I’m all about photographs, 24/7. -Even before my first newspaper staff job in 1975. (where I worked almost solely in black & white for a decade) And then in digital capture starting in 1998 with a digital image transmitted from Scotland for the next day’s newspaper. And even after retiring from the Associated Press in 2017, it’s still (no pun!) the photographs.
These days, I spend working with college students in their digital lab. Also, I happily spend even more time working with them in a wet darkroom. Actually, I’m happy in either space working with students and their ‘fresh visions’ of photography. From histograms to split grade printing, I am always thinking about photographs. And how best to present photography to students in a way that makes large format as relatable as their cell phone cameras.
But I also spend a lot of time working with a photograph I haven’t taken, yet. By that, I mean, more than a few times a year, I will drive, or walk, past a scene that I see as a photograph. For whatever reason, I won’t stop to make the picture, but will plan to get to that picture. Then the image is in my head to be made over and over in different light, different angles, etc. When I was on the road a lot with the Associated Press this happened often. Now, not as much. But the problem is that these images become something to get to eventually. Often years will pass with no photograph and then for whatever reason the scene would be disrupted, or gone all together!
Well, today, one of the nicest images I haven’t made, was totally dismantled practically right before my eyes! I was mad! So here I am typing away furiously! But who am I complaining to? Whose fault can it be that I didn’t take that picture? Let’s see…wrong light? No; wrong season? No; permissions question? No; type of film?
No! No! No! No!!!
My grandmother had a saying, “Pee, or get off the pot!” (not exactly her words!).
I’m here today to say that I plan to try my best to not let this keep happening. Everyone with me? GOOD! Let’s all get out there and make art! No, wait … it’s raining.
Mel Evans