In 1965, as a college student, I was inspired by the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. who called for volunteers to join him in the civil rights movement. Black Americans in the South were engaged in a determined struggle to gain the right to vote. By June I was on a train heading from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Greensboro, Alabama to join the registration campaign.
A photographer friend insisted I had to document my experiences and gave me a camera. I had no understanding of the power of the still image. So when I got to Greensboro, I pushed the Nikon under my bed where it stayed all summer, a decision I have regretted ever since. But after my mother’s sudden death in 1968 I got a second chance. A strange dream led me to discover her old Olympus camera, hidden in a drawer in the attic of her house. This time I embraced the opportunity, and throughout the years, never lost my passion for the still image.
Currently, I am working on a book about a group of young anglos who moved into a small hispanic community in Northern New Mexico in the 1970s, focusing on both the Hispanics and the new arrivals as they interact and live their lives, until the fires burned them out.
