THE PHOTOGRAPHER
T. David Green
Published by T. David Green Smashwords
Copyright 2010 T. David Green
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THE PHOTOGRAPHER
Pauly's mother was an avid reader. Which is how Pauly damn near killed himself.
She refused to go to the library to check out books. She said it was bad enough to schlep them one way, never mind having to haul them back again. Her solution was to hit all the used bookstores and buy books so she only had to schlep one way.
Pauly's father would always fight with her about this book business. He failed to see her line of reasoning, but to Pauly it made perfect sense. Of course it makes sense to the kid, his father would yell at Pauly's mother, he's only six year old, what does he know? Not much, but he has more sense that you! And with that, Pauly's father would go into the other room and spend the rest of the night reading the Daily News.
Once a year his father would pack him and his mother off to the Catskills for two weeks and when they returned home, there wouldn't be a book in the apartment. Pauly's mother never said a word about the missing books. She just started buying all over again. And all over again, Pauly's father would start yelling.
It was years later when Pauly found out that the proceeds from these sales paid for the yearly Catskills trips. So, like his mother, Pauly collected books for the rest of his life.
One day in the bookstore while Pauly's mother was looking for another Wodehouse novel, Pauly found a book of photographs of famous people. At five years old, he could read on a sixth grade level and he recognized a few of the names of the people in the book. He knew Hemingway and he recognized Sartre, one of his mother's favorite authors. He leafed through the book. He could read most of the words, but what they meant was beyond him. The black and white tones of the photos were beautiful. Pauly knew about color photos, but this lack of color was much more descriptive, so beautiful, it seemed to give the people a sense of strength, depth, mystery and who they were.
Pauly was in love. He refused to give up the book and it was beginning to look like his mother had two choices. Leave Pauly in the bookstore or buy the book. She forked over the twenty bucks, and jamming Pauly and his photography book in the wagon amongst her books, then headed for home.
For weeks Pauly studied the book, making either his mother or his father explain what was going on in each picture. He studied and memorized each face, learned its every nuance, and in this way, he was learning how to become a portrait photographer.
His parents had indulged in a certain amount of photography in their lives but it never got past the Kodak Brownie stage. During the two weeks in the Catskills, Pauly's mother took pictures of him constantly. But when they got back to Flatbush, the film would sit around for nearly six months before she took it to the drugstore for developing. By then she wasn't interested in showing them, and besides, no one was interested in seeing what she'd done on her summer vacation when they were freezing their butts in January. So no one ever saw Pauly's family pictures, which was just as well, because neither his mother nor his father could master the camera. Usually it had to do with a finger in front of the lens, or they were so close to the subject it was all fuzzy, or they were so far away all you could see were the Catskills. Pauly's mother's pictures weren't an inspiration. So she wasn't much help.
Now, on the trips to the bookstores, Pauly would head for the photography section, pull down a pile of books and sit looking at the pictures trying to figure out what the words meant. Most of the stuff he could read, he just didn't have the comprehension, but he reasoned that if he could get his parents to read the books to him, they could explain them to him. He tried that. He would pick three of four books and his mother would look at them and decide on one or two, usually one, and buy it for him. Most kids grew up on Dr. Seuss. Pauly got Ansel Adams.
By the time he was seven years old, Pauly had an impressive library of photography books. Most of them he understood. Now, he decided it was time that he had a camera of his own. One day on the way home from school he headed over to Nostrand Avenue to look in the camera shops. As far as the clerks were concerned any kid coming into the store without their parents was there to steal them blind.
"Hey kid, whatcha want?"
"I wanna look at cameras, I'm gonna get one so's I can take pictures."
"Learn ta draw kid, beat it."
"I ain't gonna steal nothin', lemme look, I won't touch nothin'."
"Get outta here kid, this ain't a toy store."
"C’mon mister you're killin' me here. I told ya, I ain't gonna touch nothin'."
"Whatsa matter kid, you can't hear so good? Go home."
Pauly screamed, "when I become rich and famous I ain't never coming to your lousy shop again!"
Another man entered the argument. Pauly figured he was doomed. "Let 'em look Sol, but if he touches somethin' he ain't suppose to, break his arm."
The idea of breaking the kid’s arm cheered Sol, "yeah, sure. C'mon kid, whatcha wanna look at?"
