Getting serious
“On to bigger and better”
In the early 1970’s, McNutt Hall at Indiana University was identified by Playboy Magazine as one of the top five dorms in the nation…for partying. I found this out firsthand after a few weeks, and later, read a publication that confirmed the fact, and I was not going to let my parents know…all I’ll say is that my time at IU was educational.
I was flattered that new friends came easily, didn’t dawn on me till later that Hawaii was “Magic” for Mid-westerners until I joked about having drinks with Don Ho. The stories I told after that would curl your toes, but it stunned me that people clueless about Hawaii still existed. At one party I said I had to attend extra schooling to learn English; other tales were: flushing the toilets just to hear the sound of running water in the house, docking my canoe on the Ohio River after paddling across the Pacific, being uncomfortable in clothes (keep your thoughts clean…)…you get the picture.
Dave, my next-door dorm mate, had a car and a camera, he became my 2nd best friend after my roommate. His Minolta made the “shooting bug” bite again and came in handy when we cruised the countryside; Hoosier National Forest and Brown County in southern Indiana were meccas for Fall colors. I recall climbing fire towers, 30-40 ft above the treetops, it looked like buckets of paint in shades of red, orange, and yellow were splashed across the foliage below. The color of Autumn and the monochromatic winter were eye candy and presented a photographic playground for this Island boy.
My first real step into a career after graduating from IU was in Professional Scouting on the Big Island. Photography for me was getting “real” by then, and it was time to splurge…I got a Fujica, not a top-of-the-line brand, but it did what I needed it to do. Covering Scouting events was great training ground, especially Summer Camp, it helped me to focus on creating a story within the frame.
I was having a great time shooting to refine that skill, but it was costly, unlike today’s digital world.
The Fujica served me well, still after a couple of years it was time for an upgrade. I was with Scouting on Guam at the time and because it’s a Territory, prices were very reasonable for imported electronics and photography equipment, so I indulged in a Nikon, a fully manual FM2. Again, not a top-of-the-line model, but it did what I needed it to do, I didn’t need all the “bells and whistles” of their premiere line. It felt good to hold and even better to shoot. Having a change in lenses made a difference, too; crisper, cleaner, and color saturated images began to appear.
Shots of friends, people, animals…live subjects took on a whole new look in my eyes, and thinking back to my art lesson days, I always had difficulty drawing live subjects, people especially, looked like Picasso wannabes. I realized then that photography was going to be my way of painting people.
