will
stick with me forever. Yeah, that was Yeah, It's a different situation to be in, for sure. And I think as we started looking through the pictures on the back of our camera, and there was some really graphic pictures that as a group, we probably decided that it was best not to ever be seen. So the pictures that end up going.
Out that day, they were filtered.
Absolutely, there was no reason for some pictures to go out wouldn't have added to the story or the moment at all. To this day, I still have not looked at those photos again. They're sitting on a hard drive somewhere at home, and I have no need or want to look at those photos again. I'm not sure I want to relive it through still images. I love looking at pictures of Husey playing having fun, but I'm not sure looking at pictures from that incident would do me
any good. So I think I'll just keep them locked away on that hard drive.
How did the rest of your day unfold? Do you remember any of it? Do you remember how you dealt with it that night, how you felt that night? I do.
In parts. I stayed at the ground for quite a while, only because I just didn't feel like I wanted to get in a car. I was still shaking, and even though it's ten minutes drive home to my house from the ground, I just I think I actually sat in the car when I got to the car, I sat in the car for a little bit, just things going through my head. And I got home and yeah, basically
just collapsed in a heap. And I think my wife came home not long after, and she knew what was happening, obviously, but yeah, that's when I really sort of got set off, I guess, And yeah, it wasn't a good night you're listening to.
Ordinarily, speaking with photographer Ryan Pearce, it was such a hard thing to cover because it then went on for a couple of days. How did you cope through those couple of days whilst also trying to be a support to people that your mates within in that fold?
Well, first off, my manager at the time asked me straight off the bat, do you want to cover this? Do you want to follow this story through? And I knew there's no way in the world I could have. I was just way too close to the whole situation. So I'm glad I was given the option. I think a lot of people might not have been given the option, but I was reassigned to other things. So the day after I ended up at the ARIA Awards of all things, the show goes Forevero's Red Huppet and everything, and I'm
just I'm like a zombie. I couldn't tell you who was there, who's saying who won? I couldn't tell you anything. I was just And obviously my colleagues knew what happened the day before, and they're like, why are you here? Why are you here? And I'm like, well, I just wanted to help out, and I think maybe to keep busy. It was good. If I'd stayed at home, I just would have been texting the guys all day, going looking
for updates, just going how is he? That word sort of filtered through I think at night that things weren't looking that good, and that's when it really set in that, yeah, we weren't going to get to see you smile and face again.
At that point. Are you just his mate?
I'd like to think I always felt like that, but there was that probably five minutes where I kept doing my job, and I think that's what haunts me a little bit still. And you ask yourself, what did the same thing happen again, what would you do. It's a very fine line between doing your job and looking after your mates, especially when one goes with the other. You just got to trust in the rest of the team that they know that.
How did they receive you? Did things change between those guys or were they always pretty supportive of everything?
Always always really supportive. I think they could see by talking to me when they saw me how affected I was.
The couple of days where we sort of knew what was happening, but we didn't yet or couldn't couldn't say it public yet. You know, we're still holding out that glimmer of hope. Do you remember the moment that you found out that that he was gone?
Yep, I do, I do. I I got a message from a player. Probably was half an hour before the press conference was held. Maybe, yeah, I remember it pretty clearly, but I think I'd nearly already prepared myself for it.
I turned on Fox Sports News. It's probably you on there, I guess at the time, I remember that half an hour before the but I think there was announced the press conference and everyone knew it was coming, I think, and I'm just I just remember sitting there, I'm a couch at home watching this and yeah, just in pieces wasn't good. I think I called my dad to tell him and chatted with him for a few minutes. But yeah, I remember it really clearly. And then I was just yeah, I just felt really.
Numb after that day, well that evening, when I had to say what I had to say on air and let people know. Watching I completely broke down that night because I had to hold it together for a couple of days, and as I say, watching how mates go in and out of the hospital that night, I don't think I've ever had a outburst of just complete and utter collapse and everything that that week had taken.
Was it the same for you.
Did you have a moment where, because when you're working on it, you have to hold your shit together, but you're also living through it. Did you have a moment where you allowed yourself to grieve?
I think at the time, if you can call that grieving, I think crying uncontrollably, I'm not I guess that's a part of grieving, but I think after that everything happened so quickly, I'm not sure I did grieve properly. I think the funeral was good again. My office gave me the option of covering the funeral and I did think about doing that, but it didn't take long to make a decision that I just wasn't up to doing it.
