Storytelling - Post Your Story Behind the Picture

[Bob Michaels]

follows is a photo caption and the photo for an exhibit opening next week:

15 year old Omar Gordon at the Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale Mississippi. He is versatile and normally plays guitar. This photo was from 2007 shortly before he dropped out of school in the 10th grade and entered a dark period. His life has been up and down from playing with B.B. King to incarceration. He is turning things around in 2015.

 

[Andrea Taurisano]

Wonderful thread indeed. Sorry for bringing some (more) melancholy into it, but human stories not so seldom consist of that too. And this is a story of the time when a couple who had been together for nearly 60 years need to part.. I let the photo speak, and for those who want a few more (at least those I felt I could share), see here.

 

[paulfish4570]

wonderful stories, y'all.
antti, your story is special to me because of my mom's status ...

 

[Bob Michaels]

Charles Gray of Bay St. Louis Mississippi lost his elegant home, once a Ford Model T assembly location, to the storm surge of Hurricane Katrina. He was forced to live in a FEMA trailer. But his 1977 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud was out of town for service and survived. He was a good sport about everything and had no problems posing for a photo when I knocked on his door. He has since built a more modest home in the same location and still has the Rolls.

 

[dave lackey]

Wow, such good stories behind equally wonderful photos.

This weekend is a holiday weekend in the US. Stuck indoors as usual, so I plan on de-cluttering the Leica Cave to make film developing less of a chore.
In the midst of moving boxes, I will revisit some archived files for the sole purpose of remembering the story behind each photograph.

It seems now that I have become aware of more than the visual aspects of my own work. A portrait or a landscape is no longer just that. It opens the door to a flood of memories and brings back stories I had almost completely forgotten. And then there are the slides and negatives. They stand as physical proof that my eyes saw the image and the slides and negatives were actually there, at that moment, recording a part of a story that would have disappeared had it not been for the simple act of pressing a shutter button.

So, what is your story behind your picture? Family? Friends?😀

 

[robert blu]

So many interesting stories, thanks you all for posting.
robert

 

[dave lackey]

It is Memorial Day weekend here in the USA. How poignant for me to take a few minutes of my time to honor one of our own veterans from the Vietnam War. This was posted in 2012 and the memory of a good man deserves to be re-visited on a thread such as this:




'The good and bad of photographic essays.

Today, I found out my good friend, Joe Castle of Grantville, Ga. passed away on June 30th....

"" Friday July 6, 2012
[SIZE=+2]Joe Castle Mourned[/SIZE]
Decorated Vietnam Vet Passes On ​

By City News
Joe Castle, decorated Vietnam Veteran and long-time resident of Grantville passed on June 30, 2012. He was 64. A gathering of friends and neighbors, was well attended, and was held at Colley Park to remember Mr. Castle July, 3rd. Joe was an Army veteran of the Veitnam War and is survived by his sons, Jack Castle, James Castle of Marion, KY. and Daniel Castle of Colunbia SC. He also leaves three grandchildren. Mr Castle was heavily involved with the Grantville Veterans Association downtown and was vital fighting for the interest and beautification of the city of Grantville and its residents. He will be missed. ""

I met Joe in 2010 at a Fall festival for the town where I was shooting the small town parade for our local Congressman in Washington. From there, I spent six months last year walking the streets and talking with everyone in the town as I documented "the town that time forgot". It would not have been possible without the friendship and help of Joe Castle.

He suffered a lot through my six months stay in Grantville with continued heart problems and, eventually, dialysis. Yet, he was always happy to see me and it really made him feel better when he was able to help me with any information about the town, it's residents and...everything but himself.

A decorated Vietnam war veteran.

With hardly a penny to spare living on Social Security, medicaid and sheer determination. He was a kind individual that I found through happenstance, or was it?

His lady friend suffered a debilitating stroke after I had finished the book on Grantville and I gave Joe some pictures of him alone and also a few pictures of him and his lady friend together. He visited her at her home with both of them in powered scooters, because neither was able to walk. Real characters, the both of them. Dirt poor but friendly folks, what I call "real people". I think my time with Joe made him feel as good as I did...at least I hope I brought him some happiness and the photo of him above is in my last documentary, along with the photo of Joe and his lady friend.

