“So what are you gonna do now that you’re not gonna go to Vietnam and die?”
People often ask me how I got started in photography. The answer surprises most people because photography wasn’t something I had dreamed about as a kid. Back in the early 1970s, most of us teenage boys assumed we’d end up going to Vietnam. A couple of my friends had older brothers who had already been killed there. It wasn’t something we talked about every day, but it was always in the back of our minds. I wasn’t planning to run to Canada or do anything to avoid serving. If I got called, I was going.
Looking back, I realize that affected the way I lived my teenage years. I wasn’t a bad kid, but I didn’t think much about the future either. Whenever my parents asked, “What were you thinking?” after I’d done something dumb, I’d usually shrug and say, “I’m probably just going to Vietnam and die anyway.” That usually ended the conversation.
Then everything changed.
The war ended, and not long afterward, the draft ended too. I already had a draft number and fully expected to be called, but suddenly that part of my life was over before it had even begun. Then, one afternoon I was sitting on the stairs at home when my dad walked over. He was about 6-foot-4, and at the time I had hair halfway down my back. Surfing was my life, and I honestly hadn’t given much thought to what came next. Dad looked down at me and, with just a little sarcasm, asked, “So… what are you going to do now that you’re not going to Vietnam and die?”
I remember looking up at him and saying, “I don’t know.” The truth is, I had never planned beyond that. Then he asked another question. “Have you ever thought about becoming a freelance photographer?” To be honest, I don’t think I even heard the word photographer. I was seventeen years old. I heard the word freelance and thought, “Free… that sounds pretty good.”
The very next day, after school, Dad took me to a professional camera store. He bought me a Nikon camera with a 50mm lens, a brick of Kodachrome film, and paid for a few lessons with the store’s professional photographer. I was hooked almost immediately. What started with that camera eventually became a career I never could have imagined. It took me all over the world and allowed me to work for organizations like the National Geographic Society, Life, Smithsonian, and many others. Later I even had the privilege of serving as Photo Editor for Texas Highways magazine.
But when I look back over all these years, that’s not what I remember most. I remember my dad standing on those stairs asking one simple question. If he hadn’t asked it, I honestly don’t know what direction my life would have taken. Over fifty years later, every time I pick up a camera, I’m thankful he did. F8 & Be There!
