Ancient History: When KC Had Two Newspapers
Can you think in black and white?
This is just a narrative over some of my early news and photography experiences. It seems like a former life, as if the things I remember are just scenes from someone’s movie; happening so long ago doesn’t help, either. Antique technologies like black and white film, the heyday and dominance of Kodak, smelly caustic chemicals, and heavy camera equipment were standard. I still miss my B&W darkroom.
Back then, photojournalism was my career choice, desperately trying to avoid college. God had other, broader, longer-range plans for me, though. But I certainly didn’t spend any effort thinking about Him at the time; I tried to distance myself from that sort of thing entirely; I avoided church religiously.
Fear not: this is not a whole-life story. I just give some real facts and background surrounding the photos, thereby automatically anointing me with the right to drop as many famous names as possible, because I was there. I did enjoy being right at the source of stories and events. And I was lucky to have several Big Thrills as a dumb, self-centered kid attempting front-line journalism, trying also to avoid going to college.
This little collection started as a single placeholder page for an old site, but kept building and became a kind of journal in reverse, as I remembered stuff and uncovered more old prints, which had been carefully preserved by my patented storage method (disintegrating, cat hair-covered, paper grocery sacks).
So it turned into a chance to digitally save many of the rediscovered prints, which is a good thing: of course I don’t have 95% of my negatives. But since CDs have already gone out of favor for long-term storage, what digital(?) storage format will still be around in another 40 years?