For a second Pauly was thunderstruck. But for the next hour, and to Sol’s credit, Pauly looked at camera after camera and asked the man to explain everything about how they worked, what they did, what focus meant, what were f-stops, speed, and why was it measured in fractions of a second, and on and on. But when they got to parallax it was more than Pauly could bear. The clerk was in over his head, too.
"Listen kid, it's been great, but go home and get yer ole man and his wallet and come back, I'll be glad to sell you anything you want."
"Sure thing mister, thanks. I'll be back for that camera there." Pauly pointed to the most expensive Nikon in the shop, and ran from the store as fast as he could. When he got home he proudly announced he'd found the right camera. He remembered the name of the camera and stated it carefully so there'd be no misunderstanding. His father shot beer out his nose and went into a coughing fit that nearly killed him. His mother turned around and went back into the kitchen.
Pauly got a Kodak Brownie. Visions of Nikons and a hundred different lenses draped all over his body like Robert Capa vanished. But a camera was a camera.
Pauly nearly broke his father buying and developing film. He shot pictures of everything he saw and some things he didn't see. Nothing daunted him. Except one day when he had wandered into the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn where he was taking pictures of the people. Pauly was in ecstasy, he'd never had a chance to photograph anyone that dressed so differently then he or his family, or, for that matter, anyone in his neighborhood.
Pauly's education tended to lack in certain fundamentals. In all his books he had seen pictures of people, all different kinds of people from all over the world. In all those pictures none of the people seemed to mind having their picture taken. So, much to Pauly's surprise, and future education, that when he took pictures of some people, there was a possibility of serious consequences. A second after taking a picture of three elderly gentlemen wearing long black coats, Pauly was flying down the street with the three of them hard on his heels. Pauly was amazed that old people could run so fast. He was praying that youth and fear would last longer than age and anger. It did, but barely.
When Pauly's parents discovered where he'd been he not only got a beating but he had his camera taken away and he was grounded for a week. He used the week to his advantage, Pauly poured over his books trying to find anything that would tell him whose picture he could or couldn't take. The books didn't help and by the end of his confinement he decided the question was going to have to be answered be trial and error, unless either of his parent's knew. Pauly decided however, against discussing photography with them for awhile.
By the time he was ten years old, Pauly had gotten a second hand Pentax 1000 with a 55 mm lens and a 100 mm lens. He was the happiest, and perhaps the wisest kid in Flatbush. Unless he was using the long lens he was very careful at whom he pointed his camera. Otherwise he was cheerfully taking pictures wherever he found them. Now that he thought himself a veteran photographer, he learned to be a little more circumspect. Pauly had never forgotten that first photography book and whenever he could get someone to sit still long enough he would take their portrait. He would put people beside windows, under skylights, half in and half out of the shade, under trees, wherever he could manipulate the light that fell on a person's face and upper body. Pauly never took full-length shots, they weren't interesting, and besides, they looked too much like his mother's snapshots from the Catskills.
Pauly had found a book of Paul Strand photographs and in it there was a beautiful night shot. Pauly had seen any number of night photos, and for the first time he realized he could actually do that himself, with his Pentax. Leaving the bookstore he ran to the film store and asked the clerk what the best film was for night shooting. The clerk suggested Tri-X rated at 400 ASA especially if you didn't have a tripod. Pauly knew instantly that his next purchase would be a tripod. He raced home with his film, and agonizing, waited for darkness.
His mother had other ideas. A ten-year-old kid doesn't wander the streets of Flatbush after dark.
"Ma, you're stifling my career here."
"I'll stifle more than that if you don't quit with the mouth!"
Pauly lost the argument, but he wasn't about to lose the battle. He went to his room and sulked. At dinner he continued sulking while his mother told his father what his son had in mind. His father said, "any kid dumb enough to wander the streets at night with a friggin' camera should get more than chased home."
"C'mon Pop, I ain't gonna get hurt and nobody's gonna get my camera."
"Pauly, not only are they gonna get your camera they're also gonna bust your head for you. Better you should stay home and argue with your father, that way he can bust your head. Keep it in the family, save the punks the trouble."
"So when I get rich and famous I ain't givin' you guys nothing." And with that Pauly stomped off to his room to continue sulking. And this led to his second greatest photography lesson.
