It was so long ago I’m having trouble remembering details, like trying to remember specifics from a dream that become more elusive the harder you try.

I was working as the staff photographer at a small daily newspaper outside of Atlanta, and my photographer friend Michael was freelancing in the area, often stringing for Time magazine. Our recent Governor was ramping up a campaign for U. S. President, and Michael suggested we go down to Plains for a day or so to see what was going on. We drove down, told someone we were press, and, BOOM!, we were on the media bus. No ID, no credentials even asked for. Welcome aboard.

It was a whirlwind tour, from peanut fields to Capricorn Records. In looking over the photos I had mostly forgotten about, I am struck most by the complete access to the candidate, not just getting on the bus so easily, but the way crowds clustered around him, no rope lines, no phalanx of security guards. I know it was a different time, when bullet-proof glass was not de rigueur on every speaking platform, but even then, I think some of it was the man, who, in all my photos, seems to be having fun.

RIP Mr. President.

The power of childhood mythologies seems unremitting. My mother’s favorite secular Christmas song was “White Christmas,” by Bing Crosby. It had to be Bing. In all my 77 years in Savannah, I only remember one white Christmas, but that Currier and Ives winter landscape of the northeast US was the defining visual for the season. So now, a photograph I made 3000 miles from home feels more like a seasonal picture than anything I see at home.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

HAPPY SOLSTICE!

I wish you a great holiday season, and a fabulous New Year!

A friend, Spencer Lawton, died recently. At a regular “guys’ coffee” session on the morning of the day before he passed we were talking about many random things, and one of those was a book series I had been reading, and how brutal and cruel the legal “punishments” had been in early human history. I am glad to remember one of the last things Spencer said to me, “As a people, we are getting better.”

Losing a friend abruptly, in what felt like an extended and ongoing conversation, is a reminder of how temporary everything is.

Getting old may not automatically convey any special wisdom, but it does give one perspective, simply because you have more lived experience, if nothing else. And with that reference point to history you have witnessed personally, it’s a little easier to see progress on many social issues.

I grew up with Jim Crow; public schools in Savannah were not integrated until I was in high school. Conversations about transgender participation in women’s sports, or who uses what bathroom are difficult and necessary, but we didn’t have to have those conversations when I was going through adolescence because leaving the closet was rare, socially risky, and sometimes dangerous.

For much of my life I saw that glass as half empty, but these days I am constantly reminded of things to be grateful for, and I aim to take that attitude with me into this next trip around the sun.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ended a 1963 speech with, “I say goodnight to you by quoting the words of an old Negro slave preacher, who said, ‘We ain’t what we ought to be and we ain’t what we want to be and we ain’t what we’re going to be. But thank God, we ain’t what we was.'” Amen.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

“Well, now if I ever live to be an old man
I’m gonna sail down to Martinique
I’m gonna buy me a sweat-stained Bogart suit
And an African parakeet” from “Migration” by Jimmy Buffett

I have sometimes thought how interesting it would be to travel by tramp steamer. Roaming from one random exotic port to another, exploring lesser traveled places, I romanticize it into a Bogart movie. Can you even do that sort of thing anymore? Even if so, I’m sure there would be many long spells of idleness, edited out of Bogey’s 90 minute script.

Still, the notion of running away (from what I don’t know) tantalizes.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index.

I am thankful for all the spectacular sunrises I’ve seen, many and varied.

For 25-30 years Barbara and I have decamped from Savannah to Tybee for Thanksgiving weekend, for a little getaway that does not require airline travel, or a long drive. It is, none the less, a serious production. On the Wednesday before, we load up my Jeep with a couple of coolers and several bags of food, wine, and whisky for a big turkey dinner, and feasting the rest of the long weekend, shared with various family members over the years.

Thursday morning this year we woke early and noticed the first light in the sky portending an interesting sunrise. We dressed quickly and headed to the beach. As we walked the boardwalk crossing the dunes this scene came together. A quick two frames and it was gone.

Granted, sunsets can be pretty, but sunrises require more commitment. Anybody can be out at 6, 7, 8 PM to see a sunset. Getting up really early and going out in the dark is an act of faith. Sometimes it’s good; sometimes less so, but I heard two different pieces of advice at a couple of different photo workshops long ago, that work as a couplet I think. “If you just get up and get yourself out there, good things will happen for you,” and, “So what if the hoped for photo doesn’t happen. Isn’t it nice just to be there?”

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index