Never die, never fade away.

One of the most important books I have was a parting gift from my high school photo teacher. As he was packing up his things getting ready to retire he gave me the pick of some of his old photo books. They stood in a cardboard box like records at a store and I looked through them the same way. Landscapes. Ansel Adams. Industrial and commercial. Stock books. I stopped at a slim, white hardcover. There was a man on the front in a strange looking coat, wearing an Uncle Sam hat and a sign advertising haircuts. I picked it up and looked through it. This was something completely strange to me. Strange images devoid of context. It showed another time, I could tell by the prices in the windows, the cars but most of all the clothes.

Men women and children dressed to the nines. Or the eights. Families proudly walking down city streets in suits, jackets and no one without a hat. It was much more my father's time than mine. And yet, something about it drew me in. Each photograph had a story behind it. A conversation, a passing glance. But none of it was there. The story was a blank as the large areas of white surrounding the photographs. There was no context and it drove me crazy. I wanted stories, I wanted to know what was going on.

Mr. Littwiller noticed the book and said, "Ah, I thought you'd like that one." I had no idea why. At least not until I was long done with RIT and had been put through the ringer by Mr. Litwiller's old friend Gunther Cartwright.

Though those years at RIT I always focused on what the images in that book never had. A story. I wanted to tell the stories. I worked so hard at making the images match the words I wanted to say. That is to say, I was miserable. The happiest I was making photographs was when I said, "To hell with the story. I want to take photographs I am proud to put up. Photographs where people ask me to explain what is happening, not photographs where I have to explain everything to get them to see the image."

The photographs that capture my imagination are not the ones which tell a story, but the ones which begin to tell a story. The ones which make people wonder and feel the need to do a little digging on their own.

A photograph of a man jumping from a boat to the dock with a mooring line makes us gasp a bit. Does he make it? Does he go in the water? But I find myself asking: What made him take the jump? Who's on the boat? How many times has he made the jump before? What's he going to do later? In five minutes of thinking I can fill in, in my imagination the guy's entire life's story. And then i wonder what's this guy to the photographer? Was he hoping for a splash?

I guess I've come around to thinking that telling stories is not nearly as much fun as trying to get other people to make them up.