Photography 101 – a salty college tale

 

I recently wrote a short “about me” section on this blog (for all you, um, fans out there), and in it I mention that I took two blow off photography courses in college and how I nearly failed them. No sooner had I written those words than I was digging in the closet hoping to find the booze my wife hid from me something from one of those classes to see if I was really as terrible as my grades showed. Well, I found some negatives and, yep, I sucked. There were a few diamonds in the rough, but I didn’t know how to edit back then either and therefore didn’t know what was good or bad. You see, these were dark days. Erm, darkroom days (yes, I’m that damn hilarious – look out New Yorker).

In my defense, I studied my porno mags Essentials of Photography textbook quite a bit between keg stands and really wanted to grasp two coeds at once the relationship between ISO, aperture and shutter speed. My biggest problem was that I didn’t understand my camera’s metering system (a Minolta X-370) or how in the hell parking services always knew where to find me. Frustrated, one day after class I asked the professor if he could take a look at this rash at the camera and tell me what I was doing wrong. He told me to wait right there and left the room. After about fifteen minutes I began to wonder where he was, so I wiped the drool off my face and walked out into the hallway … just in time to see my professor outside getting into his baby blue station wagon and driving away with the girl that sat behind me. I never asked him about it again, and it wasn’t until years later that I understood what the problem had been: I was drunk Unlike most manual cameras that displayed the aperture in the viewfinder, mine displayed the shutter speed instead. Son of a bitch!

For my final photo assignment that semester I cruised The Armpit of America Muncie, Ind., trying to gather an essay on what I considered “eclectic commercialism” (deep, huh?). The pictures I took were just a bunch of uninspired still lifes, but I thought I was on to something. Later that day I found myself half-cocked at the golden arches shooting my naked body in the bathroom different views of a Ronald McDonald statue. This, thought I, would be high art. Nothing about old Ron really seemed to inspire, however, and just as I was about to call it a day a young boy climbed into the clown’s lap and posed for a picture. He must have been to see Santa a time or two before and thought this was the same kind of deal. Only in this situation, it was the photographer who smelled like gin. Whatever the case, I humored him with a smile, a suppressed belch and a shaky-handed *click* … and I think this is the first picture I ever made that approached the realm of photojournalism. 

Knowing I have a tendency to exaggerate memories (or flat-out can’t remember), I just checked my Ball State transcript:  It turns out that in 1997 I got a B- in Black and White Photography, and a B in Color Photography – not near-failing as I had remembered. Perhaps that professor felt guilty. Curiously, I see that I failed underwater basket weaving. Hmmm.

So that’s it, but one last thing: Why am I writing like I’m some old over-the-hill fart strolling down memory lane? That little boy probably isn’t even old enough to drink yet. Of course, it’s possible the clown photo experience scarred him and he started boozing early. In which case I say, “Cheers!”