Photography

I realized this morning that I used to really like photography. I came to realize this in an odd way.

I'm going to volunteer to be a reading mentor at my daughter's school. (At least, I think I am: I get the impression that they approach mentoring as a 'whole child' thing. I'm not sure I'm willing to make that level of commitment.) But anyway, in order to do it, I have to fill out two forms -- one certifying that I have no criminal record, and one certifying that there is no record anywhere of me being a child abuser. (The temptation to make a joke about that is very strong, but I won't, as I suspect these people take this very seriously. I know, there's nothing remotely humorous about child abuse -- its the image of these stern people that causes me to want to poke their stolidity, just a bit. But I'll pass). One of the forms wanted to know every address that I've lived at since 1975. That's easy; I was married in 1984, and I lived in only one other address between then and then. But I couldn't quite remember what it was.

My wife said that I should pull out old tax returns, and she'd look through some old letters I'd sent her, and between the two of us, we'd find some scrap of paper with it. Which we did. But as I was hauling down the folders with old returns -- surely we can toss these by now, I'm thinking, just as I'm also thinking This is why we keep them (that, and paranoia) -- I also took down two thick folders I'd kept for a long time of photographs and illustrations that I really liked. They're not organized, per se, except by type, and they're not 'great photography' -- usually, they're illustrations for advertisements. But leafing through them, I realized again how much I like photography.

Some are whimsical -- a young girl standing on a slab of polished granite, wearing the full Girl Scout regalia, and holding a box of Girl Scout cookies, from D Magazine (Dallas, Texas), 1981 -- Shannon Roberts was 71 pulsating pounds of achievement-greedy Girl Scout during this year's cookie campaign. The goal was to beat her 1980 record of 556 boxes ordered over a period of two weeks. She sold 562.... Some are serious - Farewell to a Husband, Father, Soldier - a crying woman being comforted as another woman, in US Army uniform, salutes, barely holding back her own tears; ..another, from the February 2000 cover of The Economist, a tight shot of a woman's partially cloaked face - Can Islam and democracy mix? A beaming young family, mother and father holding three hyper-cute kids, the central of whom holds a cat. A 'high-key' photograph of Julia Ormand for the New York Times Magazine, April, 1995 - Julia Ormond's Trip Through the Star Factory. Four ads for Healthtex kid's clothing, with text like this, next to a picture of a grimacing, squirming child: You've got 23 seconds to get your 2-year-old from the sandbox to the potty. .Go. Four elegant (and rather sexy) images from Playboy magazine of the mid-eighties. The Olympic Torch being lit, with the text Compared to this, everything else is just a light. An ornate Spanish-style room. A comfortably cluttered room. Bailey's Irish Cream splashing gently into a fine crystal goblet. The Space Shuttle on its transporter. A partially cracked light bulb in a vise - Dallas Magazine, January 1982 - Shattering Old Ways of Thinking. An ocelot and her cub. An elegantly coiffed woman. A bare-chested man holding his young son. And on, and on, and on.

I love photography.