Love and Photography

After posting this photo – one of my favorite portraits – at my Flickr site, I got to thinking a bit about it.

There was much bad communication, mis-communication and non-communication in my marriage with Penny (pictured here), and this portrait often reminds me of that. The night this was taken, we had the evening to ourselves and we went out to eat and see a movie. If I recall correctly, we hadn't made plans, we simply went to the theatre expecting to decide then and there what we'd see.

Well, either we didn't like any of the choices or we arrived too late for showtimes, so seeing a movie was out. Driving 'round, trying to come up with ideas as to what we could do, I suggested that we stop at my workplace; we hadn't come up with anything else and I thought that I could work on some portrait techniques with my favorite model – her. I was in the thick of a major creative spurt which – herself being an artist – I thought she'd understand, appreciate and enjoy. When Penny and I worked together on things, we tended to work well together.

You'd'a thought I'd asked her to stick pine needles into her eyes!

I was disappointed to say the least. We went home instead and I eventually convinced her to pose for me in the basement, using the new photographic gear I'd recently purchased.

Now, it's funny how clearly we see can another person's point of view many years down the road, but at the time, I honestly thought that pursuing something that was creative (as well as possibly lucrative) would have not only pleased Penny but would have brought cheers of encouragement. Again, she being the artist, I halfway expected that she'd understand how important photography was to me outside the confines of my job as a photo lab supervisor.

In retrospect, my crime was that I bought the equipment on a whim. I decided that if I were to have the chance to pursue something outside photographic management, I needed to practice, practice, practice. I charged it without saying a word to her and waitied for it all to arrive. I surely didn't expect everything that came with it.

Without getting into any further details (there are far too many to recount; it was all far too messy and complicated), the irony of the situation was that Penny regularly told me that I needed to do more beyond the rut of a day-in and day-out work life, yet resented the fact that I acted on her advice without discussing the photo purchases with her.

Do I regret what I did? Yes. If I could do it all over again, and if it would have made a difference as to whether or not I'd be married to Penny today, I would do it the right way.

But clearly, there was something else going on (or not going on) that eventually led to the demise of the marriage, but more importantly, led to the little moments that created our divide. You've got to have snowflakes in order to make an avalanche, I suppose, and had we recognized how significantly the little things would eventually affect our relationship, the bigger issues likely wouldn't have developed.

I honestly think that – going in – Penny had a better clue about what marriage should be. I, on the other hand, fell into the archetypal roll of breadwinner, with all of our expenses and bills and mortgages and you-name-it being paid by my wages. I mostly thought about staying afloat while Penny thought about swimming or flying. I didn't see how we were drifting; I didn't see that she began loosening the tethers very early on.

In the years following this night captured on film – as well as with my sometimes-photographic memory – my desire to increase my skills continued. I read photographic books and magazines; scoured hundreds of images every week trying to understand lighting control; I practiced in the basement every chance I could; I bought book after book showcasing commercial photography. All I wanted was to get good enough to consider leaving a very heart-troubling job with the idea that it would somehow lead to a better marriage in the process.

There are too, too many dots to connect at this point, but simply, and to the point, I quit my job on 16 August 1994 as a matter of gaining my life back. I regretted what I'd done for about twenty-four hours, then realized that it had to be done – that there really was no other way. I don't know when I've done a more foolish thing or a more wise thing. How's that for a contradiction?

Thanks to one of my co-workers, I was able to land a couple of fairly lucrative freelance jobs initially after quitting. I got up enough nerve, eventually, to ask Karen Stock, director of the Lansing Art Gallery at the time, if she'd be willing to have me do a show of my portraits – none of which had been shot yet.

With a date set for the show (early-April to early-May of 1995), I began lining up visual artists (I dubbed it The Artist Project) – many of whom were people I'd met through Penny – and shooting began before Christmas. I was fortunate to have had film and photographic paper donated to me by Kodak and a now defunct Photo Connexion (a local photo supply store), as well as the use of a darkroom by Larry at PhotoMart. The project was in full swing, and as I watched processed film turn into proof sheets then into 11" x 14" enlargements, I was thrilled beyond compare. What I had imagined in my head was becoming something I could behold with my eyes.

