Park-ing with Lou

“Ten thousand repetitions are not enough. It takes 

talent, passion, cultivation of the craft 

AND ten thousand repetitions.”

— Anonymous

We were walking and chatting along a trail in Oro Valley, Arizona, at Catalina State Park. ‘Park-ing’ — hiking in the park. Out early, there was a chill in the air that was more refreshing than it was poking, unwanted through our clothing.

 I was mid-sentence when he abruptly stopped, turned around, looked up, and lifted his camera. Looking through the viewfinder, and with no hesitation, took the shot. For the briefest of moments, it was like he didn’t know I was there. 

He had felt the photo opportunity, even though it was behind him. It had happened so fast, it was over almost before it began. The photo was stunning. Smiling, he said, “It’s sometimes better to see things when you look back at the path you are on. Sometimes they are the best pictures.”

Lou took his first photo when he was nine, lying in the back window of his father’s car, as it crossed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. There was something about the Kodak Brownie box camera that captured his imagination. From that day to our walk in the park this morning, it had been nearly eighty years from that first click to thousands upon thousands of pictures.

It seemed to me that he didn’t take time or wait for the perfect shot. He explained to me that waiting often means missing the shot entirely. He looked at the mountain and said, “The light is the key. It shifts and moves. What catches your eye may not be there if you wait.”

I asked him how he knew what to shoot and when to do it. His answer was like the cook who had done so much in the kitchen, she didn’t need a recipe. He replied in a

I realized I wasn’t just hiking on a desert trail with this man, looking for the right photo — I was hiking on a desert trail with a master of his craft. He was communing with nature, in his element. We were in this man’s sanctuary. I was just along for ride.

At the park that morning, I was
transported to a small dock on Lake Joseph where we ‘cottaged’ in the magical land of Muskoka, Ontario, Canada. My uncle was standing on a small walkway to a dock where a sixteen-foot sloop (sailboat) was tied. He was wearing one of those muscle teeshirts you see at the gym. This seventy-year-old man wasn’t lifting anything but a paintbrush.

He was soaked with sweat in the late afternoon sun — his hand moving effortlessly, intermittently refreshing paint or exchanging brushes from the multicolored palette sitting beside the easel. The canvas had been empty when he started.

Surrounding him was a cloud of mosquitos...like insects do around porch lights at dusk. Remarkably, despite dozens landing on his bare skin, he was never bitten — something in the chemistry of his sweat sent them away empty-handed.

As I watched him work, it seemed the 16 x 20-inch canvas was coming to life with amazing speed. There was an otherworldly aura to him as he worked. I knew he had been there most of the day. I arrived during the last hour of his work. 

When he was done, my curiosity was piqued. “How long did it take to do this painting?” He was startled, as if it was the first time he noticed I was standing there.

He took a beat as he wiped the sweat from his forehead and turned to clean his brushes. “Thirty-five years.”

Both men — one with a camera, one with a paintbrush — were in a world they had cultivated year after year.

Back to the desert.

Lou Waters was a news photographer and newsman for decades in his career. He sat at the news anchor desk at CNN for over twenty-two years, as he would say, “When news anchors reported the news, not their opinions.” He was a founding member of that first twenty-four-hour news service.

He told me, the television news industry at the time ridiculed CNN, the Ted Turner operation, until they saw that it worked…then, other networks jumped on the bandwagon as though it had been their idea in the first place.

As a news photographer in his career, he told me, “In my business, you couldn’t wait for the right shot. You see it. You take it, or it’s gone.”

He had refined his ‘eye’ from thousands and thousands of pictures. It wasn’t just instinct…It was instinct practiced in war, in peace, in flowers, in trees, in clouds, and mountains. 

He told me the desert was his church, its mountains his altars, the sunrise and sunsets, the sacraments through which he saw the motion of life. This “…I just know…” fellow captures moments that most people never see.

He shot the cover for my latest blog book: life never rests – it just keeps moving. I was with him when he took that photo. It didn’t look special to me. You know, just a desert trail. While maybe not able to articulate it, he knew better. It wasn’t just a desert trail — it was a story.

I’m pretty sure that if I ask him how long it takes him to frame and shoot his pictures, he might say in his humble way, “Oh, seventy-eight years.”

Yeah…the same way you get to Carnegie Hall — practice, practice, practice. 

- ted