I found out about his passing today when I was asked to re-shoot, in color, the most historically significant home in Grantville. I was saddened to the point of not being able to get a single keeper. I will go back this weekend and try again.

But, I did get this one photo of Joe's final resting place at the corner of Main Street and La Grange Street. The Thrift Store in the background was moved recently from the opposite corner near the railroad due to new owners of that building. Joe was always there helping out as aveteran, raising some cash and donations. According to his wishes, this decorated Vietnam War Veteran was cremated and his ashes spread around the crepe myrtle tree in this photo because it was where he spent his days with a bird feeder, a bird bath, and where he held court on Main Street with his friends.

The good part of documentary work is recording people, places and events. The bad part is losing someone you get to know through that process and it is inevitable for me to become attached to those characters, even to the point of having a special bond with a few of them.

I haven't sorted out my feelings yet, I have no closure. I miss him. I hate that his final resting place is such a place shown in the image above with only a few friends in town having a memorial for him. A decorated veteran reduced to ashes around a bird bath to be washed down the dirty old storm drainage pipe with the first rain....

I am honored to have known him and I am blessed to have included him in my last documentary. He will live on in memory and in black and white print, a book entitled, "Meanwhile in Grantville", produced and published by me with a Leica M3 and TriX film.

Somehow that is enough for now."

__________________

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Bushkill Park, May 2010-31 by J. Robert Lennon, on Flickr

This is a picture from Bushkill Park in Easton, PA. Here is its tragically still active website. Contrary to what the website says, the park is actually closed, dismantled, and gone; its remains were evidently featured on an episode of the TV show American Pickers.

I've got photos of my great-grandparents at this park; they ran the snack bar. There are also photos of my grandparents there, and my parents. I have pictures of my brother and me there as children, and of my children, too. The park made it past its 100th birthday relatively unchanged from its heyday in the post-WWII era, but in 2004 Hurricane Ivan resulted in a flood that severely damaged the park (it's on a creek), and then two more floods finished it off.

My parents moved even closer to it around then, so one day, when I was visiting home, I walked over there and broke in and took a few dozen pictures of the abadoned rides. Soon after this, everything was sold off. I think it's entirely gone now, or most of it is, anyway. There have been promises to restore and reopen, but it's looking like it's never going to happen; and most of the stuff that made it special has been sold or destroyed.

Still: a century! I'm glad my children made it in under the wire. They visited just before the hurricane.

 

[dave lackey]

Robert, I love that story. And I do remember the episode of American Pickers you mentioned... Mostly I remember the Lakewood Fairgrounds here in Atlanta in the 50s and those magnificent bumper cars.

Unfortunately, the fairgrounds were destroyed as part of one of the Smokey and the Bandit movies decades ago.

 

[rybolt]

I shot this picture yesterday and it haunted me all night. Here's the story. The Kenmare Old Burial ground is old but it's also still in use. Most of the current burials are in the upper, westernmost section but there are a few in the older section, too. The grounds are set on a slope that goes down to the Kenmare Bay and there is a tree line that separates it from the bay. In several places there is a break in the tree line and the brush that allows you to scramble down the steep bank and access the shoreline. St. Finian's Well is down in this area and accessible at low tide. Yesterday I walked past one of those breaks and saw a very old gravestone set outside the cemetery grounds and about halfway down the slope. I went down to it but the stone was so worn that I couldn't read anything. Many markers in this area go back to the 1700's. On the stone was this heart. You have to make an effort to read the small print at the bottom of the heart.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I took this portrait of a retired nurse some years back. She worked for decades as a nurse and explained to me how important to them their caps and pin were. THey were both symbols of where they went to nursing school. I think of all the lives she touched in those decades. The world is a better place because of her.

 

[dave lackey]

I took this portrait of a retired nurse some years back. She worked for decades as a nurse and explained to me how important to them their caps and pin were. THey were both symbols of where they went to nursing school. I think of all the lives she touched in those decades. The world is a better place because of her.

