Laragy

Yesterday (Saturday, March 22, 2008) we were visited by both Jim Laragys, Junior and Senior.
Junior worked with Linda as a programmer.
He doesn’t seem too healthy, and has various ailments, like diabetes.
He also seems unsure of himself.
But vastly intelligent.
He helped Linda master the various bits of ‘pyooter technology.
Yet he was fired by her employer — probably mostly because he wasn’t very forceful, and somewhat uncommunicative and easily distracted.
Linda is always angry they fired Junior, like the mindless management minions were self-blinded to what an asset he was.
Senior seems all that Junior isn’t; confident and healthy.
Senior was a staff-photographer at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle newspaper; one I always respected because he was an excellent illustrator.
He had the good eye I felt I lacked.
I’d know pretty much what I wanted for a story-spread, and could go out and take that.
For example, I had pictured a spread for the Canadian Grand Prix long ago at Mosport, so went out and shot it.
We ran all three pictures I had planned in City/East. The story-spread was exactly as conceptualized (and probably cost them a fortune).
But Senior could be presented with an unknown, and extract a good photograph. —I.e. He had an eye for good photography.
I did to a small extent, but was always shooting preconceptions.
And some of my good pictures were coincidence; e.g. my wide-angle of Jackie Stewart in the Glen pits. It was a fabulous shot, and ran in Road & Track, but not that much the result of “eye.”
I may have switched to my 28 (pretty wide) to take it, but that was the extent of my photographic input.
“Eye” is deducing what a good photo will look like from what you have, and trying to match that.
Newspapers added another factor.
Photos had to be page oriented. A left-page had to have the photo aimed right, and a right-page had to have the photo aimed left.
Otherwise the subject was running off the page, or the racecar was driving off the page.
One of my first Formula-One pictures Road & Track published had Mario Andretti driving his Ferrari into the center-crease.
A newspaper photographer has to cover all page possibilities (the front page of a section is the reverse; as is the back page), and may ask what page the photo may be on.
But Senior had more than that. He also had an “eye.” Given an unknown, he could extract a good illustration — capture the kerreck foreground, background, and lay out the elements therein to extract a good illustration.
I always felt I lacked that.
I could take out water-towers, and avoid the mistake of aiming at faces. (“Don’t aim at us. Get the top of 611.”)
I remember once centering the steering-wheel of that ‘56 Nomad Dick Chappell owned down-the-street in Oak Lane Manor.
Chappell was impressed: “Oh yeah, gotta do that!”
But it was repeating a known custom. It wasn’t “eye.”
I was always conceptualizing my photos way in advance. Given an unknown situation I wasn’t doing what Senior could do.
Which is partly why I gave it up. Plus it seemed successful freelance photography was a function of contacts, which I was no good at.
So Junior and Senior drove out to give us two mounted photographs in honor of our 40th wedding anniversary, and Linda’s birthday.
Senior is still taking photographs, and talking to him it’s obvious it still turns him on.
He’s even advanced into the digital age — something some film-guys abhor — and allowed that he started with a Nikon D100, upgraded to a D200, and recently a D300.
“D100 is what I got,” I said; “although I’m only taking jpegs with it.”
We also discussed the joys of Photoshop, although he doesn’t do as much as I do.
“Just about every picture I take has Photoshop in it,” I said. “What comes out of the D100 is my starting-point. My photo-files are ‘raw’ for Photoshop, but they’re jpegs, not the D100’s ‘raw’ format.”
Apparently Senior still sells photographs through a gallery, and has many mounted under glass.
They brought a slew.
Senior is probably in his 70s, but he drove out and unloaded their minivan.
We chose his photos of the boat-houses on Canandaigua Lake and Grand Central Terminal.
The boat-houses are digital; Grand Central film.
Grand Central is available-light, and had to be Photoshopped. (Someone else did it; although I knew what he was talking about. I’ve done it. —The corners were dark, and had to be lightened.)
There was a third picture of the Statue of Mercury atop Linda’s old employer. Mercury and the fluted wings atop a nearby building were silhouetting a twilight sunset-orange sky.
That was my third choice.
We may swap Grand Central for it, or may keep Grand Central and buy Mercury.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. Toward the end of her long career, she became a computer programmer at Lawyers Co-operative Publishing in Rochester.

“Mosport,” a road-racing course near Toronto, was once a Formula-One racing venue. It still exists.

“City/East” is a small weekly Rochester newspaper I wrote motorsports coverage for in the early ‘70s — although it was road-racing coverage. The newspaper still exists, but as “City.”

“Glen” is Watkins Glen road course in western New York, at the foot of Seneca Lake. The Glen was once the venue of the U.S. Grand Prix.

“28” is my 28mm wide-angle lens for my Pentax Spotmatic 35mm film camera.

RE: “Get the top of 611..........” —Once my brother-from-Boston and I chased Norfolk & Western Railroad restored excursion steam-locomotive #611 (a 4-8-4) across north-western Pennsylvania. Near Erie the engine had crippled, so we asked someone to photograph us standing in front of the engine. “Don’t aim at us. Get the top of the engine,” I said.

RE: “Dick Chappell ... down-the-street in Oak Lane Manor.........” —Our family lived in the suburban development of “Oak Lane Manor” in northern Delaware. Down the street from us was a Mr. Dick Chappell, who owned a flawlessly restored 1956 Chevrolet Nomad station-wagon, and a 1957 Nomad. I once photographed the ‘56 for him.