Bleacher Berry was a retired science teacher who lived in the tiny town of Pleasant Hill Ohio. He took pictures of birds from his kitchen that were published in several national magazines.
When I arrived at the Berry’s home I was a bit apprehensive. I was inexperienced teenager photographer plus my history with schoolteachers, retired or otherwise, was not always stellar. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. In short order I was sitting at the Berry’s kitchen table drinking ice tea and talking photography. To my amazement Mr. Berry had steered the conversation away from his work and onto mine.
Eventually we got back on topic and talked about his work. He had a modest collection of camera equipment that he made the most of with his photography. He also explained how he used his wife’s old purses as camera bags. What? It was at this point that I subtlety pushed the “just in case” camera bags full of equipment under the kitchen table and out of sight.
In the hour I was in the Berry’s home I actually only spent about five minutes of taking pictures. But in the decades since, my memory of that experience with the Berries is one of my favorites. It became the model of how to establish honest, productive relationships with my subjects and was my second douse of humility that week (though I’m still not ready to use purses as camera bags). It also peaked my new found interest in small towns culture. The Berry’s unknowingly challenged my silly small town preconception. It was a gift I have treasured to this day.
By the end of my Junior year, all assignment constraints were off and I shot throughout the summer and into the next school year.
After high school I picked up assignments for the paper on occasion while attending Wright State University and then Ohio University where I became a photography major.
During an extended internship with the newspaper in 1977, it became apparent that newspapers were facing some serious challenges. Production costs were rising while advertising revenue was being dramatically affected by the competition from television. The future of print journalism was looking bleak and had me seriously questioning my career choice.
When I returned from my internship I went to a job interview for a bartender position in Athens. Somehow I was hired and within a few months was the manager. Drawing on some of the same people and problem solving skills that I utilized in journalism, I began my hospitality career.
Despite not being a producing photographer, I had continued to see the world in images. So when the digital cameras were introduced, it presented an opportunity to adapt my film experience and visualization to digital photography.
Digital photography presents its own challenges. First challenge was where number of images a digital camera can produce compared to film (which cost money). The second challenge was, how do you organize you images? And the third challenge is how to learn from your images so you don’t keep making the same mistakes? In time I realized a website gave me a way to study my photographs in depth while incorporating new technical advances in digital photography. Additionally, digital medium encouraged creative expression, both as a stand-alone image or multi image layout. Plus I realized from my newspaper background, telling stories with multiple images was more in line with my background.
“You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.”