My good mate Cameron Spencer ended up doing that. I was speaking to him again about it the other day and he's not he likes his cricket. He doesn't love his cricket. He wasn't attached to the game or the players, but he still says that's the hardest day of his career, been in that room in Maxville and seeing everyone's faces of you guys he'd photographed and known for years, and so I think that says a lot about the pressure
of that day for that guy. I went up with Phil Hilliard, Peter Lawler, cricket journalists for The Australian, and my wife Will went up. Just such a blur. I guess I've never felt that way really at a funeral. Prior to that moment. I broke down a number of times and I don't know why. I don't know why, Like, obviously I was close to the situation, but I'm normally
not that person to break down. Maybe it was just looking at around and all he made to the players around and the team and the staff were just in pieces and maybe that set me off, but yeah, that was a really emotional day. The wake was good. It was a celebration of his life. It was good, lots of good stories and everyone had a smile on his face,
just like he would have. One of the great things Cricket Australia did, I think was turned the focus directly on how we can celebrate feel and obviously the test matches were moved though Adelaide ended up being the first Test, and I think focus really quickly turned to that. And again work gave me the option, do you want to do these test matches still? And I took me half a second. Absolutely, I want to be there because this was going to be you know, paying tribute and a
lot of respect to Phil. There's no way I could be home watching this. I had to be there, photographing and capturing it. I knew it would be hard, but I had to be there.
And it was certainly the most special Test match I've ever covered, you know, with ashes and all those sorts of things, or even cricket in general. World Cup. That match was like no other experience, I think anyone at the ground had had you had you had the four to eight painted on the ground, you had the Steve Smith tribute even very coally and twin tons and he
was a mate with Peel as well. But Nathan Lyn needed those well, they needed the eight wickets and at four eight pm Local, which is just beyond belief, he takes that first wicket and then from there they all crumble and I get goosebumps just thinking about it. But from my perspective watching those boys get through that, we all worried whether it was too much pressure and whether they were able to mentally get up for this game. And then it just turned into this therapy for them
in a very public way. But was it felt therapeutic watching them? Is that how you felt photographing it?
Absolutely? I think it was that summer and then the following World Cup. The way they were playing, they look like they're floating on air.
Nelly.
They were so determined to do it for him and have success fulfill that. The Adelaide Test match was, I agree, one of the best Test matches I've ever covered photographically because of everything you just mentioned, but just the added meaning behind everything for everyone. I think was incredible and I think the moment that stands out to me where it hit home that this was happening, This Test match
is happening. It was going to be tough. Was the day before Gavin Dovey, the team manager, invited me into the rooms. He said there's something I want you to see. So walked into the Adelaide rooms and sure enough, where Hugh's his locker would have been, were two massive photos of us that I'd taken over the years, one in his locker and then one on the wall. He's like, you don't have to photograph this if you want, but if you would like to photograph these, and he's empty locker.
What wasn't empty? They had his shirt in there as well, and all the player's shirts had four oh eight in place of their test number. I thought, this is this is the moment in time. It's so with storic. So I had to photograph it, but it was it was hard. That was really hard.
How proud are you of the level of respect that the Australian team showed you, the fact that they use those photos, wanted to allow you in. I mean that is a sign of respect for you.
Oh, absolutely look the photos. I think it just so happened that they were mine. I think they could have been anyone's photos. But yeah, it's a privilege. It's always a privilege. Any accident, some granted by the team is always a privilege, and you never take that for granted for a second. The moment that really hit home in terms of how members of the team, all the staff
feel towards me. Just before the anthems on the on the morning of the game, Grant Baldwin, who was the that still is at times of physio massuse, he was handing out they had the black armbands made with the pH on them, and he was handing him out to the boys just before they went out to the for the anthems, and he came over someone. I just felt someone grab my arm and he put one on my arm, and that was Yeah, that was a pretty special moment. I'll never forget that. But yeah, what a day, What
a day to photograph like that anthem ceremony. Obviously I was way back. I'm normally right in there for the anthem ceremony under the they put the flags in front of the players and normally crouched down and shoot it quite wide. There's no way I was going in there that day. I was way back with my long lens. I was not getting anyone's face and shot it from a long way away. And images of Michael Clark gave Warner, Ryan Harris just in tears, arm in arm. Yeah, all
pretty powerful images. And then all the bats. You know, players put their bats out with their baggy greens on the top. They put Phil's name on the team sheet. I took a picture of that. Yeah. Look everywhere you look that day, there was just amazing pieces to be had, and they all paid tribute to Phil when they won the test.
