Addendum:These photos are dedicated to Dr. Sydney Radinovsky: entomologist, folk-dancer, photographer, and biology professor extraordinaire… I’m a geek, so naturally my college Spring Breaks were not spent on some southern beach; one was spent on one of Dr. Radinovsky’s traditional road trips from Lancaster County, PA to Big Bend National Park, TX, along with another biology professor and a dozen other fellow science majors.
Back at school again, a few of us were hanging around one of the bio labs one day, perusing photos from our trip. I had a few that I thought were passable enough to share with the man who offered a crash-course in photography (25 days, 25 projects) during the summer. (Which alas, I never took, having at the time absolutely no experience with 35mm SLR’s. Still don’t, really.) After giving my prints serious consideration—and staring aghast at my itty-bitty 110 negatives (remember those? My very first camera, a Christmas present when I was about ten, was a 110 point-and-shoot. By the time I went to college I had a pink plastic 110 that, if I remember correctly, came out of some lost-and-found box somewhere)—he told me, with a straight face, "You have the eye, but you need a better camera."
Dr. Radinovsky retired a few years after I graduated. We sent him off with a party and some fancy-schmancy, top-of-the-line camera equipment… Within a couple of years of embarking on new adventures, the healthy, clean-living, fun-loving, spry little leprechaun of a man who had so much more to do with his life, was dead of a heart attack. (No need to wonder why I’m as selfish as I am; Fate is an impartial, unfeeling, indifferent thing and so I hold on to the good things I have with both hands.)
Dr. Rad., I just wanted to let you know… I finally got a better camera.