This is a very nice portrait...and the story works well. I was wondering the year this was taken...:angel:

 

[airfrogusmc]

Thanks Dave, it was shot with a 500C/M and 180mm lens I think it was 1995? Shot on tmax 400 and processed in Rodinal 1:50

 

[Bob Michaels]

So just who is in that grave?

So just who is in that grave?

In early 2006, six months after hurricane Katrina the old grave yard in Biloxi Mississippi was still a disaster with gravestone scattered everywhere. But the Civil War organization has prepared a new gravestone for Private Justin Meaut who had fought with the Mississippi infantry. It even had a new Confederate battle flag. It was the first new gravestone there. This photo was included in an exhibit about Katrina reconstruction in Mississippi. But when I was there on a follow up visit several years later, there was no stone, only an empty space.

I was back following up again two weeks ago and discovered the gravestone now reads Justine Meaut, apparently Justin Meaut's daughter. I am confident of the exact location as I have been there with a print of the above photo and others in hand. Cemetery officials have no information about a grave site for a Confederate veteran named Justin Meaut.

 

[rbsinto]

Back in December of 2007, my Brother-in-law Steven Shanoff was diagnosed with cancer after a routine pre-operation examination for a hernia.
Deep in his groin, the Melanoma was inoperable, and he was given 90 days to live. The next three months became a time in our lives of nothing more than work and evenings and weekends spent at the hospital. During this time I shot virtually nothing, and after Steven died in February, I couldn't bring myself to photograph for a number of months.
One of the few shots I did take during that period was of a woman, likely Somalian whom I often saw going outside the hospital to smoke in the shelter of an overhang, near a heat grate, where Pigeons gathered to stay warm.
The grey, somber monotones of this shot remind me of the way the world and our lives seemed to be during that horrible time.

 

[dave lackey]

An early Father's Day gift.🙂

Sometimes, the best gift is nothing at all.

This photo almost became the last photograph I would ever take of the man I most admire in all of life, my son. His oldest daughter is on deck as he coaches at third base during her last softball game, one that we were able to attend a few weeks ago. I happened to have the F6 with a 50mm 1.8 lens along with me, I am still getting used to the camera. Loaded with Eastman 5222 Double X film, I wished mightly for my old 70-200 2.8 VR lens that I had to sell some time back. But, since I was just a grandfather at my oldest granddaughter's softball game, I was happy to take snaps of family in the bleachers and, of course, my granddaughter fast pitching and batting. Proud moments that brought back memories of myself, coaching my son's baseball games years ago. He is now 39.

The most admired man in my life.

That is the story behind the photograph.

This is the rest of the story since then:

This past Wednesday started out as usual with my caregiving routine that has become normal over the past several years. We then decided to go to our neighborhood lake for reading, fishing, and just enjoying the great outdoors. And it was wonderful! We stayed until after the noon hour and decided it was time for lunch. A quick stop for pickup of the finest hamburger cuisine in our neck of the woods and we were pleasantly filled in no time at all. Upon arriving at home, I decided to respond to an email from Dr. Thoannes, my friend in Paris, and a neurologist, as well as a Leicaphile like myself. Always a pleasure. I was minutes away from finishing typing a delightful correspondence with him when the iphone rang...it was my daughter-in-law. She was hysterical and the sounds were mixed with a bad reception on the phone. After several horrible minutes, I was able to pick out key words:

"this morning"; "work": "parking"; and... a difficult one to understand....



"stroke";


What? What did you just say? Stroke?!!! Who???!!!! Who had a stroke?!!!!!!
Dammit, say it again so I can hear you, who had a stroke?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a few seconds, the voice on the phone said our son had a stroke.... I'm sorry...

The entire universe collapsed and stood still simultaneously. My head spun as I reeled backward trying to comprehend. An echo started...and kept on for an eternity...

I muttered something and stated I would call back and pressed "END" on the phone. I could not move. My bride was in the other room still recovering from her second stroke and I had to do something...what?...just...do... something...

I walked into the room and went to the window to stare at nothing outside. She knew something was up and asked what was going on. I simply said that we had a problem. A very bad thing that we had to talk about.

And we did.