In his room Pauly would aim the unloaded camera at stuff and say click. He had one roll of film and this room was not where he was going to use it up. But then, why not, he wasn't going anywhere.
He turned off the lights and looked through the lens. The light meter in the camera didn't even wiggle. Still sulking, Pauly looked out the window. He had been looking out this window all his life and all he ever saw was the backside of the house across the alley. But tonight it was different.
Of all the photography books in Pauly's room only one or two had a picture of a nude. His mother had made sure of that when, one day at the bookstore, she caught him looking through a book by Imogene Cunningham of nearly all female nudes. Pauly got whacked on the head for that, and from then on he was careful when and where he looked at nude photos. Now, for the first time in his life, he was going to shoot a nude, hopefully.
Across the way a bedroom window glowed with light and the blinds were open. But more importantly there was a woman in the window. Pauly knew her; it was Mrs. Ackerman, his mother's friend. Pauly couldn't tell what Mrs. Ackerman was doing. All he could see was that every couple seconds she passed in front of the window. Once she stopped and started doing something with her hair. It looked like she might be in front of a mirror. She was wearing one of those robes that old women wore, like his mother.
Pauly decided he'd better load his camera. He turned on the lights so he could see to load the film and exchange the fifty-five mm lens for the hundred. Finished, he turned off the lights again. This, he told himself, was because this was night photography and for that you didn't need light. He cleared the junk off the windowsill, set up the camera, pointed it at Mrs. Ackerman's bedroom window, and waited.
Getting down on his knees, Pauly focused the camera on Mrs. Ackerman, and for a few minutes watched her up close, working on her hair. He remembered to check the light meter and this time it twitched. He had to turn the lights on again to set the f-stop and the speed. That done, he turned off the lights and waited.
Pay dirt! Mrs. Ackerman removed her robe and she was standing there in her bra and for the longest time Pauly just stared, forgetting to click the shutter. When he finally remembered, he nearly knocked the camera off the windowsill. He calmed down and took a second picture and continued waiting. Mrs. Ackerman lifted her arms up and continued working on her hair and Pauly took another picture. Mrs. Ackerman turned to look at the side of her head and Pauly got a full-frontal shoot of Mrs. Ackerman's boobs. Pauly was beside himself! Not exactly a nude photo, but for a first time, close enough.
Pauly was slightly disappointed that the window sill dissected Mrs. Ackerman just above the waist, but he reminded himself, he only liked doing bust portraits. Mrs. Ackerman turned so she could see the back of her head and Pauly clicked the shutter again. He was in heaven! Mrs. Ackerman turned to face the mirror and stood there looking at herself for a few moments and Pauly wondered what she was going to do next.
What she did next almost killed him. She reached behind her back and in one movement she was out of her bra! Pauly nearly died! He just stared for a long time before he remembered to start shooting. Pauly shot up seven exposures in less than seven seconds. Mrs. Ackerman continued to work on her hair, while Pauly continued to take pictures.
Suddenly lights were going off all over the place, bells were ringing, and Pauly was blind as a bat. Blind! He remembered a sin about blindness, was this it? However, this was not the best time to review theology.
He was yanked to his feet, his eyes flew open and his nose was less than two inches from his mother's. He could barely hear the sound of her voice. She dropped him back on his own two feet, which was followed by a flurry of body blows. Pauly determined this would be the last time anyone or anything would ever sneak up on him again. As it turned out, it was the second to the last time.
At the moment, lessons were the last thing on Pauly's mind. The job, for now, was to stay out of his mother's reach. Pauly's mother never settled for one or two whacks. Every time she got within reach, she'd smack Pauly to emphasize a point. Or punctuate a sentence. He did his best to keep out of her way. Muhammad Ali should dance this good.
When she finished chasing Pauly around the room, she stripped the film out of the camera and draped it over his ringing head.
"Wait'll your father hears about this."
"That'll make it better?"
"Keep it up Mr. Smart-mouth, there's more where this came from."
Several minutes later, Pauly looked out the window. Mrs. Ackerman was still naked but now she was on the phone. Turning, she looked directly at Pauly and waved. The blind dropped, but before it did Pauly would swear to his dying day that she was smiling at him. It was a month before Pauly saw either his camera or his freedom. He did, however, see a lot of Mrs. Ackerman.
