Summit Sports - California

Jean Fruth

From a small darkroom to the most iconic stadiums flooded with lights—Jean Fruth’s trajectory as one of baseball’s preeminent photographers has taken her on a round-the-horn tour of the sport’s most indelible landmarks.

First base was New York City, where as a student she fell in love with the alchemy of photography. Second base meant a move to Healdsburg, California, where her focus turned to portrait photography, both in-studio and on-location.  From there, Jean covered the Giants and A’s for the better part of a decade, before turning her attention to the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum in Cooperstown, New York, where she helped to build the museum’s profile and photo archive by contributing her work to the venerable institution over four seasons.

Today, Jean is a traveling photographer for La Vida Baseball, a digital media company that tells the story of Latino baseball across the United States and Latin America through original video, written and social content.

She is recognized by Sony as one of its 45 “Sony Artisans of Imagery,” worldwide.
Her book, Grassroots Baseball: Where Legends Begin, the first in a series, was published in 2019 and served in part as an inspiration to co-found Grassroots Baseball, a non-profit organization. Grassroots Baseball’s mission is to promote and celebrate the amateur game around the globe, with a focus on growing interest and participation at the youngest levels.

Deanne Fitzmaurice

As a Pulitzer Prize-winning documentary photographer and filmmaker, Deanne is most known for her visual storytelling and unique ability to go behind the scenes to discover and convey personal, intimate and emotional stories through images. With a focus on contemporary culture, Fitzmaurice, a Nikon Ambassador, represents a wide variety of publications, including creating content for National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and many other respected outlets. Deanne has won awards from American Photography, Pictures of the Year, Communication Arts, PDN Photo Annual, NPPA Best of Photojournalism, UNICEF and the Casey Medal. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Deanne worked as a staff photographer at the San Francisco Chronicle for 18 years and is now represented by National Geographic Image Collection.

Thearon Henderson

Thearon has been shooting sports for 40 years.  As a self taught professional, he brings a critical element to the Summit Family.  Having been in the shoes of the students and finding his way is what we all aspire to.   Thearon is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.  In 1980 working in a health club owned by the orthopedic surgeon of the Golden State Warriors, he gained access to shooting NBA games and has since been shooting as a freelance/contract photographer for four decades.  He has worked for Topps Trading Cards, The Sporting News and currently Upper Deck since 1990.  Thearon worked for the AP from 1998-2010 and is currently a stringer/contributor for Getty Images since 2010.

Suzanna Mitchell

Suzanna Mitchell is the Photography Manager of the San Francisco Giants, a position that spans shooting action, portraits and events while also managing the photography team and the entire Giants digital archive.  A graduate of the photojournalism department of San Francisco State University, Suzanna worked for Alameda News Group before joining the Giants in 2008.  Now as the leader of the photography group within the Giants marketing department, Suzanna blends the storytelling of photojournalism with commercial photography for one of the Bay Area’s greatest sports franchises.

Brad Mangin

Brad Mangin is a freelance sports photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area where he has been shooting professional sports since 1987. After graduating from San Jose State University’s photojournalism program in 1988 Mangin began his career as a staff photographer for the Contra Costa Times before being hired by Neil Leifer to become the San Francisco-based staff photographer for The National Sports Daily in 1990. He started freelancing for Sports Illustrated in 1992 and recently landed his 10th cover for the magazine.

Mangin published coffee table photo books about the San Francisco Giants after they won each World Series Championship in 2010, 2012, and 2014. In 2013 Mangin published the book Instant Baseball: The Baseball Instagrams of Brad Mangin with the foreword written by Pedro Gomez. He recently served as picture editor on three book projects: Letters to 87: Fans Remember the Legacy of Dwight Clark, New York Times Best Seller 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid and Remember Who You Are: What Pedro Gomez Showed Us About Baseball and Life.

Over the years Mangin has photographed 20 World Series, numerous All-Star games, Super Bowls, Breeder’s Cups and the Olympic Games. He documented many golf tournaments for the PGA TOUR with his iPhone. In 2006 he was named the Ohlone College Alumnus of the Year and in 2008 he judged the 64th Pictures of the Year International photo contest in Columbia, Missouri.

Teaching photography is big passion of his, as Mangin has lectured at The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, Western Kentucky University, The Olympic Club in San Francisco, The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, The Apple Store San Francisco, The Apple Store SoHo, The Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, Rich Clarkson’s Sports Photography Workshop, The San Francisco Bay Area Press Photographers Photo Night, ASMP, Brooks Institute, San Jose State University, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, University of Nevada and Stanford University.

A lifelong San Francisco Giants fan, Mangin still has his ticket stubs from the Giants Mike Ivie grand slam game in 1978 and the John Tamargo game in 1979. And oh yes- he also has his ticket stub from the Dwight Clark Catch game in 1982. He can PROVE he was there.

JC Carey

Joseph “JC” Carey is a lifetime image maker that like many photographers was terrified of lighting until he was gifted with a class in 2007. The class wasn’t very informative with too many of the “recipes” that people love to share rather than teach how to light, but it lit a fire that has never stopped burning. That gift changed everything. It transformed him from someone that barely took pictures of people and knew nothing about lighting into someone still trying to figure out how to light everything. 

The last 14 years have passed with him being blessed with a daughter, a career doing what he loves, multiple magazine covers, and with meeting amazing people and trying to create great images of them. The art of photography and taking pictures is his passion but the ability to make his vision a reality in a photograph is what truly drives him. 

JC has taught all over the US including being part of the Faculty at Summit Workshops. 

JC joined the FJ Westcott Company in 2020 as their Eastern Accounts Manager and also works as a professional photographer.  

Follow his Instagram at JCPhotoMedia

Steve Fine

Steve Fine was the Director of Photography at Sports Illustrated from 1996 until 2013. Prior to that he was deputy photo editor serving under the legendary Heinz Kluetmeier. More recently he spent six years as picture and sports editor at Flipboard, a mobile news aggregator. Steve worked at The New York Times from 1983-92, first as sports picture editor and then as deputy photo editor under Kathy Ryan at the Sunday Magazine. Currently he is a digital news curator at Facebook.