In short, we made it to the ER at the same hospital my bride was in suffering from a brain bleed six months before. Even the same ICU for the next few days. Our son was treated for a carotid dissection stroke. He was very lucky as I can count a half dozen horrible outcomes that could have happened but he was able to find a friend who came and got him to the hospital a few blocks from his work garage.

And here is the gift.

Nothing. Nothing but good news. With the exception of headaches and a balance problem needing physical therapy and heavy restrictions for six months while he heals, he left the ICU and came home today to heal. All other issues like speech, walking, moving, and consciousness came back quickly.

Yes, nothing was wonderful!! It became something. Something wonderful!!! Immensely wonderful!!!

An early Father's Day gift that cannot be equalled. Ever.

 

[dave lackey]

Time to post some more of your own photos with the story behind them!🙂

 

[airfrogusmc]

Dave Wow glad the prognosis is good but those things are not suppose to happen to our children no matter how old they are.

I think this is the last photo I took of my father. He worked hard all his life. He was a pipe fitter for 44 years and was on Omaha Beach 6 hours after the first wave. He was a Navy Sea Bee and was put to the task of clearing all the obstacles on the beach (bull dozer) and they were also charged with putting up the floating pier so supplies could flow onto the beach.

He went into the hospital with what he thought was a really bad cold and passed away a couple of days later. That was 1988.

Photo was taken in 1987 in his shop. He did a lot of woodworking after he retired.

 

[nikon_sam]

The boy in the doorway is my brother, he passed away October 2013, this picture was taken when he was about five years old...I would have been two at this time...we also have a sister, she's two years older than me...all three of us were adopted, all three have different birth parents...my brother Steve had always had vision problems as you can see with the glasses he's wearing but that's another story...
Nine months after my brother died my mom passed away too...while going through some of her things I found a suitcase with old pictures in it...some I'd never seen before...one of those was this picture...it was small, the kind you got back then, the kind in one of those booklets with the funny edges...later, while going through yet more of her stuff my dad found an envelope with some 120 film negatives in it...one of those was the negative to this picture...6x6, one image all by itself...
I loved this shot so I made a print...it's printed in it's original square format and on glossy RC paper with a nice white border...
While carefully printing this shot I noticed the quality of the negative...my parents had an old Kodak Duaflex camera and it would not have been able to get this quality of shot and it also had no flash...someone outside of our family took this picture and gave my parent a copy along with the negative...that neg has been sitting over fifty years and it's never been printed outside of the original small print we found...I had to print it...
What I love about this shot is the innocence in my brother face...a time that I was too young to remember, an image of him that I didn't get to see all that much growing up.
My brother and I really didn't get along all that well and that lasted most of our lives...
He had his problems, I tried to help, he wanted no part of that...I got help for myself and am doing better...our relationship towards the end of his life was getting better, better than it had ever been but still some distance between us...I feel I never got to know this young kid in the picture...I've shared with friends that I look forward to my next conversation with my brother because I'll get to meet the real Steve...the Steve in this picture, the Steve I really want to know...

 

[raid]

Shortly after the Desert Storm war in Iraq, I arranged to meet my parents and sister in Jordan. I left them only for two days during which I visited the desert city, Petra. Due to the turmoil in the Middle East at that time, nobody else was at Petra except I. There were travel warnings to Jordan in the West European countries, so I had Petra to myself. I had my pick of hotels and hotel rooms. There was nobody else there.

As I started my exploration of Petra on foot the next morning, a young man on the back of a small donkey approached me. He asked me if I wanted to have him as an "unofficial guide" for Petra. His name is Salem. He is from the Bedool Bedouins who used to live in the caves of Petra until the Jordanian government declared this city a place for tourism. The bedouins were asked to live in a newly established residence unit/town, outside Petra.

Salem took me around Petra, and he explained to me the history of it, and he told me about the people in his tribe. At one stage, we sat inside a tent with two other bedouins, sipping on sweet hot tea, while the oldest man was reminissing WWII events affecting his family.

I took many photos, and I then published a story about it in SHUTTERBUG magazine. Salem asked me for a pair of sneakers, which I later mailed him from the USA.

This is a brief summary of the story benind the photo of Salem (my avatar).