At thirteen there wasn't anything Pauly didn't know about film, lighting, and equipment. He had long ago talked his father into helping him install a darkroom in the basement, and by eleven he was processing and printing his own film. Getting the money had been another matter altogether. It was a screaming match that lasted for weeks. His father had told him that he would not support his son's habit. When he wanted film, he'd have to earn it, and when he wanted the darkroom, it was the same thing, earn it. So Pauly earned it by doing whatever jobs around the house that were available and not classified as regular chores.
One day Pauly read an article in The Daily News about a non-profit organization and how they were given matching dollars for whatever reason. The only part of the discussion Pauly understood was that the organization would raise money and then a rich guy would match that amount -- or something like that. He would bet his father didn't know about non-profit dollars so he prepared his speech carefully.
"Oh, so now you're a non-profit organization?"
"Nah, Pop, see, this stuff is expensive, but you gotta realize I'm gonna be rich and famous, and when I'm makin' all that dough I'll pay ya back. But fer now ya gotta help me here."
“That's your collateral?”
"Collateral schmateral, don't you trust your own kid?"
"You crazy or what? I'm gonna trust you?"
"If you can't trust your own relatives then who you gonna trust?"
"Listen Pauly, the relatives are the last ones you can trust, take my word for it. Want I should tell you stories about your uncles?"
"Naw. C'mon Pop, we gotta deal?"
"You wanna deal? Okay, here's the deal. You work twice as hard and I'll give you twice as much. Whatta ya say?"
"You're killing me here, Pop, c'mon dollar fer dollar."
That night Pauly went to bed dejected and though Mrs. Ackerman was up to giving a show, Pauly wasn't up to watching. But he did, just to be polite. He needed money for a darkroom and it looked like his father wasn't going to help him. Try as he might he couldn't come up with another scheme. About one in the morning he fell into a fitful sleep.
A few days later, as part of the old deal, Pauly cleaned up the back yard for which he was paid three dollars. The job finished he went into the house and reported to his father. His father went out, and standing on the porch, solemnly inspected the yard. Pauly was a good worker, he had always been and no matter what, or no matter how angry he got about something, he'd do a good job. His father knew this about his son and was proud of him for it, therefore he would never withhold the promised wages. Longer than usual, Pauly's father studied the yard, then without a word he turned and went back into the house. Puzzled, Pauly followed him.
On the kitchen table was laid two piles of one dollar bills. "This is the three dollars for cleaning the yard," his father said, pointing. And pointing to the second pile he said, "and this is the matching non-profit funds. Now get outta here ya little chiseler." But they smiled at each other, and grabbing the money, Pauly managed to kiss his father on the cheek as he flew out the door, heading for the photography store. A small down payment was required on a used enlarger. Pauly had cut a deal with the shop owner, meaning he, Pauly, would have to work evenings for the rest of his life. But it was worth it; in a few short weeks he'd be in possession of the darkroom.
So now a much wiser fourteen-year-old Pauly was looking at photography books in the bookstore. He was looking for new ideas. To date he'd made hundreds of exposures of his pals in candid and portrait shots, produced all the school's journalistic photography, went to the Botanical Gardens and did nature stuff in all four seasons. He'd even gone to the aquarium and the Bronx Zoo and photographed animals and fish. He'd checked all the books in his local bookstore and felt there was nothing more to be gained by staying here. He checked the clock on the wall and decided that he could go into Manhattan and spend a couple hours at the Strand down on Broadway.
Pauly caught the number 5 train, and riding it in to Astor Place walked the few blocks to the Strand. Pauly could spend his whole life in this bookstore, but if his father found out that he had come into the City without permission he'd get a terrific beating. He wasn't about to tell him. An hour at the photography stall and he wasn't getting anywhere, he'd looked at all the photo books and nudie books a gazillion times and today he was just looking.
Rummaging through another bin he came across a small book about lightning. In New York it's not all that unusual to see lightning. Pauly had seen his share of it and thought it a beautiful and dangerous thing. Why, he wondered, hadn't he ever tried to photograph it? He came across a picture of lightning hitting the top of the Empire State Building and was struck by the beauty of it. The book didn't have any instructions on how to shoot lightning, but he knew that at least one of his technical books at home would give him more than enough information.
