One of the pleasures of the Uptown Fourth Friday party is the opportunity to meet new people who don’t mind stopping for just a moment during their evening for a quick photo. Among the best moments is this young couple who strolled around the four-block event hand in hand taking in all the celebration provided. Including a nice street portrait.

Nikon D300, ISO 200, 14-24mm f2.8 @ 16mm f5.6, 1/100, RAW.

Taking some time away from this to be with family and friends through the Christmas and New Year holidays. If you want to see new work before I return on New Year’s Day visit MyFinalPhoto every day.

Merry Christmas and Blessings for the New Year.

Sitting on the file cabinet next to my desk is a coffee cup that does more than hold pens, pencils and scissors. I’ve many cups that can fill that duty. One, given to me by one of my children many years ago is titled “Worlds Best Photographer,” a testimony less to my talent but more to the child’s eye view of their parents.

There are numerous receptacles in the house I can use for this collection of writing utensils and cutting tools. There’s many a Mason jar, coffee cups with camera manufacturer logos given to me at forgotten seminars and conventions, and even a 4-inch PVC pipe left over from a toilet installation. The pipe now holds welding rods.

Every couple of years we have a coffee cup house cleaning where cups unused or shoved to the back of the cabinet are provided to shelters and charities. Somewhere there are homeless and jobless drinking institutional coffee from cups proclaiming “Long Live the GOP,” Don’t Blame Me. I Voted For Mondale,” and “The End Is Near.” We once left coffee cups at a local diner that celebrated an eclectic collection of cups for their customers. They’ve since gone out of business and I now wonder where my “Mickey and Friends” cup has gone.

The cup chosen to survive the ritualistic Stalin-like purge is ordinary in size holding much less than my normal cup. Its significance isn’t obvious from the writings on it side. There’s no trick to drinking from it or musical chime that plays when you lift it from the table.

Yet, it speaks to me.

In my other life, before freelance, when I was an AP staffer, I frequently dealt with photographers who wanted to be stringers. Some weeks I’d see one a day. Other times it would seem weeks between stringer applicants. I saw every size, shape, and color of portfolio from leftover prints in a developer stained paper box to sophisticated leather covered binders with professional resumes.

Everyone received the same reception. They were told it wasn’t necessarily pleasant work. That many of the jobs were very routine such as news conferences and building exteriors. It was unlikely I would ever have an extra credential for any OSU football or basketball games. The assignments would be ones I’d passed on or weren’t significant enough to have a staffer shoot. There was already a great stable of stringer photographers available. Even if Richard Avedon himself walked in the door I wasn’t going to abandon current stringers for the promise of a new one.

They all received a brick of film with instructions to shoot a roll a day for 20 days, bring it to me for processing as soon as shot and we’d see if they had the talent and enthusiasm necessary to be a stringer.

Most never came back probably just happy to have someone hand them 20 rolls of film for free. The ones who did and were eager to receive criticism for their work usually became stringers.

One stringer, a student at OSU, had followed my advise in shooting and editing and became part of the stringer stable. We had to work around his class schedule for assignments although it never seemed a problem giving him one close to class time. His talent progressed and we worked on selecting images for his portfolio so he’d be able to find work after graduation. I even found an extra credential for OSU football so he’d have sports for the portfolio. Turned out he understood the game better than any other stringers and could predict play calling and ball location. We used a lot of his football photos.

I used him for more than two years and watched with great joy as he progressed in understanding what made good wire service photos and which ones were selected for use by newspapers. He honed his skill to shoot cleaner, to better anticipate, and try something different each assignment.

My biggest surprise came about 18 months into our relationship. He’d just been handed an assignment selected for him because it wasn’t something he’d shot before and would have to work hard to get good images.

He gave back the assignment telling me he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get it done.

It’s important to understand that he’d never rejected an assignment, no matter the time, location, or degree of difficulty. That was one of the pleasures of working with him. He offered no excuses when the assignments proved difficult and he could have done better. He never complained about only being a student and having to work as hard as a staffer.

This became a defining moment in our relationship. When questioned he offered an answer I never expected.

“I don’t have a car.”

He never had a car. For more than 18 months he’d been taking the bus, walking, bumming rides from friends, or using a bike. He didn’t have a car. He never had a car and I never knew it. He never had a car and didn’t complain. He never had a car and succeeded as a stringer photographer. He never had a car.

I’d hear every excuse in the world from photographers about their failures. I’d never heard a complaint from him about anything. Only now did I learn this assignment so far from campus would be a problem because he couldn’t miss class and the assignment time was too close.

He didn’t have a car and I never knew it. None of the other stringers knew he didn’t have a car.

I gave the assignment to another photographer. Then I broke the rules and overpaid him enough to buy a car. Not anything fancy or worthy of collision damage insurance. Just something to get him to assignments without using the bus or walking or riding a bike.

We never discussed his revelation again. He was a little embarrassed about his finances and it wasn’t necessary that I knew more. He’d come from a poor family and appreciated being in college and especially liked that someone cared enough to complain and compliment on his photography.

He continued to work as a stringer until graduation. His portfolio now showed his talent and contained enough depth to get him a starter job at any newspaper. We kept in touch after he began working at The Virginian-Pilot. He loved working for newspapers and celebrated when the paper won Best Use of Pictures in the NPPA Pictures of the Year competition in 1989. The coffee cup on my desk with his name listed among the paper’s photographers came from him as my reward for his success.

Chris Reddick died about a year after starting at the paper. He died mowing the grass at the home he’d bought saving his paychecks for the down payment and driving a beat up car.

Typical of Chris I never knew his biggest secret. He’d been in poor health the entire time he worked as a stringer. He had rheumatic fever as a child resulting in a very weak heart.

His heart was weak but he had the strongest soul of any man I know. He enjoyed every moment of what he did, proud to celebrate life and its challenges, never complaining about his difficulties, always eager to learn, and teaching me to appreciate the little time we knew each other.

Did I tell you, Chris Reddick didn’t have a car and never complained?