For the first time in my life, I truly got a glimpse of what it meant to be an artist, though I hesitated – and still hesitate – to call myself one. I was having the time of my life.

Oddly, Penny – the artist – was rather disinterested with the whole thing.

In February, not long before Zachary's 10th birthday, she announced that she wanted to separate.

And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together

Another year or more would pass before I learned these lyrics – by Dar Williams – but in the early winter of 1995, I surely knew whence they came.

I understood, too, that a much different life lay ahead, and recognizing the need for more financial stability, I applied for work at Abrams Aerial Survey Company in Lansing and was hired. I told them, however, that I'd scheduled a trip to Washington, D.C. to visit with a friend I'd met years before at a Bio-Photo conference in Rochester, New York. Barb Neuberger and I communicated off and on since that time – most often to rib each other about our baseball teams' woes (she's an avid Baltimore Orioles fan) – so when I needed a far-away place to find a proper space for thinking and, I guess, not thinking, she agreed to lend me her couch-bed for a week.

On the train ride out to D.C. – actually, on the bus which took me to Toledo to catch the train – I met an amazing woman who for the next twenty-two hours or so would become my best friend and confidante and counselor and hero – Camille Brightman.

Camille and I talked and talked and talked for most of the trip: the three or more hour ride to Toledo, the twelve to fifteen hours to Washington, then exploring D.C. together during her layover (she was on her way to Myrtle Beach, I think). Of course, a little part of me fell in love with the woman, but this was no romantic interlude – it was a lesson.

Camille was probably a good ten years younger than I was at the time (I suppose she still is... Heh!), which probably translated to 39 to 29. I was the one who felt younger, however. She seemed to have a maturity I'd not developed yet. She seemed so secure within the skin she wore, which at the time was as a nomad. She would work for spells in various parts of the country (and the world, I'd bet), earn enough to support herself and purchase transport to her next stop, then do it all over again. At least that's how I remembered (or imagined) it.

I think that the revelation for me occurred when I realized that I could fall for Camille, given the right circumstances. The revelation came as I realized how much she reminded me of Penny. I recognized that Penny could just as easily have been sitting there talking to me in her free-spirit way about life and love and people and places and books and movies and jobs...

The revelation came in recognizing the contradiction in thinking I could fall in love with someone who exhibited many of the same qualities as Penny – qualities which, of course, led to her decision to leave me.

I returned from D.C. somewhat refreshed, refueled and reinvigorated for the final weeks of preparation of my project. I didn't think at the time that a week off would throw me several weeks behind, but it did. I still had about a third of the show to shoot, print and get framed and I was getting a bit nervous.

Again, thanks to the charity of a local vendor, Bill Harrison at Custom Photo, I was able to get back on track. While I had previously hand-processed my enlargements (at PhotoMart), Bill agreed to let me use his machine in addition to a more automated enlarger. Time was a bit more of a concern to me than whether or not the auto-processing was as archival as manual processing – I doubt that the show would have been completed otherwise.

The show went on without a hitch. My portrait of Penny was hung in its proper place – dead-center on the center wall, from which all the rest of the portraits originated, and to which all the other portraits led. Alongside each of the portraits, I mounted a small placard which either spoke to my impressions about the artist or had something to say about the portrait session. At the right is the placard that accompanied Penny's portrait. Looking at it now, I suppose my honesty was a bit too eager to find its way out into the public, but the show was a coming out of sorts, so honesty seemed appropriate.

At the time I began working on The Artist Project, I never would have suspected that I'd lose my interest in photography. Not even remotely. As the show came down, however, and as divorce proceedings got hairier and hairier, photography lost its charm with me. I became less and less interested in the "visual" aspects of life and began to delve into the deep dark places that songs and music (and my own introspection) brought me.

And now, ten years and a couple of loves later, photography has begun to make its way back into my life. Almost everywhere I go I look for photographs, and as I observe the light and shadows of the day, I see – at long last – a new love coming on.