By popular demand, here is something never before seen on the net: a picture of me. This picture was taken sometime around 1974, so I would have been around 14 or 15 years old. My old friend Will Neuhauser took this photo, and it's the only photo of me that I like. I'm taking a picture with a 4x5 Graflex Speed Graphic camera with sheet film.
I remember this picture, our high-school newspaper had an article about palmistry and I had to make a graphic design for it. I used my own palmprint and made a shadowgram of my hand in the darkroom. But the image proportions were all wrong for the page, which is why I rephotographed it with the Graflex, I was going to shrink it down. But it just would not fit, so I had to redo it from scratch.
I examined the entire newspaper staff for someone with the smallest hand, it turned out to be Mary Hoenk, our Editor-in-Chief. I made a shadowgram of her hand, it fit perfectly. But when I inked up her hand, I could not get a clear impression of the center of her palm, no matter what I tried. I finally told Mary to relax and let her wrist go limp, I took her arm and started shaking it until her wrist flopped around under my control, and then suddenly without warning, I whacked it hard on the paper sitting on the table! Mary immediately jumped up and started howling in pain, jumping around with the paper still stuck to her hand. I yelled "Don't move!" and carefully peeled the paper from her hand. The palmprint was perfect. She was hopping mad, until she saw the final result.
I remember this picture, our high-school newspaper had an article about palmistry and I had to make a graphic design for it. I used my own palmprint and made a shadowgram of my hand in the darkroom. But the image proportions were all wrong for the page, which is why I rephotographed it with the Graflex, I was going to shrink it down. But it just would not fit, so I had to redo it from scratch.
I examined the entire newspaper staff for someone with the smallest hand, it turned out to be Mary Hoenk, our Editor-in-Chief. I made a shadowgram of her hand, it fit perfectly. But when I inked up her hand, I could not get a clear impression of the center of her palm, no matter what I tried. I finally told Mary to relax and let her wrist go limp, I took her arm and started shaking it until her wrist flopped around under my control, and then suddenly without warning, I whacked it hard on the paper sitting on the table! Mary immediately jumped up and started howling in pain, jumping around with the paper still stuck to her hand. I yelled "Don't move!" and carefully peeled the paper from her hand. The palmprint was perfect. She was hopping mad, until she saw the final result.
Wow, a blast from the past. I am that Will Neuhauser referred to and Charles and I haven't seen or spoken to each other in a couple decades I suppose since a couple years after my high school graduation in 1975.
The unreasonably uninteresting "small world" backstory that led me to this blog entry is that I received a voicemail from an "Andrew Davis" who, based on the commentary, wasn't the "Andy Davis" that I Charles and I hung out with way back when. So I decided I'd google him ... then realized I really ought to google myself to see what "Andrew Davis" had seen that made him try and locate me. So that's how I landed on Disinfotainment.
We were on the paper and yearbook together doing graphics, photography, etc. I only just got back into photography after a long hiatus, experimenting with a Nikon D70 for nature shots. I don't remember the process that got the graphic handprint above, but I do remember the result ... and probably have a copy of that issue of the West Side Story somewhere still.
Hi Charles!
The things we remember from those newspaper and year book days.