eulogy for barry

i would like to eulogize my friend barry fitzgerald who died recently at the age of 63.

barry was the head of the photography department at the local paper where i grew up. i worked there during my high school years after school, on saturdays and summers mixing chemicals, developing film, printing pictures for publication and occasionally going out on assignment.

he was a kind teacher to me: mild-mannered, extremely patient, humorous and very talented. it was so long ago. i was just 16, earning $1.65 an hour at my first job in the world and he was all of 29 but a mentor nevertheless. working silently in the darkroom by feel and intuition as well as learning to wait patiently for the perfectly composed moment in my camera's viewfinder before releasing the shutter were two fundamental practices i undertook. they now feel like precursors to the zen meditation i was to embark upon a decade later.

barry won numerous awards for his work. before leaving to attend college i asked him and the other staff photographer to pose for me with their cameras. i requested that they choose their favorite lens and attach it to their respective camera bodies. barry let his camera hang lensless and struck a memorable pose. i didn't get it then but i now understand his choice. he didn't have strong preferences. he was easygoing and manifested a great deal of equanimity.

his photograph of a white horse in the midst of a darkened landscape hanging in my apartment is a reminder to me that within the dark there is light. i try to remember that when i feel out of sorts--to pause, compose and release my own shutter--my breath, and capture that moment which goes beyond picking and choosing.

good-bye barry and thank you...