Longtime N&O photographer Chuck Liddy was as unforgettable as the images he made

On assignments, News & Observer photographer Chuck Liddy would refer to a writer colleague as “my reporter,” causing the scribbler’s eye to twitch.

The way Liddy saw the world — mostly through the lens of a camera — every story also was his: his to shoot, to tell, to throw at readers in a way that punched them in the sternum. Hard.

Chuck Liddy, 69, a lifelong photojournalist who often produced his best work when he felt he had something to prove, died Sunday after an illness.

Liddy retired from The News & Observer in 2019 after 26 years at the news organization, leaving with other coworkers who accepted McClatchy’s company-wide early-retirement offer. If he had a regret about the timing of his departure, his friend and fellow photographer Robert Willett said, it might have been that he didn’t get to finish shooting the Duke Blue Devils’ basketball season that year.

The team nonetheless honored Liddy at the last game he covered, presenting him with a signed ball and an autographed photo during the first media time-out.

Liddy got his start as a sports photographer in Florida, but it was less a career pursuit at the time than one of a million opportunities Liddy saw and seized throughout his life. He simply wanted to attend his high school alma mater’s football game, and when a friend said he could get in free as a photographer, he became one on the spot. He asked to borrow the camera his dad had used as a Marine in Vietnam and headed for the sidelines.

Eventually, the local paper hired him to shoot the games, noticing he seemed to anticipate the team’s every move. He told his boss that was because he had played football with the team in high school, but he later confessed the quarterback, his best friend, was signaling plays to Liddy so he could get the best shot.

Liddy moved to North Carolina in 1979 after taking an autumn vacation to the mountains and falling in love with the scenery. He got a job for a startup paper in Icard, then moved to the Morganton News Herald. While there, he also began stringing for the Associated Press, which sent him to the coast in 1985 to cover Hurricane Gloria.

He later joined the Durham Herald-Sun and, in 1992, The News & Observer.

Along the way, Liddy was both a student and a teacher, learning from photographers and even reporters he admired, then sharing what worked. While he appreciated a well-turned phrase, he believed photos are what draw an audience to a story and make people want to read it.

Though he was known for sports photography, Liddy would get the shot for any story, and when there was no story at all. He was a master of the poignant standalone photo, a skill honed while cruising back roads and spying the perfect moment, that telling scene that could transport a reader with a single frame.

In his N&O career, he covered nearly every major hurricane that menaced the coast. He traveled to war zones three times and went to Haiti when the Army’s 82nd Airborne was dispatched to provide humanitarian support after an earthquake, later speaking openly about the long-term effect of bearing witness to others’ suffering.

Liddy loved both old-school journalism and new technology, embracing digital photography, drones and any gadget that could improve his visual storytelling.

While he could charm the paint off a picket fence when it served, he took a more pugilistic approach with authorities of all kinds: newspaper editors, bosses, politicians, police, military officers, security, corporate spokespeople, hotel managers, park rangers. He rarely asked for forgiveness for shooting a photo, let alone permission.

Former N&O coworker Julia Wall said she learned from Liddy that, “You just have to push the boundaries, be adventurous and be ready to get in trouble. But if he got you into trouble, you knew he could get you out of it.”

Willett, who worked dozens of games with Liddy, said, “He made us better because he was so good.”

Arrangements are pending at Clements Funeral & Cremation Services.

Here is a selection of some of Liddy’s photographs through the years.