The summer of Pauly's fourteenth year was spent on the roof of his building during every storm that hit the City. His equipment consisted of a Nor'easter, hat, and boots, a tripod, the Pentax loaded with a fresh roll of Tri-X film, a 200mm lens, cable release, a pocket full of carrots, and the largest umbrella he could find. He set up his camera near the center of the roof, jury-rigged the umbrella to an aluminum tripod light stand, hauled up an old milk box, and sat down to wait.
His mother didn't say much about Pauly's lightning vigil except that if he got hit by lightning she couldn't help him. His father said better he got hit by lightning than getting his head busted by some punks out to steal his camera. Pauly had grown used to his parents not being able to understand his passion for photography. He knew that one day he would make a decent living from his work and he would get to travel to exotic places all over the world. He also knew that his parents were proud of his work.
It was mid-August, a hot, sticky, sultry night. The radio had promised a large thunderstorm for the City around nine that night. Pauly was ready for this one. He waited, the air didn't move, his tank top and shorts were sticking to him. Finally a breeze started blowing and that got Pauly excited, it meant the storm was almost here.
He waited, the breeze picked up, maybe seven or eight knots. Actually Pauly hadn't a clue how fast knots were, but that was the way the weather guys talked. It sounded official. But nothing happened, except the wind continued to pick up.
It was nearly ten, when, on the western horizon, Pauly saw the first faint sparkle of lightning. He checked his equipment again and began eating carrots, a little too fast. There was something in the back of his mind that was telling him that if he had one lonesome brain in his head he'd get off the roof. But he wanted a picture of lightning hitting the City.
So Pauly waited, ate carrots, and watched the storm approach the City, and after that, Flatbush. As the storm approached, Pauly kind of hoped the Empire State Building took a shot early on in the proceedings then he could grab his stuff and get downstairs.
Finally, the storm was over the City and Pauly could feel the percussions of the thunder and smell the ozone from the lightning. He had a death grip on the cable release and the moment the lightning got anywhere close to the center of the City he'd start shooting. He was counting on the lightning strikes around the Empire State to give him some beautiful pictures, even if he didn't get a lightning bolt actually hitting the Empire State Building.
Pauly lost track of time. The storm had increased in intensity, the wind was up around eighty knots, according to Pauly's reckoning, and the rain was driving down in sheets. He'd be lucky if the camera and film survived the night. Then it happened.
Pauly was on exposure number twelve of his third roll of film when all hell broke loose. His shutter had been open for three seconds and he was counting. Lightning was dancing all over the City. The rain half blinded Pauly. He was looking intently at the Empire State, and on the count of seven, a bolt of lightning snuck up behind him and blasted his umbrella into molecules, shot down the metal stand, into the roof, came up Pauly's right leg, and out the top of his head. For years afterward he was known as Brother Paul. The lightening left a fine tonsure on his head.
Pauly didn't know how long he was unconscious. When he awoke, his right leg was numb, and every bell, whistle, car horn, and car alarm in the world was sounding in his head. He didn't know what had happened, but he suspected his mother had something to do with this. Cautiously he looked around, but she wasn't there and the rain had stopped, a gentle breeze was blowing, and the lightning and thunder could be seen on the far horizon. But for Pauly that was moot, all he could see were alternating bands of bright colors dancing and flashing before his eyes. After awhile his vision cleared a little and despite the noise in his head he turned to see if his camera was still in one piece. To his everlasting joy it was. But he couldn't imagine that the film wasn't cooked.
The staff of the hospital came from all over the building to see the boy who had been hit by lightning and lived to tell about it. If it wasn't for the pain he could get used to the attention. As it was his right leg was broken in several places, but the doctors were confident they could get him on his feet within a few weeks, a couple months at the most. Pauly's parents were just happy he was alive, but his father told him that the minute he recovered he was going to bust his head for sure this time. His mother kept her peace, but Pauly was sure there would be some form of retribution.
As it turned out Pauly was in the hospital for less than six weeks. His progress was rapid and he was by nature the kind of kid that couldn't stay down. Before the second, and hopefully, final surgery, he was ready to go home and learn to walk again. The doctors had told him those two surgeries on one leg in less than six weeks was a good deal more than his system should handle. But it worked, Pauly was walking with crutches by Christmas, a cane by Easter, and the following August he was carrying it mostly for show, it got tons of sympathy from the girls.
And his photograph of lightning hitting both the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building simultaneously, made it into a national magazine.
THE END