December 1, 2024

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

A photograph is worth many words, and perhaps the image here offers a better essay standing alone than this written one. But context is important, too, even if it’s a footnote.

I remain a professional newspaper photographer though long retired and with a career of more words written than images taken. A very young life began rebirth with newspaper work, and assignment photography was my overcoat as the rain dissipated. With its passport I began to see what I could not before – in people, places, things – and that offered a “college” education upon which words in essays, in editorials, too, could emerge. I am beyond grateful.

Photography remains my companion, my teacher, even if only with smartphone or just the shutter that is one’s eye. You need not use film or pixels to capture an image, not if you keep yourself on assignment though the job has long disappeared.

This photograph – “Tree in the Rain” – was snapped through a car windshield with a phone camera. The image, tree branches with leaves now gone, wet with much-needed rain and set against the North River (Hudson) of Native Americans in Upper Nyack, N.Y., was a canvas done by nature, caught by chance in quick glimpse because I remain on assignment. I am grateful.

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

-30-