The story of how I came to spend my life behind a lens is one not so easily boiled down into an anecdote. It is true that I was suddenly and unexpectedly gifted the ability to “see” a photograph after coming across a print by a fellow photography student. However it was years earlier while studying graphic design at VCU that I first noticed no matter how clever a piece of graphic design might be it was doomed to mediocrity or worse if the accompanying photograph was substandard. It was at that precise moment I first thought, “I don’t wanna do this. I want to be the guy that makes the pictures.”

Although I was growing increasingly enraptured by the medium by the time I saw that peer’s gelatin-silver print, only hesitantly did I consider actually attempting to make a living with it. The documentary Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light is the reason I decided to pursue photography as a profession. Without the film I have no idea what I may have gravitated toward during such a morphing, fluxing period as my 20s. Avedon said in this film, “When you’re 21-years-old, there’s a movement and humor and vitality and a sort of open, free sexuality…” For those of you old enough to look back on your 20s from a distance, his words should ring quite true. Often, in our exuberant enjoyment of simple existence, our lives pivot during that decade all on their own in complete defiance of whatever it was we’d planned to do.

Under the influence of Helen Whitney’s beautifully realized semi-biography of Avedon, I checked out virtually every volume on photography in my area’s largest library. The effort resulted in a literary Twin Towers – each stack of books very nearly my height – swaying in a corner of my bedroom. That same library provided me my first opportunity to lay hands on a sadly tattered, stained, and beaten copy of Avedon’s In the American West. Damaged or not by thousands of thumbs, Avedon’s magnum opus drove me irrevocably into a profession that, if we’re all honest, is really a particularly addictive drug to those of us sufficiently vulnerable to the allure of control.

Obviously, without Avedon’s and Whitney’s influence, The Children of Grandy Park series would never have come to be. It would not even have existed long enough to be an aborted project. I cannot however hand over to them all of the credit for persuading me to push forth. Oddly enough, interviewer extraordinaire Charlie Rose plays a role as well. While I feel what some might consider an inexplicable debt to him for his interview of Avedon and Whitney – a snippet in time of one great artist we nearly lost to heartbreak and another lost to the ages – it is Rose’s inexhaustible curiosity and drive and deep understanding that “proper preparation prevents piss poor performance” which inspires me to do the very best job I can every time I heft a camera.

There’s more to come on The Children of Grandy Park series specifically addressing the thought behind some of the images, but it seemed to me both appropriate and prudent to provide a bit of context first. That is what the last installment was about. That’s what this installment is all about.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to set aside an afternoon or evening to watch Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light in its entirety. Maybe, for you too, it will be a transformative experience.

This is the third installment of a look back on the award-winning Children of Grandy Park series.