RIP Sam.

Sam was a complicated man. He was one of the brightest and most clever people I’ve known, and very self-aware. In 1992, we were getting ready to put a new version of the old Nikon School back on the road and the team (5 of us) had gone to Toronto to see Larry Frank’s Canadian Nikon School for ideas. We came across one of the Sam the Record Man Stores and I wanted this photo. I shot it, but Sam staged it. It has always seemed to me a conscious balance of ego and self-parody. That intellect, along with a wealth of knowledge about his profession, photography, and maybe even more knowledge of another love, the movies, that was my partner Sam.

We were friends, with friction sometimes, for about 35 years, and in the 9 years we taught together I spent almost as much time with him as I did my wife. We were on the road together for 26 weekends a year, speaking to 400-500 people each weekend, and sharing a lot of downtime, with meals leavened by swapped stories of movies, old assignments, travel, politics, sex, religion. We generally agreed on most things. In thinking about him this week I realized our texts and conversations had continued in the same character, as when we were traveling together, yet it had been 25 years since we shared a stage, and almost that long since we had actually seen each other.

The School was quite a production in those days–9 projectors, 24 trays of slides, programming and audio gear, redundant gear for backup. The second photo is Sam catching a nap on the 20+ cases of equipment we shipped from city to city, during one of our regular “waiting for somebody to do something” periods. On Saturday and Sunday mornings we were “Admin,” selling and taking tickets. During the daylong presentation we were the “Talent.” But most of the time, we were the “Roadies,” unpacking, setting up, taking down, packing up.

I learned some things from him. I had done a fair amount of photo instruction of small groups, but he told me a large audience is easier to manage than a small one, and it’s true. We saw a kind of herd behavior happen regularly.

Another important insight was that if you are going to charge someone real money to sit in a hard chair, in a hotel ballroom, for 8 hours, while you talk about your pictures and how you took them, you also damn well better be entertaining. His storytelling chops and sonorous voice, illustrated by his strong photographs, could capture an audience.

When we had hiccups with equipment, or any sort of class disruption, one of us would have to “dance,” AKA keep the audience entertained, while the other fixed the problem. He could dance. One time he had an hour long section to present, and for a variety of reasons (very long story) he only had one slide. He kept the room engrossed.

He could also piss off the Pope. His rapid delivery once provoked a shout from an audience member, “Talk slower!” His response, never missing a beat, was, “Listen faster.” We did lose that student. One time someone objected to him calling one of his models a “girl.” He pointed out she was only 15, with great makeup.

At the end of one class a very satisfied student was going on about how good the program was and how good we were, and suggested we should go on stage. Laconic Sam said, “We just did.”

My favorite part of the School day was always the Q & A for 15-20 minutes after lunch. We took questions from the audience and tried to give useful answers, while Sam and I bantered. Matching witticisms with Sam required you to bring your A game. That was fun!

Back when Dennis Miller was funny, and taped his show on Friday evenings, one Friday afternoon I met Sam in Anaheim to set up for our Nikon School weekend there. He knew I was a fan of Miller, told me he had reserved a ticket for me at the show, and that he would do set up alone. It was a nice gift, and I enjoyed the evening. I also think he liked introducing a naif into a bit of the entertainment milieu he loved.

Sam once saw a cheap promotional airfare from NYC to Bermuda, bought two tickets returning the same day, and took a female co-worker to Bermuda for a lunch date, but in recent years a once gregarious Sam had gone from someone ready to travel almost anywhere and on short notice to someone who rarely left his small apartment. He seemed to tire of friends’ efforts to get him out more when he preempted the conversation with me, telling me if he could find a waterproof TV he would never leave the bathroom.

One of a kind. So long, Sam.

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