In 1969, after graduating from C.W. Post College, I got a job teaching, not something I aspired to, but at the time I had no idea what I wanted to do, so it was just as well, being a job that was draft deferred. The war in Viet Nam was raging and there were so few teachers that you were able to trade one form of servitude for another, admittedly less dangerous one . My friend and classmate in Arthur Leipzig's photography class, Ricky Tropp, got a job in NYC as a darkroom technician at an important photo lab. They had great enlargers there with Leica lenses and didn't seem to mind my being there and making the occasional print, so needless to say, I was there alot. A lot of professional/commercial photographers had their film and print work done there and I got to know a few of them, but the one who stands out in my mind was Arthur Tress, who had just gotten back from a road trip through the Appalachian Mountains and had made some great photos of the hill people and their buildings. I liked them a lot and wished I could amble around the country like him, and take pictures like that, but couldn't or didn't, a dream deferred.
Arthur Tress went on to have a successful career as a photographer, I went back to school, got a Ph.D. in psychology and became a mediocre psychologist working in a state mental institution, and I don't know what happened to Ricky Tropp. I recently went to visit our teacher, Mr. Leipzig (who always became annoyed when people at school called him Dr.) and among other things, asked about Ricky. He said he had lost touch with Rick years ago but seemed to sense that things did not work out well for him (as a photographer anyway), and thought that maybe he could have done more to help him along. This is a photo I took of Ricky in 1969 in NYC using his new Minolta SRT 101 on one of our down town photo safaris. Downtown NYC was in shambles in those days after years of slow decay... dirty, degenerate, abandoned... and we couldn't get enough of those mean streets. In those days, anyone who was anyone was shooting with a Nikon, but the Minolta was a nice camera. I bought one after graduation. As if it makes any difference what kind of camera you were using.
The image at the top is one I took of a post office in 6/07 in a little isolated mining town called Goodsprings, Nevada . It is a very American photograph. This picture reminded me a lot of a particular photo I liked back then taken by Arthur Tress, and printed by Ricky, which I can still see in my minds eye. The photo reminds me of his work which I so envied, which pleases me now as does my recently earned freedom to roam around the country and document America, for which I so envied Arthur back then. It speaks to how simple life once was and how uncomplicated it still is in some places. My life seems to have never been simple or uncomplicated and I seem to have always sought out that peace of mind in the camera and the darkroom and daydreams. In the end, I traded one deferment for another, but maybe you need to be in the right place at the right time, and for me, the time was now. I couldn't have known that then. I hope all is well with Rick.
8/5/07
on a plane from Dallas
to Chicago.
Pablo
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