State College native Pat Little never used a camera until his senior year at Penn State. Now, he’s a published photographer for the Associated Press and the Centre Daily Times, an author, and he rakes in hundreds of comments on Facebook for his images.

Little’s origin story is a humble one. Interested in newspaper photography at a young age, but with no experience, he joined the Daily Collegian during his senior year after an encouraging encounter with a sports reporter. 

The first event he covered was a bike auction, from which he brought back a silhouette shot of a man holding up a bike over his head. The picture ran in the paper the next day. From there, Little was hooked.

“They decided to take me on the staff and started teaching me, and I was reading everything I could get my hands on trying to figure this out,” Little said. “It just took off from there. Once I’d made my first print and looked at it and watched the process, I was absolutely captivated.”

Little spent the rest of his senior year shooting and learning with the Collegian and became a professional within those nine months.

In 1977, the Johnstown Flood was the first major news story Little covered. He slept in his car and walked along with locals while taking in the damage and reactions as he went. He returned the following week with a relief crew.

A few weeks later, Little was at a conference for National Press Photographers with his folder full of Central Pennsylvania photos. He caught the photo editor of Time magazine in the hotel lobby and showed him his work. Upon request, he spread his shots of the Johnstown Flood on the floor of the Sheraton Hotel.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, you’re gonna get crushed,’ and he looks at me and asks my name and if I shot these,” Little said. “He just kept looking down at the prints and at me and asking if I shot them and then said, ‘These are the best things I’ve seen out of the event.’”

Little went on to do a handful of freelance work for Time, but it never amounted to much. What mattered was the confidence boost given in that hotel lobby that set him up for a lifetime of photography.

Little graduated with a liberal arts degree in general arts and sciences from Penn State in 1977. After working professionally for 13 years, he got his master’s degree from Ohio University in photojournalism where the idea for his book, “Penn State Then and Now,” was born.

“I had a class and one of the projects was you had to think of an original idea or fix something,” Little said. “I always liked those ‘Then and Now’ books, but I didn’t like how the photos were different. Always a few feet off or never lined up. It drove me nuts.”

After some trial and error with recreating a photograph of the historic courthouse in Athens, Ohio, Little had a revelation: if only he could see through the original photograph to line it up perfectly.

“I took another picture of the old photograph, made a new negative, cut the sprocket holes off so it was just the image, and then laid the negative inside the prism of my camera,” Little explained. “You can see it through the prism because it goes through a mirror. I could move the camera around and the live image would lock in with the photo. I could find exactly where that guy stood to take the original.”

Nine years later, Little realized he could replicate this at Penn State. With the help of university archivist Jackie Esposito, Little combed through pictures and picked the ones that fit the best. 

“The coolest thing about those is when I would position the camera with the field shot negative in it and looked through, you would see live people walk through these images of people like they were ghosts,” Little said.

Unfortunately, patenting the idea was out of the question. Little, who wrote, edited, and designed the book, included his process in the back for those interested in recreating it.

Throughout this process, Little was a known sports photographer for the Centre Daily Times. Very big on the football scene, he was there for the glory days of Penn State’s football team in the 1980s and even had a photo published in Sports Illustrated as a result.

“There was a football game and they called down and asked ‘if anyone got a shot of this happening,’ and I had it so I sent it up to them and they published it over two full pages that Monday,” Little said. “Once you’re in the business, people start seeing your work or you just happen to be in the right place at the right time.”

With nothing short of an impressive career, it’s Little’s dependability that still keeps him at the front of everyone’s mind when they need a project done.

After graduating and before returning to Centre County, Little worked at a newspaper in Philadelphia where his editor taught him the importance of showing up and working hard.

“You have to be dedicated. Showing up early and leaving late,” Little said. “When I’d shoot those football games, there’d be people walking down the sidelines. I’d be running.”

While slowly phasing out of that intensity, Little is still providing joy to the community through his photography. 

About six months ago, Little received a call from the Centre Daily Times that he could collect all of his negatives, which previously weren’t available to him. Twenty boxes in a pickup truck later, Little now uploads chunks of those negatives to Facebook day by day, inspired by his friend, Tor Michaels, posting a “Photo of the Day.”

“I worked there from ‘82 to 2000. I probably have well over a million negatives, but it takes a while to look through them and pick out the images and scan them,” Little explained. “People love it. They love seeing the old stuff, and it gives me the chance to see all of my old stuff from assignments and when I was just messing around.”

Little has around a decade remaining of negatives to go through — he’s currently in the 1990s — and is enjoying the feedback and joint reminiscence his photos bring. His collection ranges from streetscapes to football games and everything in between, so everyone can find something to enjoy.

“Most of the major things that have happened in this town since the late ’70s, I was probably there shooting it,” Little said. “I was in the middle of all the riots. I was in the middle of the whole controversy at Penn State. I was in the middle of everything. I lived the history of the town.”