Some people become models because they are beautiful, others because they have character. Some people are hand models or leg models because they are well endowed in that area. Some people become models because they achieve a unique notoriety that sets them apart from the rest of us. I became a model because I was either the only one in the studio or the last one on location without something to do.

During my internship in LA I had four instances where the end result was actually published.

The first one was as a hand and body model. Notice my well defined muscular body and my long delicately refined fingers.

My next assignment was on location. Kind of a character thing. I wasn’t just playing a beautiful prop, there was emotion in this one. Kind of a harsh gritty moment that had just a touch of a wicked tension that made the piece come alive.

I’m the one against the wall guarding the door with the machine gun.

 Note the steely determined and slightly mad glint in my eye.

I was so amazing in my still work that my next two assignments were in video. I don’t have copies of either one, but I’ll try to describe them well enough to give you some impression of those two powerful moments on film.

The first was in a corporate promotion piece for a steel foundry in East LA. My boss decided to open the video with a metal dye being struck by a hammer, then pulled away to show the company’s logo.  I played the hands.  I was able to show my amazing range. My hands were broad and hard, the veins pulsing with raw energy, my muscles hard. It was breath taking.  At least I always imagined it was – I never saw the final piece.

I’ve never seen the last one either, but I’ve imagined it many times.  We shot the stills for an ad shoot for an Argentinean candy company staring Mr. T – complete with gold necklaces and attitude.  After the stills were done they shot the commercial. The opening shot was a pan across the stage to Mr. T. After a couple of takes they felt something was missing – they needed a special sort of pizzazz.  As they sought a solution, they noticed me just off camera watching and the solution was obvious. I stood stage right. The camera started stage left. As the camera panned right I walked left across that stage and for just the briefest of moments the power of my presence lit the camera and provided that missing magic.

Then I retired. 

It was a glorious career.

I spent most of yesterday going through my files and boxes of pictures – a walk through my own personal photographic memory lane. I found a few old negatives. Just a few. I have a little book of negatives somewhere that I started saving after I ‘caught the bug’.  Didn’t find those.  I did find two that were interesting – and pretty bad when it comes right down to it.

I got my first camera for Christmas when I was 8 years old. A Kodak Instamatic.

My first photo memory – I took a couple of pictures and wondered how it all worked. So I popped the back open to see what was going on in there. I was disappointed. Just this grey film stuff – no picture or anything. I think I only ruined at most 3 of the shots. The film for the Instamatic came in a cartridge so only a single frame of film was exposed at a time. 

I left the almost 40 years of accumulated dust on the camera for effect.

The first image I found doesn’t have any artistic merit – just a picture of my brother and sisters watching TV in the basement. Cement walls, old worn out couch. My brother’s knees sticking out of his jeans. I remember I used to hate jeans that didn’t have the knees ripped out.

Notice the multi-colored floor scheme. My uncle owned a furniture store.  He gave us a bunch of carpet samples and we duct taped them to the floor. That was our carpet. We didn’t think of ourselves as poor – we were a middle class family. A very different middle class than today.

The other picture provides an early hint of my obsession/fascination with textures and old items with character.  The image is pretty bad, but it kind of feeds the theme.

No special talent visible from these images. Just your basic kid with a camera. Most of the other negs weren’t even printable. But it was a beginning.

A few years later I was a boy scout working on my photography merit badge. To this day I vividly remember watching that image appear in the developer. It tickled my fancy for something magic. A magic I could do. It sparked the possibility of a future creating, not just working.  Something that I could do with my ‘limited’ creative abilities. Abilities which I doubted before I ever gave them a chance to develop.  But my self doubt was as effective as a true lack of abilities. But this photography thing, I could do that.

In 8th and 9th grade we had a school program. Half a day every Friday for 9 weeks we had courses in ‘fun’ things. Skiing, ice fishing, among other things – and photography. I found my dad’s old 35mm camera and started learning.

Right about that time 3 of us got together and started a camera club. I think we had one meeting. One of the guys gave a lesson on composition using the rule-of-thirds. It just clicked – seemed so simple.

I bought my first camera – a Nikon FM. I remember deciding between that and an Olympus OM. I picked the Nikon because I liked the view finder meter lights. I still have that camera. I still love that camera. I eventually got another FM, but that first one was always my favorite. I still love its feel in my hand.

My Sophomore year I was appointed the FFA Reporter. I spent the summer riding around taking pictures of all the FFA ‘projects’, cows, pigs, sheep, grain fields. The next two years I spent on the school annual staff, my second year as head photographer. I went to more dances with that camera than I did with girls.  I shot basketball, football, year book ads and thousands of candid shots.

Then off to college to learn the art and business of being a photographer.

My design courses were exhilarating, fun, disturbing. While I was learning the how, I was struggling with the why. I grew up in a working class family. My father worked every day, hard. Farming, driving truck, fixing cars, digging holes. Always something practical, something physically constructive. I worked my way through high school as a stock boy and farm hand. Always something that ‘meant’ something. Now I was looking at a life-time focusing on creativity, on an activity that I didn’t understand. What value did it have? I was really struggling with that. We were a family that did things – not a family that appreciated things. It seemed pointless.

A friend loaned me a book, ‘The Shape of Content’ by Ben Shahn. My first taste of philosophy and exposure to the value of art and design in our lives. I can’t remember any specifics, but I remember that after reading it I had a feeling for what I was trying to achieve. And it’s value.

In future posts I’ll hit a few more highlights of my trek. It won’t be comprehensive or even in order. But it will help define how I got to where I am now. So I can start again. I’ll also start dropping in technical bits that I’m re-learning, learning and polishing.