This contact sheet has some of my favorite images on it.  I probably separated the negatives from their respective rolls of film and collected them to this contact sheet while putting together an exhibition.

Photograph 37a14 was a turning point.  I had a lot of very good photographs before this one, but never one that had this moment to it.  The arching trees, the sun peeking through a slit between two other trees, the couple passing through below.  How do you get this moment?  I do not know.  By the time your conscious mind recognizes the moment it is over.  My conscious mind cannot see into the future for that upcoming moment.  But I can observe, participate, and go with the flow of time until there is a , moment?  Look at the frames immediately preceding and following as contrast.  This is the subject of my book on Zen and photography - available from that most evil of companies Amazon.

Photos 37b44 and 37b01 are of my father’s cigarette break after we have successfully pulled the engine from my Triumph TR4.  Because I used bulk film purchased in 100 foot lengths, the frame numbers are from 1 to 44.  Because I loaded individual film cassettes with that bulk film, the strip of film could begin at any number between 1 and 44.  I think it was during my winter break from college that we pulled the engine.  Winter in Iowa is not kind to Triumphs so I didn’t generally drive it then.  The idea was that we would get the head professionally cleaned and faced with new valves installed and that I would put it all together over my spring break a few months later.  I remember picking up the crankshaft from the machinist at Mills’ Auto Parts in Muscatine with Allan Six and the two of us carrying it the few blocks back to our car.  As we passed some engineer-type walking out of Stanley Engineering I told him “We got the shaft!”  He broke out laughing and said that that was the funniest thing he’d seen, two hippies walking down the street saying that they’d gotten the shaft.

Photos 37b02 and 03 are nice photos of Pam the dachshund and Lori my sister napping on the living room floor.  The photos illustrate how intelligent Pam was, anticipating where the sun would be to warm her winter nap.  This is a south-facing window - the sun would travel across the floor right to left through the drapes.  

Photographs 37c07 through 12 are at a Weston family Memorial Day reunion at the ancestral home near Newton, Iowa, north of Ira and Mingo.  The house was an Italianate built in the 1870s by my great great grandparents.  I remember staying there with my great grandfather and namesake Roy Weston when I was six and seven along with my uncle Jim who was three years older.  He saw ghosts in the bedrooms at night and didn’t like to go there.  Years later my uncle Phil told me that when he was visiting Roy, his grandfather, he was alone at the house and accidentally slammed the door too hard.  It caused the plastered ceiling to fall.  

Photo c12 shows my grandfather Pat filling his plate at the buffet table.  He grew up in this house.  The other photos are of relatives enjoying food and each other at that house.  The first of the photos are of us dining on the screened porch.

I remember using photo 37d23 in an exhibition.  I liked its resemblance to illustrations of ancient armored warriors.  My father asked for the photograph when I was through with the show.  He said he put it in his office and told people it was his son, and left it ambiguous as to whether the subject of the photograph or its photographer was his son.  Just like dad.

Photos 3724 and 3725 are of Mount Vernon Iowa’s chief of police Earl Wolvers.  He was running for Linn County sheriff and needed a campaign photograph.  I had been doing darkroom work for the town’s weekly newspaper, The Sun.  He heard that I was a good photographer and asked me to shoot the photo.  We discussed what he wanted and this was what I shot.  Neither of us were concerned about the cigarette in his hand.    He was very happy when he got the prints.  I gave them to him as a campaign contribution.

Photos 26 through 28 are of the two cats living on the second floor of Altoona Hall.  The white one was Flinx, who lived with David Babcock, and the dark cat was Pushkin, who lived with Mark Schulz.  They were amiable companions on the floor and seldom strayed far.  Dave and Mark were good at keeping them in because cats were prohibited from the dormitories.  

The photographs referenced in this essay can be found in the Photos by Numbers section in gallery 00037.