First Lesson in Photography as Dialogue

"the magnificent patterns of tree branches
and the noble architecture of the trees themselves"

My grandfather, Albert Ewers, Sr., was my earliest influence in photography even though he had died three years before I was born. He had been a botany professor at Harris Teachers' College in St. Louis. He was an avid amateur photographer and frequently used his photographs as visual aids in teaching his botany classes. One of his favorite locations to photograph was Tower Grove Park, one of the major city parks in St Louis that was just two blocks from our house.

I grew up in the the same house where my grandparents lived. I remember as a young child looking through box after box of glass plate negatives of his photographs. Even though they were negatives, I was in awe of the images he had created and wanted to learn more about how he had created them.

My father did some photography, usually family photos on special occasions and holidays. I was given my first camera, a Kodak Hawkeye box camera which was so ubiquitous for my generation, for my tenth Christmas. It was my cherished possession, a tool I was determined to put to very good and prolific use.

I headed straight to Tower Grove Park probably with my dad, but while I remember taking pictures that day, I have no memory of who was with me. Whoever it was didn't interfere with what I wanted to do.

Being winter in St Louis, the trees were bare. My first two rolls of film were dedicated completely to the magnificent patterns of tree branches and to the noble architecture of the trees themselves. And there was the occasional accent of (all too small) birds mingled with the branch patterns.

This was in the late 1950's, so we took the film to the corner store where they would send it off for processing. About two weeks later the negatives and prints were ready for pickup. I remember very clearly it was my mother that went with me this time. The clerk handed me the package and I began looking through the stack of prints while my mother was paying for them.

I was very pleased with the results of my first outing. The trees were impressive. The birds, on the other hand, were way too small. That was my only disappointment. I still had much to learn about how cameras and lenses work.

Before we walked back outside, my mother asked to see the photos. I handed her the stack and she began slowly looking at each one.  She spent less time looking at each the further she got through the stack and her facial expression indicated that this wasn't going as well as I had expected. When she had looked at the last one, she handed them back to me and said very emphatically, "If you ever take pictures like these again, I'm not paying for them!"

To put it briefly, my mother was horrified that I had wasted two rolls of film on such insignificant and meaningless subjects. To this day her reaction mystifies me. But it did make an immediate, powerful and lasting impression on my mind as to the true communicative nature of the photograph. It initiated my approach to photography as dialogue. And it was one of the most important experiences that has enabled me to achieve some level of success with the medium.

It took me awhile to realize my mother was expecting to see the "Kodak moment," the typical family and neighborhood snapshots. She was unaware of how deeply impressed I was with my grandfather's negatives, and it had probably been many years since she had seen any of his photographs. Many conversations later, she began to understand what I was really trying to do with my photography. And now, more than a half-century later, I am still photographing the noble architecture of trees.

The point of all this is that a photographer who chooses to ignore or avoid feedback is no better than someone who chooses to talk to the walls. Photography is a complex communication experience involving the subject(s) of the photograph, the photographer and each individual viewer of the photograph. Within the family and a close circle of friends, feedback generally flows freely. Whether or not the photographer appreciates or even understands the feedback is another issue.

The more feedback a photographer can get the better. If one approaches the viewer with an open mind and good communication skills, one will rapidly improve the effectiveness of one's photographs.