When I look back to the early times of learning photography and working for the newspaper, I am always amazed by the opportunities that were presented to me. Some of those opportunities were the result of the amazing people I was meeting, some from events that challenged me while shaped my thinking. I am very thankful for these early influences to this day.

The Pumpkin Festival Queen

I sat on the curb, waiting. I knew what the newspaper wanted; a single picture of the new Pumpkin Festival Queen and her court. But I would have to wait through the singers, pianists, dancers and baton twirlers before I could get my picture.

It was the time when I was transitioning from shooting just sports to picking up general assignments. Typically I was given lessor assignments that the staff photographers gladly passed on. The harvest festival was one such assignment.

In time, the performances concluded and the Queen was announced, it was time for pictures. Though I was inexperienced, I knew that you never got between a proud parent and their kid when there were pictures to be taken. 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 my time came, I took an extra moment to make sure everyone in place and ready. In at that moment I caught the eye of the newly crowned queen. Her look was not what I was expecting, but look of uncanny calmness was not it. The girls in court were understandably a bit giddy and it showed, but the Queen was almost stoice. After long moment I brought my camera to my eye and took the picture.

After packed up my gear I walked to my car and began my drive home. The quiet backroads gave me time to mull over what had happened and why I got lost in that moment.

The first realization was that I actually recognized the Pumpkin Queen from shooting football. She was a cheerleader and I suspected she was also this town’s raining “most popular girl.” But why no pridefulness or vanity in her eyes. Obviously I was still missing something. And then it hit me. What I saw in her eyes was acceptance of the traditions and values of her small town. She was the one everyone would expected to do well in any contest she entered. so it was no surprise she was the Queen.

What had caught me off guard was the grace she exhibited while playing out her her generational role and small town traditions. A stark contrast compared to my wordly teenage view which was that living in small farming communities was akin to being in a witness protection program.

At about this time I got a hard earned clue. While the Queen accepted her role with grace, I was clueless to my own role. I was a young photographer who needed small town events like the Pumpkin Festival to move ahead in my career. Without them I would be sitting at home watching television. Having had the tables flipped on me, all I could do was laugh all the way home. I was just grateful that no cops were around to see me,

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 drove the point home.

The Berries

Beecher Berry was a retired science teacher who lived in the tiny town of Pleasant Hill Ohio. He took pictures of birds that were published in several national magazine.

When I arrived at the Berry’s home I was a bit apprehensive. I was inexperienced. a teenager, and my history with teachers, 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 he had steered the conversation away from his work and onto mine.

Eventually we got back on topic and talked about his work. He shot pictures out his kitchen window of the birds that visited his feeder. He had a modest collection of camera equipment that he made the most of with his photography. He explained how he used his wife’s old purses as camera bags. What? It was at this point that I subtlety pushed the two “just in case” bags full of camera equipment under the table and out of sight.

In the hour I was in the Berry’s home I spent about five minutes of actual taking pictures. But in the decades since, my memory of that experience with the Berries as one of my favorite experiences that became the model of how to establish honest, productive relationships with my subjects. The Berries taught me humility (though I’m still not ready to use purses as camera bags) and peaked my interest in small towns culture. The Berry’s unknowingly challenged my silly preconception. It was a gift I have treasured to this day.

“I Just Can’t Take Good Pictures”

Shortly after I began working for the newspaper I was offered a job in a camera store on Saturday mornings when customers processing would be picked up. Invariably customer would take a moment to look at their pictures to see how they turned out. It was the moment of truth. Their review would reflect either disappointment as voiced disproportionally large I would often hear: “I just can’t take good pictures.” I found the statement jarring. They seemed to attribute bad pictures to a lack some special creative predisposition required for taking good pictures ranging from a missing gene to fluoridated water.

As a fledging photographer myself, I seriously doubted these theories. It seemed to me that the two pile review system was often a rush to judgement based on a quick scan of the pictures. Seldom were the pictures one hundred percent good or one hundred percent bad. And both piles offered learning opportunities such as recognizing the pattern of repeating the same mistakes over and over. In the film days that meant wasting lots of money.

The final piece of the puzzle took time for me to realize and when I did it had more to do with golf than picture taking.

The person that thinks they can’t take good pictures is right if their expectations are unrealistically high for their present skill level. So the question is really whether the picture taker wants to spend and time and effort to improve their photography to sink with their expectations. Though I have no way of knowing, I suspect the “I can’t take good pictures” person just might a decisioned that has already ben made. And that is fine.