In America, I did a significant amount of freelance work and it amounted to about half of my total income. Much of the work I did was on assignment for news events, such as hurricanes while some of it was as benign as making images for history text books. Such was the case on this outing, when I was assigned to photograph some murals that are painted on the sides of buildings in Dothan, Alabama. My habit is to take the back roads rather than the interstates. The ride is longer, but the scenes along the way are usually pretty interesting. I stopped in one of these little hole-in-the-wall gas stations right outside of Dothan to get some gas and stretch my legs from the 4.5 hour drive from my home. I am filling my gas and suddenly the light changed and formed this wonderful wedge of light with this man sitting outside the store, enjoying his day. I grabbed my camera and shot about 6 frames before a cloud covered the scene and the wonderful light was gone. I asked the man if he would mind if I used the image and showed it to him. He signed a release and I went into the store, paid for the gas and two very cold Cokes and brought one out to him and sat and talked with him for about 20 minutes. A really excellent man and I enjoyed my time with him. This is still one of my favorite black and white shots. To me, this shot almost looks like it was made in a church and God is highlighting this one man with light. The light, the look of peace and contentment in the man, who is looking back at God and sitting on a pew-like seat all comes together here, I think. And religion is a strong part of every day life in the south. Even if you don't go to church regularly in Alabama, you most likely still have a strong sense of spirituality in one manner or another. Just the way it is. Image made with a Nikon D2x, 28-70 F2.8 EDIF lens exposed at 400ISO 1/250th at F16. Black and white conversion via photoshop.

A side story about this trip happened to my son. In his required Alabama history class, they turned to the start of Chapter 6 and he sees my photos that I made on this particular trip. He says "Hey! my dad shot these photos!" and is excited to see these images in his book. The teacher says "Grayson, your dad did not shoot those, please don't make up stories...". He was devastated. He came home and said "dad, why did you lie to me about those photos?" and I told him I didn't, and showed him the RAW images, including the one in the book. Well, needless to say, I was pretty upset with the teacher for first not knowing what the hell she was talking about and next for embarrassing my son in front of his entire class. So, the next day I had business at the school and found out what time he had his Alabama history class that day from the principal, and explained what had happened. She asked if I wanted a conference with the teacher and I explained that I wanted to go to the class, that she had embarrassed him in front of his peers, and I wanted it to be corrected in front of them as well. She agreed to this and at the start of his class, I knocked on the door and was invited to enter the class. The teacher was at the board, and I was across the room and said "I understand you accused my son of lying about photos in your text book?" she replied that she had and that he should not make things up. "Well, he DIDN'T make it up. I did shoot those photos and I would appreciate your knowing exactly what you're talking about before you accuse my son of lying in front of his classmates." . Grayson, who had slunk down when I entered the room, thinking he might be in trouble for something, suddenly grew about 6 inches in his chair and smiled at me. I went on: "Since you accused him of lying in front of all these students, I think you also owe him an apology in front of them as well...". She refused. So, in the class, I pulled out my phone and called the superintendent, who was a good friend of mine and I had covered as a journalist for many years. I told her I was in a class and was going to put her on speaker phone. When she was on the speaker, I explained the situation and asked the teacher to apologize and she had refused. Needless to say, the teacher was ghost white at this point. The superintendent said "For any teacher to do this in our schools is unacceptable. She WILL apologize and then after classes are finished today, come to see me directly...", I apologized for bothering her and thanked her for her time and hung up. The teacher, in her most insincere tone, apologized. (Can you tell I didn't like this woman?) There had been several episodes previous to this that she had singled him out for, like deciding to keep him from going on a field trip and not being able to give a competent reason for doing so, and then not contacting me (I showed up to listen to the class sing, and my son isn't there... not good). I had already spoken to the principal about these issues, and again, told her what the situation was prior to going into the classroom, so time to make a stand. I was also not the only parent to complain about her and the next year, she was not offered a contract renewal, which was a good thing. Some people should not be educators, and this person was one of them.


Hope all of you have an excellent day and thanks for taking a look once again at my ramblings and image.