His and Her Camera Views

How could I be so foolish as to trust the RTD?

Once again, they have shown their ineptitude, this time with something as simple as a fricking calendar.

But the afternoon wasn't a complete loss because the book talk at Fountain Books with Chip Jones, author of War Shots: Norm Hatch and the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Cameramen of WW II, was fascinating and supplemented by some of the most compelling WW II photographs I've ever laid eyes on.

Using images shot by the very cameramen he writes about, Jones talked about former Marine Hatch and his happenstance route to becoming the preeminent photographer of the island-hopping campaign late in the war.

The kid who couldn't afford college ended up documenting the key moments of the war and eventually becoming an advisor to Hollywood on war films.

A photo of Hatch wading ashore with a hundred pounds of film and photo equipment on his shoulders to avoid the waves said it all.

All I could think was that it was a good thing he was young and strong, although Jones said Hatch still has amazing upper body strength, even at 90.

There were photos of Hatch shooting fires, the devastation after Nagasaki and flag-raising at Iwo Jima, all striking for how dangerous his work in documenting the war effort was.

When Jones asked Hatch about how he dealt with being surrounded by such awfulness and death, Hatch claimed "emotional detachment," a difficult thing to believe given what he witnessed.

The audience was full of former Marines, no doubt sharing Jones' sentiment that hearing Hatch's stories somehow gave them a window into their own fathers' wartime experiences.

Without that frame of reference, my interest was mainly in hearing a first-hand witness' take on it all.

I had been joined by my fellow nerd James, who claimed to Fountain owner Kelly that we compete to attend the most nerdy events.

Trying to impress James with my event knowledge, I asked if he was going to the artist talk after the book talk.

Since he didn't even know about it, that round went to me.

Reynolds Gallery was hosting a gallery talk with artist Sally Mann at 1 (or so the unreliable RTD had printed) and James was beside himself about it when I told him.

All of a sudden, we were heading straight from Fountain to Reynolds for more shared learning.

So you can imagine our mutual disappointment when we walked in to a full house and owner Bev Reynolds immediately apologizing because the gallery talk had been earlier.

She told us to come in for the question and answer session in progress and apologized profusely for the RTD error. I lost all my points right there.

Sorry, James.

I don't know who looked the most crestfallen, James, me, or the other latecomers clustered around us.

We only got to hear about ten minutes worth of Mann talking and while it was really good stuff (her developing methods, her shooting strategies), it was only a fraction of what she'd shared with the audience before we arrived.

Over-sized mounted copies of one of Mann's photographs were given to the audience, so there was that unexpected gift, but either of us would have preferred listening to Mann for an hour to a consolation prize.

On the other hand, we got to hear Mann talk about her work for ten minutes and for that we were grateful.

It doesn't excuse the RTD's sloppiness (or my error in taking them at their word), but we had to appreciate the satisfaction of a Saturday spent hearing about the art of photography past and present.

And that, I'm afraid, is what makes us nerds.