Welcome to my first blog post ever
I absolutely love this picture! My father took it around 1961 or 1962 at the London Zoo. That’s me—the little one in the red sweater, with curls and a Coca-Cola bottle far too big for my tiny hand. My dad, a true guy’s guy, had an incredible talent for storytelling through his photographs. Sadly, I didn’t fully appreciate his creative eye until after he was gone.
When he passed, I was given hundreds of color slides he had taken with his Rolleiflex during his time in Europe with the Air Force. Even more heartbreaking is the fact that, at some point, he just stopped taking pictures. I’ve always wondered where my creativity came from. My mother was a powerhouse when it came to making things, but she was more practical than artistic. It never even crossed my mind that I might have inherited that spark from my father.
Every few years, he would set up his shiny silver portable screen, plug in the slide projector, and gather the family in the dark to watch his disorganized slides flicker by, one by one. He’d narrate the backstories, reliving each moment as if he had just captured it. I was too young—and later, too caught up in my own world as a teenager—to understand how special those moments were. I regret that more than I can say.
As an adult, I wish I could have asked him about his photographs—just to hear his colorful stories again and again. As a tribute to him, I’ve been thinking about creating a website to showcase his photography. I know he would have loved that.
