My first Portrait of a stranger

[Art Meripol]

He may have been the last true Hillbilly in the Ozarks. Surely one of the last. It's a long story but I was 17 and just starting out as a photographer. I had just graduated from high school and was going to study Journalism with a goal of being a news photographer. It was 1972.
At the time I worked as the head cook in a Polynesian/Chinese restaurant called Susie Wong's Rice Bowl a mile down a long lonesome dirt road some 8 miles from town, Fayetteville in the Arkansas Ozarks. The restaurant was a beloved romantic favorite of the community being so isolated.
The restaurant owner's Mom who I knew as 'Granny' was an apple dumpling-faced old country woman who rarely put her teeth in. She smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and sat on an upturned 5 gallon bucket in the kitchen while I cooked. Occasionally she'd bring me moonshine which she mixed in a glass with honey and 7-Up. Nothing like being 17, drinking moonshine and handling big sharp knives.
Along the dirt road to the restaurant was a run-down hard scrabble farm and shack where two brothers lived. They didn't have running water, only a well. No electricity, no car. They grew what they needed. Staples like coffee and flour were brought to them by Granny. I passed their place on the way to and from work but never saw them. They hid from the world. Granny told me she could arrange for me to photograph them and a month later we had a plan to meet one of them along the road and their barbed wire fence. I showed up with my Minolta SRT-101 and a roll of Tri-X. The man came around from behind a weather beaten barn some 50 feet away and walked to the fence where I stood with Granny, posed and walked away. The whole thing didn't last two minutes I think. I shot maybe six frames.
I think back now some 52 years later and I'm amazed. It seems unreal. Glad I still have a frame from the shoot to remember it really happened.

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Great story and exceptional photographic memory.

 

[Art Meripol]

Great story and exceptional photographic memory.

I look back and see a somewhat successful image in spite of putting the face almost dead center and the tree coming out of his head! It was the start of a still on-going career. Thanks Gianluca

 

[Gianluca Drago]

in spite of putting the face almost dead center and the tree coming out of his head!

I don't know if they are flaws, but in this photo I don't think so, in fact they almost increase its realism.

 

[Bill Brown]

I think back now some 52 years later and I'm amazed. It seems unreal. Glad I still have a frame from the shoot to remember it really happened.

That sentence speaks volumes to me. I'm so thankful I've had a camera along with me over all the years (47). At 17 I wasn't photographing any strangers. I was way too introverted and hadn't yet found my love of photography. The camera gave me confidence to walk into unknown situations. No people until I was in my mid twenties. In fact I tried to keep people out of my images. You nailed focus. I love the story. In my personal work many times the story is better than my shots but you have both. But I do agree about the tree.

 

[Art Meripol]

Thanks Bill. I question now how I would have approached the shot and other than lighting and technology the only thing I might really change is situating that tree to one side. It is interesting to look back 30 or 40 or 50 years and see that my basic way of seeing hasn't changed much.
I didn't quite realize how. when I wrote it, that sentence you mention encapsulates what photography is all about. Preservation of the moment, of our memories. I have a few other photos I might post from 50 years back that I think show how my skill was growing from age 17 to 20.

 

[Bill Brown]

Art, I've been trying to write down my experiences from over the years and that was one of the things I noted about myself as well. I'm still attracted to the same things but my experience and knowledge is deeper. Still though I somehow managed to get shots that were beyond my level of experience at the time.

I had several mentors back in the day and I believe their input had a definite impact on my personal work. I'm considering naming my series of photo stories I'm putting together "Remembering the times of my life". This is directly taken from the 1970's Kodak ad campaign that I have now lived out to a great extent.

Much of what I love about still shooting film is the tangible object (neg, transparency) that I can hold in my hand and be transported to another place and time. The ephemera aspect is very strong for me. Thanks for letting us look back into your past a little.