Dan's Cameras Part Four - Starting to Get Serious

There were certain advantages to working at the architecture firm for a year.  One was directly obvious, the other wasn’t.  Starting with the less obvious of the two, because my thesis advisor was the director of Virginia Tech’s Alexandria Center, I was able to discuss with him my ideas for my fifth year thesis project.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get very excited about any of the ideas he tossed out.  Near the end of the summer I had an idea that I got very excited about and arranged to meet with him after work one day.  In short, I wanted to design a cemetery.  Actually a cemetery complex that would provide me an opportunity to explore spirituality in architecture and places of solitude.  It was the only thing I’d thought of in over 6 months that even remotely intrigued me and I was incredibly animated when I presented the idea to him.  “Dan, it sounds like a really good idea.  But I just can’t get excited about the idea of a place for dead people.  You’ll have to find someone else to be your advisor.”  I was crushed.  

It took me until I returned to Blacksburg for the beginning of Fall term to decide on a thesis project that I could get excited about and that would convince Tom Regan to be my advisor.  I was going to do a photography thesis!  Tom called in another professor to hear my idea, and then they made me give a presentation on my 4 years of architecture work and one on my photographic work.  At the end of my presentation, Jan Holt was incredibly honest.  “You know, it’s rare when someone actually has a realistic impression of their own work.  You’re right, your photography is pretty good, and despite the fact it’s obvious that you’ve worked incredibly hard on architectural design, your design stinks.  I think it’s a good idea to see what you can do with photography.”  Harsh, but true.

So then to the easier of the benefits of working.  With blessings to focus on photography, I took the money I’d been saving up the previous year and bought a Nikon F3, a 105mm micro lens and a 35mm lens - both Nikkors.  People asked me why I didn’t also buy a motor drive.  I replied that I already had one - my thumb (folks were often surprised how fast I could fire off 4-5 shots with my “motor drive”).  Same thing about the new zoom lenses that were starting to come into fashion.  My response - I have a permanent zoom lens, my feet.

At the time, the Nikon F3 was the best Nikon you could buy.  I even got the HP (high eye point) view finder, which allowed someone like me to view the entire image area even with my glasses on.  I shelled out the rest of my money on film, paper and chemicals throughout the year working on my thesis. 

I can’t remember what my thesis was even about - something like 5 ways of seeing.  All I remember now is that one series of images were extreme macro shots (very close up) of leaves that I then printed in high contrast to create these fascinatingly intricate patterns.  Another was a series of images taken off the television - some from MTV, one from the State of the Union Address, others from sit-coms or commercials.  I can’t recall what the other two or three were - probably some form of straight photography playing with time and exposure.  I also did a series, separate from my thesis, where I photographed a giant oak tree on campus from the very first day it started to turn, every day until the last leaf fell off.  I then printed each negative fairly small - something like 4” x 6” - and then mounted them in the lobby of the college of architecture for 24 hours.  I was also doing a lot of photographic posters for the fraternity I was in. 

One day after I’d helped someone design a poster that we had hung up a couple of says earlier I heard a “Hey, Dan!” while walking out of the building.  “Come over here!”  It was Tom Regan down from Alexandria.  “Is that poster for the punk rock party - the one with the 12 penny weight nail in the kid’s forehead - yours?”  “Yeah.”  “Figures.  And someone mentioned that a bunch of photos of a tree went up for one day then down again the next a while ago.  Yours?”  “Yeah.”  “Good.  How’s the thesis going?”  “Good, want me to present to you?”  “No, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.  Keep working.”  “Ok.”

And I wasn’t just shooting, I was spending time in the darkroom.  It took me a while, but I developed some basic darkroom skills.  Nothing highly refined, but I was competent.  Certainly as competent as most in the building at that time, but not enough to realize how little I knew.  I also spent a lot of time looking at photographers, seeing what greats before me had done and developing an appreciation of the art of photography.

All I needed to do was to keep on working and find the right path.