Epic Photo by Dylan
Martin has been photographing people, their passions and pursuits for more years than he cares to share. Really. I’ll go first person now.
Years ago I was about to become a hair stylist or an architect. Stopped by the student union and there was this guy actually two guys – you know the public sessions of career day. First there was this old guy – Joseph Scalia or something like that, he worked for the Seattle Times. I was inspired by his ability to get the greatest images of Mount Rainer. It was like he could pull the mountain out of the clouds. I’m really no joking. Anyway he showed us several with these Maple leaves in the foreground, . . . someone said – do you notice that the leaves and the branch are the same in a couple of those shots, . . . shots from different days -
Kind of bummed me out. But hey, that was O.K. then there was this young guy who talked about the power of publishing. How you have to be careful that you don’t unintentionally make someone too public. Then he went on to show several photos of the life of a homeless man. Tragic, hopeful and some truly cherished moments. I can still see some of the images. As part of the story he quoted the director of the local homeless shelter. As a direct result of running the story the shelter received an anonymous trust of several thousand dollars.
Cool, I thought, here’s a way to express creativity, get to meet interesting people and have an excuse to poke a camera into the lives of fellow folk. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d make a life long career of Photojournalism and Personal Photography.
My new course via Photos by Martin takes me into that very special moment of commitment. A commitment that I believe in and have spent the last 25 (+) years enjoying. The “+” is because it doesn’t include the years before when I knew I was going to marry my wife.
That’s it for now. Maybe another story or two later – man is there a bunch of them. Peace, m.