The Other Genetic Heritage

Some genetic traits are easy.

Eye color? Check - both parents have lovely blue eyes, and I got the hazel variety. Hair color? Check - Mom's side of the family has the color-changing blond / brunette / blond / brunette / red / dyspeptic skunk thing going for at least four generations that I know of. (That last color shift is when the white streak starts laterally, crosswise, and spreads forwards and backwards. because my family can never do anything the normal way.) Heart disease? Check, everyone on Dad's side of the family. You-know-what eating grin? Like someone did a cut-and-paste of Dad's smile, and gave it to me as well. No denying that I was his kid, that's for sure!

But what about the other things?

Among other gifts, Dad gave me The Eye.

Not Mom's Raised Eyebrow Eye; that's a different thing entirely. That Look that tells you that not only did she know you were up to no good, she knows where, when, and how many accomplices? Yeah, Mom carries a black belt level in that one. (Dare you to grow up under the roof of a fourth through sixth grade teacher and get away with ANYthing, double dare you!)

No, I'm talking about the other Eye. The artistic one, that notices details, or composition, or juxtaposition, and uses a camera to capture that moment for all the world to see.

I got that one from Dad, pure and simple.

Dad was quite a good amateur photographer when I was young. And I'm not just saying that because of family pride or something - you know those insufferable trip picture slide shows from the 70's? We hosted them, and people actually wanted to come to them! Back in the days of slide or print film, when development wasn't cheap, Dad would be pretty judicious in what he took pics of. He'd also curate the pics when he got them, so none of this "and here's yet another picture of Aunt Darcy in front of the Welcome To Insert Your State Here sign..."

Bleaugh.

Not our slide shows! Dad would go through all the slides, and choose pics in a mostly chronological order that told a story. The majority were landscapes, with not a lot of pics of Mom or myself in the picture. Why would we need to be? The fact that the pics existed at all proved we were there, and the place or thing we were showing was a more interesting story than the fact we were in the image too. Mom and I would help with a narrative, making sure the trip story we told was fluid and chronological, but it was Dad who picked the images that we showed.

There were exceptions, of course. One rather memorable one was in the Rockies, in July, in a snow field, and my parents in-SIS-ted I make a snowball and hold it while Dad fiddled and freaking fiddled with the camera. That blasted snowball hurt! My fingers were burning, I was crying, begging him to take the picture, dropping the sweary thing till they yelled at me to pick it up again, hurting, me squatting in a snow patch in shorts and flip flops and miserable so close to my birthday and what was with their obsession on getting this freaking picture anyway? When they finally got their shot, they were entirely surprised I hurled the snowball at them and stomped to the car and sulked for the rest of the day. All the pics were blurry except the last one, where it's quite clear I was crying. Hey, it can't all be sunshine and roses.

On the opposite side, I made Dad take a picture of me at the Welcome to North Carolina sign, in the snow. In North Carolina. Incidentally, I was breaking the law by wearing less than sixteen yards of clothing. I may have a folder of myself breaking wacky odd state laws all across this country....

There were a few times when Mom had to step in, sometimes literally. Dad set up a tripod in the Arizona desert to catch a thunderstorm coming over the mountains and roaring into the valley where our hotel sat. Mom stood inside the doorway, watching this thing come at us with all the full force of mountains much, much bigger than our old Appalachians, begging us in an eerily calm voice to come inside, over and over and over. Or the time Dad was determined to get a closeup of a scorpion, and we were turning over rocks in the desert, and finally we found one! And, of course, it was the smallest species, the one that can kill a person with one sting, and it was ready for battle a few inches from my exposed toe... Mom may have had to use her own Eye to get us both away from that one. With the pic, of course.

That time spent sitting or standing by Dad's side, seeing what he took pictures of, seeing him set up the shot, watching the process from beginning to end and sometimes even hearing his reasons for his choices, has made me the photographer I am today. Talented amateur, but I am well pleased with the pictures I show the world.

Dad showed me how to spot creatures in the wild. He was a hunter and trapper when he was a kid - he grew up poor, and he and his uncle would run trap lines to bring in enough cash to feed the family. Or he'd go fishing for dinner. Those days may be long gone, but Dad remembers how to spot animals that would like to hide from us humans, and he showed me what signs to look for and how to pick critter from camouflage. Now, when he goes fishing, it's for sport, and he takes great pleasure in catch and release. Just yesterday, he caught two fish to show his great-grandaughter what live fishies look like, so she could touch them, and let them go again to catch another day.

We still tell each other daily what we saw, whether it's butterflies in the garden, birds over the river, or stealthy mammals sneaking down to the waterside to get a drink. Or in the case of the raccoon family, where the crayfish bar is by the shells left over.

And we both learned, too, and evolved. Posed shots? Sure, there have to be some family pics too! But learning over time to take quick shots, casual ones, that weren't so posed or formal. To have an interesting background, or a meaningful one. To have a reason for that picture to exist, other than a marker at the side of the road. To have a marker in this strange life journey that we're on.

I'm darn lucky that my Dad is still around, that I wanted to move down the street to be close to Mom and Dad again, that I'm here for them and they've been here for me. I know how vanishingly rare that kind of bond is nowadays. And that I can share the pictures I take with him and Mom, and whenever they compliment me on my images, they know, because I've told them - it's all because Dad taught me the Eye.