darr
Well-known member
For me, it was a book — though not a photography book.
I was in third grade. It was winter. I was deeply unhappy.
My parents had recently separated, and I’d been uprooted from sunny Southern California and dropped into icy New Jersey. My teacher, perceptive and kind, decided I could spend my afternoons in the school library while the rest of the class worked on arithmetic. I’d come from a classroom where we were already well into fractions, and I think she sensed that books would steady me better than numbers that year.
There was one more wrinkle: I arrived left-handed, and she gently decided I might practice writing with my right hand. The whole left-to-right brain retraining experiment was… not my favorite season of life. But in the end, I can write with both hands, so I suppose that experiment worked.
In that library sat a beautiful set of encyclopedias filled with photographs. My love of books really began as a love of images. One afternoon, flipping through another volume, I turned a page and there she was, looking straight back at me: Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother.
At eight years old, I didn’t yet understand why that image stopped me cold. That would come later. But in that moment, something shifted. I remember feeling an electric clarity — as if I had just met my future self. I knew what I wanted to be.
The things little girls of my generation were expected to dream about — marriage, weddings, the tidy arc of domestic life — weren’t front of mind for me then. What mattered was becoming a photographer who could make a difference for someone.
Life, of course, unfolded fully. I did marry. I raised a family. And I went on to build a long career as a portrait and special-event photographer — telling stories, honoring people, preserving moments. I’m retired from that chapter now, but the thread that began in that library has never really left me.
That single photograph in an encyclopedia changed everything.
I’d love to hear what shifted things for you — was it a book, a person, or perhaps a mistake you’re now grateful for?
I was in third grade. It was winter. I was deeply unhappy.
My parents had recently separated, and I’d been uprooted from sunny Southern California and dropped into icy New Jersey. My teacher, perceptive and kind, decided I could spend my afternoons in the school library while the rest of the class worked on arithmetic. I’d come from a classroom where we were already well into fractions, and I think she sensed that books would steady me better than numbers that year.
There was one more wrinkle: I arrived left-handed, and she gently decided I might practice writing with my right hand. The whole left-to-right brain retraining experiment was… not my favorite season of life. But in the end, I can write with both hands, so I suppose that experiment worked.
In that library sat a beautiful set of encyclopedias filled with photographs. My love of books really began as a love of images. One afternoon, flipping through another volume, I turned a page and there she was, looking straight back at me: Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother.
At eight years old, I didn’t yet understand why that image stopped me cold. That would come later. But in that moment, something shifted. I remember feeling an electric clarity — as if I had just met my future self. I knew what I wanted to be.
The things little girls of my generation were expected to dream about — marriage, weddings, the tidy arc of domestic life — weren’t front of mind for me then. What mattered was becoming a photographer who could make a difference for someone.
Life, of course, unfolded fully. I did marry. I raised a family. And I went on to build a long career as a portrait and special-event photographer — telling stories, honoring people, preserving moments. I’m retired from that chapter now, but the thread that began in that library has never really left me.
That single photograph in an encyclopedia changed everything.
I’d love to hear what shifted things for you — was it a book, a person, or perhaps a mistake you’re now grateful for?