Take us inside what you got to see that night, because you got no access that was unrivaled.
Yeah, Nathan Lyon. Over the years, getting to know him a lot better, He's allowed me some pretty close and intimate access to the team song when they sing it on the ground. I've never photographed it in the change rooms. I never want to because that's their space. But if they go out on the ground at midnight and sing the team song, I want to photograph that, whether it's from just outside the circle or up in the stand.
And I thought this was a good moment to really step back and shoot it from a long way away, with the added bonus that there was the four oh eight on the ground. I didn't know they were going to stand around the four oh eight and sing it, but they did. And I was up at the top of the Bradman stand and it was dark, there was hardly any light on the pitch, and yeah, the quality of the photos aren't great, but you can definitely see
what's going on. And they all had a round the four ro eight, brought the ski out, put it in the middle, or cracked a beer and saying under the Southern Cross, I stand the loudest I've ever heard team song, even louder than the Ashes last year.
People listening should probably also know that those photos are cherished by those players as well. A lot of what you do is for the public and for the access, but fair to say that a lot of what you do is for their family album.
Absolutely. Oh the amount of stuff that will never get sent out to papers and magazines was just for the players and the families. There's a lot of that material and I really enjoy taking those pictures. And of course there's moments your new sense kicks in and you're like, oh, that's such a beautiful picture of that player and their wife or their kids and whatever, and you know, you'd know a newspaper would run it. But that's where the Trust is.
It was really hard for a lot of the boys to head to the SCG. What was it like for you to head back there?
Yeah? Even harder than Adelaide for sure, because there was so much going on in Adelaide. You didn't have that much time to stop and really reflect on the weeks beforehand. But the SCG was tough. The Trust erected a plank outside the Australian Chaine Rooms of phil beautiful plaque, which is actually the artworkers of picture. I took a Phil during the twenty thirteen Ashes tour which was used through
a lot of the press. On the invitation of the running order, on the funeral, it was used everywhere and they ended up making that picture for the pluck. So having a photograph that going up, that was an emotional moment and all I was thinking for the next few days of the test matches, how do I illustrate, how do I get this pluck in a picture that really makes it relevant? And thankfully day one, David Warner walks out the bat goes up to it with his glove on and pats him on the head. I didn't know
what was going to happen. I had a feeling that someone might do something again. That's probably one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken. It just captures the moment perfectly, and I'm not sure how else you would try to capture that moment of the players walking out. The biggest moment that day was when they've got to sixty three and he walked across to the spot where Hughes he fell, got down his knees, kissed the ground, got up, looked
to the sky. What a moment, What a moment, Just incredible. The photos don't do it justice. You just had to be there. Everyone got on the feet and never forget that. What a moment.
Sport remembers people and rallies around people better than anything. I think wraps their arms around around people in moments like this. I want to finish by saying, how will you remember hughsy.
And I'm saying this with the biggest smile on my face. That because that's how he made me feel. I think that's how he made everyone feel. He made you feel like the only person in the room. Every time he spoke to you. I already remember him as a fun loving kid from the country who was amazingly talented batsman. There was only just scratching the surface on it. Incredible test career, and I just feel so fortunate to have had the time I did with him. I wish I
had more time with him. I wish I wish I had the chance to have more beers and funny chats with him. I wish I had the chance to photograph him batting. He's a photographer's dream. Yeah, I'll just miss him. I'll just miss him.
How do you feel about talking about it now?
It's still really hard. It's still really hard. But although it's a tragic event, it's really hard to feel sad about someone that made you feel so happy. And yes, he's gone, but his memory will live on forever. He'll always be sixty three, not out.
Thank you for chatting, and know it's a really different perspective for people listening. As you mentioned off the top, you know you're not, you know, the closest person, but I think you have every right to feel sad, and you were mates with him, and you did go through it, and I know you live with it all the time, so yeah, I appreciate your time.
Thanks NAS, thanks for the opportunity.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Ordinarily Speaking. A reminder, you can see the photographs that Ryan has referenced at Ordinarily Underscore Speaking or at Ryan's Instagram page at Ryan Pearce. As I said off the top, our thoughts remain with Philip Hughes's family, friends, and teammates.