I sat on the curb, waiting. I knew what the newspaper wanted; a single picture of the newly crowned Pumpkin Festival Queen and her court. But I would have to wait for the conclusion of the talent comparison for my opportunity.
When the performances concluded and the Queen was announced and it was time for pictures. Though I was inexperienced, I knew that you never get between proud parents and their kid when there were pictures to be taken. My life was in the balance. So for my own safety, I volunteered to arrange the Queen and her court with the understanding that the parents could get their pictures first and then it would be my turn. When that time arrived, I took an extra moment to make sure everyone in place. At that moment I caught the eye of the newly crowned queen. Her look was not the giddiness I was expecting. After a long moment I brought my camera to my eye and took the picture.
As I packed up my gear, I kept mulling over what had happened. I recognized the Pumpkin Queen as the town’s raining “most popular girl.” She was the one everyone expected to win any contest she entered. But there was no vanity in her eyes. What I saw in her eyes was acceptance and understanding of a power of small town’s traditions and values. The grace she exhibited in fulfilling her generational role was in stark contrast to my worldly view. Being from the big city (Troy, Ohio) I believed that living in small farming communities was akin to being in a witness protection program. The contrast of the Queen’s acceptance of her role and my cluelessness was disturbing.
On the drive home it hit me. I was an intemperance student photographer who needed small town events like the Pumpkin Festival to further my career. Without them I would be sitting at home watching television. The Queen’s acceptance of her role only spotlighted the lack of understanding of my own. But what bothered me most was how skillfully Pumpkin Queen had turned the tables on me with grace and acceptance. All I could do was laugh all the way home.
From that night forward I let the newspaper know I wanted the rural assignments. As fate would have it, meeting Becher Berry and his wife the following week reinforced what I had learned from the Pumpkin Queen.
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.”