Every Picture Tells A Story

By Tom Poland

 

 

Spiky-Haired Rod Thought So

The young daydream of exotic careers, something far from the ordinary. A calling, perchance, that will elevate them above the masses. For me that career would have been photography. I can’t say what started this desire to capture images but I can tell you it never materialized. My good fortune, however, was that life kept throwing me around photographers, and I would learn to appreciate a photo’s ability to tell a story.

At the University of Georgia it was my good luck to room with a talented photographer. I envied his camera and collection of lenses and accessories. Garnett Wallace is his name and he is the first photographer in my hall of fame. When I think of all the photographers I’ve worked with I think of him first and yet we, both with journalism degrees, never collaborated.

When I returned to Georgia to earn a Masters in Media my desire to join the Wallaces of the world almost materialized. I learned to load spools of 35-millimeter film and to process others’ photographs in a darkroom. I wanted to see my own photographic phantoms materialize in a pan of Dektol. I got my hands on a cheap 35-millimeter single lens reflex camera. I believe it was a Ricoh. Great dreams I had with that cheap camera. I snapped away. “Priceless” wasn’t the word that describes my images. The word is “worthless.” My problem was twofold: my eyesight wasn’t sharp and my sense of composition was nonexistent.

Photography, I realized, was not the path for me. First of all I was no good. Second, nothing about photography was cheap. Cameras, lenses, and accessories were costly and so was film and processing. And then the idea that maybe writing was my career—a dream born of high school—took hold. All I needed was a yellow legal pad and a pencil. For say a dollar fifty I was in business. And so writing would be the vehicle that in time would reintroduce me to photography.

When I left my full-time collegiate teaching position I got a job working in film. I became a scriptwriter/cinematographer. I learned to shoot footage on a workhorse of the 16 mm movie and TV industry, the “Arri,” as the Arriflex BL was affectionately known. This camera proved ideal for shooting wildlife documentaries. I spent a lot of time alone in blinds before daylight.

Those were the days of trips to remote locations, days upon secluded barrier islands, and cold dawns. Though I was a capturer of moving images I remained in love with still photography, which eluded me. I was getting closer though. When I became the managing editor of South Carolina Wildlife magazine I met Robert Clark. (Want to treat yourself? Get a cup of coffee, sit down, and visit http://www.robertclarkphotography.com/)

Robert and I would become collaborators and co-author six books and scores of magazine features. Studying Robert’s images and writing about them opened up a new world to me: the power of a photograph to communicate. When you sit down to describe a photograph that will go in a book that will sell for 20 years, you don’t approach the task of cutlines lightly. You get into and behind the photo. You study its every aspect.

Casual observers don’t study a photograph. They notice the subject matter of course. They appreciate the dawn sunlight that soaks images with rich saturated colors. But do they really look? Do they tap into the context, the true power of the image itself? Once in a blue moon maybe. Many are in a hurry.

That curling, cracked Polaroid of your deceased uncle and aunt holds secrets as surely as famous images in history books do. A world entire lives inside the four walls of a photograph. Don’t just look. Deconstruct. Tear a picture apart then put it back together.

One Christmas my sister gave me a fuzzy, poor-quality black-and-white photograph of my father and two hometown pals. The men look assured, cocky even. My father stands between them. His arm is casually draped around one fellow’s neck as if to say, “C’mon, let’s go shoot some pool.”

Stark winter light floods the scene. One man wears plaid trousers, judging from the texture, wool. Dad wears a bomber jacket. The third man’s collar flies above his jacket like a white dove. The men wear leather gloves—pleather would not come until 1963. Just to the left of the men stands a homemade bench. Behind the men fashionable double doors are closed. Wherever this building stood and what it was remains a mystery.

This post-World War II moment is not forgotten. It lives on. A photograph is a kind of time machine. As one writer put it, “the clock holds its breath.” All three men have passed away and yet they live right before my eyes. I am a time traveler literally going back to my future. There stands the man who will father me.

My guess is that this winter photo was taken after my father returned from Hiroshima. That would be around 1946 or 1947. Marriage is just around the corner, April 11, 1947. Most startling is his full head of hair. All my life I knew Dad as a bald man. In later years he wore a toupee … something I was never comfortable with but if it made him happy, fine.

What of this photo frozen in time. Who took it? I have no idea. And what kind of camera? Perhaps it was a Kodak Retina II or more likely a camera with a viewfinder on top because the photographer has cut the men’s feet off. That could be an Ensign Ful Vue camera. But wait! The focus is off. Perhaps it was a clunky Kodak Rangefinder. And what time of day?

Look at the photograph again. It’s not much past noon, say 1:00 p.m. We know this because the shadow from my father’s gloved right hand drops an image of itself onto his friend’s sweater.

So is it February? Probably. And I’d hazard a guess that it’s a Saturday. The men appear dressed for some causal affair, not work. A bit of sleuthing turns up a date: Saturday, February 15, 1947. It’s the day after Valentine’s Day and possibly these gentlemen are taking their ladies out later. Might my Dad propose to my Mom this very evening? Of course we have no idea if all this is true but it could easily be the truth.

One final detail. Note the board angled out just so to the left above the man’s head on the right. The light slants in just so creating a pocket of shadow above the three amigos. The men face north and something more daunting: the rest of their lives.

——

Today I spend far more time writing about photos than taking them. I appreciate good photography more than ever. I never made it as a photographer though now and then some journal or book uses some of my photographs. When it does, I feel a secret thrill. Recently a designer chose one of my photos to go into a history book, a tribute more to the efficacy of my digital camera more so than my abilities. I am no Garnett Wallace or Robert Clark.

Of course many people think they are a photographer today. We live in the era of the snapshot. You can’t escape people and their cell phone cameras. Spend a minute on Facebook and you’ll see all manner of snapshots. People so easily take photos now it fools them into thinking they’re better than they are. Focusing? Not necessary anymore. Bracketing for optimum exposure, what’s that? Sending film off to be processed to see how things turned out. “You’ve got to be kidding. I can see my photo right now!”

How easy today’s wannabe photographers have it.

Appreciating a revealing photo is no different in the digital age than it was in the Polaroid age. Every picture tells a story … if we are willing to listen to its narrative.

 

 

 

Visit Tom Poland’s website at www.tompoland.net
Email Tom about most anything. [email protected]

Tom Poland is the author of eight books and more than 700 magazine features. A Southern writer, his work has appeared in magazines throughout the South. The University of South Carolina Press has released his and Robert Clark’s book, Reflections Of South Carolina, Vol. II. The History Press of Charleston just released his book, Classic Carolina Road Trips From Columbia. He writes a weekly column for newspapers in Georgia and South Carolina about the South, its people, traditions, lifestyle, and changing culture.

 

 

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