From My Father

     My father was an optometrist, and in his field
quite prominent. But he was more than simply interested in correcting people’s vision. Vision was, for him, a means of seeing. And, so, he was a photographer.He loved photography. I still remember the weight and size of his Speed Graphic, the funny bellows that allowed the lens to be pulled out, the sheet film holders,and the large negatives drying in a closet, suspended from wires with wooden clothespins he got from my mother. I remember the red safelight in his darkroom, and the smell of the chemicals. I can still see his images emerging from white paper in the developer. But most of all, I remember the photos – pictures of my brother and me as babies, and as small children, of our dog Patsy, and of my mother with her radiant smile and the ever-present gardenia in her rich dark brown hair. These photos were mostly in black and white, full of tonality and shadows and highlights. He was a good photographer, and his photographs displayed a thousand moments of love, composed with great care. My father was not a man who easily spoke of love – he was too formal and reserved for that – but the photographs were the testimony of his love.
     When I was fifteen he surprised me with my first really good camera, a Minolta Autocord twin lens reflex, that I still have. Every now and then I pull it off the shelf and press the shutter as I did many years ago. It still works perfectly, and the sound remains full of possibility.

     From my father I not only learned my first lessons in the craft of photography, but also the mystery and wonder of it. From him I learned that photographs aren’t a simple depiction of what’s in them, but of the world in which they live, and of the photographer’s soul. For me, a photograph empty of emotion is uninteresting, and so I always shoot from my heart. It’s funny – I never saw my father as an emotional man until later in life, and after studying his work. It’s sad that it takes so long to understand one’s parents completely.
     It’s said that pictures speak a thousand words. I think that is true, but they are more. At their best, they are a gift of understanding -- they are a window into thoughts and worlds and feelings we might never have otherwise known. They teach us about compassion, kindness, injustice, sorrow, joy, love, and God’s grace. And in this way, my father, the optometrist, taught me to see.