By Evan Walsh
Contributing Writer
SHREWSBURY – Thomas Keegan spent decades photographing others. Now, it’s his career that’s coming into focus.
After 70 years of taking pictures, Keegan has chosen to step away from the camera. Keegan is in the process of moving out of his studio – which has been located on Main Street in Shrewsbury for the last 45 years – and winding down his business, Keegan Photography, which started in 1976.
He has captured countless memories, photographed a half-dozen presidents, and seen generations of children move through the school system into adulthood. Through changes in Central Mass. – and changes to the nature of photography itself – Keegan’s business remained strong.
“I wouldn’t have changed it for the world,” Keegan said. “It’s been the most rewarding profession I could’ve ever been in. I met beautiful people from all walks of life.”
Finding photography
Keegan grew up in Shrewsbury, but it wasn’t without hardship. When he was very young, his Rice Street home was struck by lightning; his family lost everything and had to rebuild their lives “piece by piece,” Keegan said. His graduation from Shrewsbury High School was “blown out” by the 1953 Worcester Tornado that injured almost 1,300. But, tornado be damned, Keegan eventually graduated.
One year later, at age 19, Keegan stumbled into photography. His cousin – Carlton LaPorte, who owned a studio on Highland Street in Worcester – asked Keegan to work beside him. Keegan confessed he “didn’t have any love for photography,” but he accepted LaPorte’s offer.
He’d stay at LaPorte’s studio for the next 22 years. In that time, Keegan developed his photography chops, eventually being named president of the Worcester County Professional Photographers Association of Massachusetts and the Professional Photographers Association of New England.
Among many other accolades, Keegan earned the prestigious “craftsman” title from the Professional Photographers of America – an award photographers, even those who have been in the industry their whole lives, rarely receive.
Making it to Main Street
After marrying his wife, Anne, in 1974, Keegan explored opening his own studio.
He first broached the question to his wife one Saturday afternoon. At 8 a.m. the next morning, Keegan heard the phone ring. It was Anthony “Spag” Borgatti, a close friend of the Keegans best known for his generosity and eponymous Shrewsbury superstore.
“We were good friends – I had done his kids’ weddings – and he asked if I had thought about opening my own business. He said, ‘I have a spot for you. I want you to go look at it.’ We went … and looked at it, went back to Spag, and he said, ‘The money is here on the table if you want to go and buy it.’ It was incredible,” recalled Keegan.
The Keegan family had just bought a house – the furniture was still in the garage, ready to be moved in – but Spag insisted: “It’s OK, we’ll work it out,” he told the family.
The photography business exploded at Keegan’s new Oak Street studio, which he worked in for three years before moving the company to a larger studio on Main Street.
“I wasn’t sure all the Worcester people were going to support us in the same way. [But] everybody was on the phone waiting for appointments. It worked out fantastic… We were putting wedding [pictures] together in the bedroom, we were putting class pictures in folders in the kitchen,” Keegan explained.
Camera career
Though camera technology evolved as Keegan continued to shoot, his ability to take excellent photographs never wavered. The key to a good photograph is in the subject’s eyes, he explained, which convey emotion and expression. Just like LaPorte did for him, Keegan has sponsored young photographers and taught them his secrets.
Keegan has photographed celebrities and other icons. Over the last 70 years, he’s worked with the Diocese of Worcester to photograph various bishops. The Catholic Free Press in 2004 called him the “Chancery’s trusted lensman.” He does his job with “liturgical finesse,” the Worcester-based publication said.
Then there are the presidents. He’s taken pictures of five of them – John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. He also took photographs of Vice President Hubert Humphrey when he spoke at Clark University, and Pope John Paul II when he visited Boston amid downpours in 1979.
But Keegan seemed to take the most pride in welcoming countless students into his studio for school pictures. Keegan photographed students from all the grammar schools of Worcester, also taking pictures for South High Community School, Holy Name, St. Peter’s, Doherty Memorial High School, Shrewsbury High School, Sutton High School, Millbury High School, Algonquin Regional High School and many others.
“I never had an incident with any of them. Some kids came from next to nothing, and some of these kids didn’t have a buck for pictures, but they got their pictures just the same,” he said.
With the myriad portraits, family shots, and wedding photos he’s taken, Keegan has become one popular man. He seems to run into former clients wherever he goes.
“Anne says to me, ‘You’d make a lousy thief because everywhere we go somebody knows you,’ ” he said laughing.
“It’s been a privilege all these years to have tried to give people the very best you can give them. I know how important these photographs are to people – it’s not something you just take their money and run. We had the best people in the business working with us,” Keegan added.
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