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| #25 1948: When we first moved to Annapolis, I used to wander around looking for good human interest subjects to photograph. I heard there was going to be a parade on Clay Street, so I set up my camera in the middle of the street and waited for the band to come over the hill. These people were watching me, and, of course, I was watching them and realized they made great composition. When the band finally arrived they stopped paying attention to me; I turned the camera and shot this one negative, folded up my equipment and went home. It was the only picture I entered in the Graphlex Picture of the Year contest and it won. |
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| #26 1949: This was the pier used for unloading oysters from buy boats at City Dock. It didn't last too much longer after this photograph was made. In the distance is Horn Point and the Edwin and Maud. The ram was once a lumber ship, but by this time it had been converted into a pleasure boat that took passengers on week-long cruises on the Bay. |
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| #27 1949: It’s not easy to be unobtrusive with a camera the size of a Speedgraphic, but when I saw this shot, I set up quickly before they even noticed I was there. I think it’s an early example of my preference for unposed portraits where the subjects are unaware of the camera. The subjects were Bill Labrot, Judge Ben Michaelson (in hat), and Police Chief Curry; they were chatting over the fence in front of the county courthouse. |
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| #28 1950 circa: I did the photography for the 1949 yearbook at St. John’s College, and the next year they asked me to do a view book to help recruit students. I remember carefully composing this shot, waiting for spring so that the leaves would just be breaking, and positioning the students to give balance and scale to what is really a portrait of the Liberty Tree — an important symbol of the school. |
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| #30 1952: I was always looking for a fresh perspective, especially for a subject like parades at the Naval Academy. I was on a six-foot aluminum ladder to make this shot. Sometimes a close-up of a detail is more dramatic than the whole, but it conveys the same message. |
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| #32 1953: The Craft Shop at 64 State Circle was the first headquarters of Historic Annapolis. This was a sidewalk art show set up to benefit H.A., and they asked me to come and photograph it. This sort of thing is a difficult assignment because you have to wait patiently for people to assume natural positions that are complementary to the scene being photographed. Sometimes they never do. |
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| #33 1954: I took several pictures on Church Circle that day while it was still snowing, but this has always been my favorite. I was leaning out of the window on the second floor of the post office for this one. I made a 3x4 foot mural and put it over the fireplace at home. A couple of weeks later we had the floors refinished and the fellow who did the work admired the print so much that he took it in payment for the job. |
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| #34 1956 circa: For me, a photograph really succeeds if it can explain its subject completely. Here you can see the tobacco plant clearly in the foreground, that it is being harvested by hand and drawn by horses. There’s the typical tobacco barn with its slats open for the crop to dry, and there’s the farmer’s house. Today, of course, there would be a tractor instead of horses. In fact, this particular scene no longer exists; the community of Annapolis Cove on Bay Ridge Avenue is now on the site of this farm. |
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| #35 1958: During the fifties I was very involved with the Chamber of Commerce. Undoubtedly this photograph was made for them — to show Annapolis as a progressive town with parking meters that would discourage people from parking downtown all day. The shopping centers were just starting to come in and the merchants were desperate for ways to keep people from going up the Ritchie Highway to Harundale. |
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| #36 December 1959: Among the hundreds of aerials I’ve taken of Annapolis, this is the best for illustrating its radiating circles, and I’ve never been able to duplicate it. I was flying with Dave Scott, my favorite pilot, and we were flying a bit low. We were in a Cessna high wing airplane and I always sat in the back seat to avoid getting the wing strut in the picture. I shot it at 1/400th of a second — the highest shutter speed possible on a Speedgraphic. It’s so sharp you can see the Christmas garlands around the circle and read the time on one of St. Anne’s clocks. |
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