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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
August 23, 2009
Published as Family History
in a Gramma Letter dated August 19, 1997.
© 1997 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Fallen Tree(s), 2008 & 1972
© 2008 & 1972 by Bud Grossmann
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BARKING UP THE WONG TREE
Tuesday, August 19, 1997
Dear Gramma,
Lighting, focus, composition—each time I squeeze the shutter release, I hope to make a masterpiece. Some people are not such picky picture-takers—and that’s perfectly fine with me. My wife’s sister, Katherine, for example, clicks away with merry abandon and seems content with any print in which the subject has not blinked.
One time—and one time only—Kat commissioned me to create a work of art. Her chosen subject was a tree. This was years ago, here in Hawaii, after a miserable winter night of wind and rain. The following morning all was calm, and sunlight pierced the clouds.
Kat called me on the phone. After making sure my family had weathered the storm all right, she said she wanted to ask a favor. She would like me to take a certain picture without delay. In a park near Kat’s home, the wind had toppled a big, beautiful monkeypod—a wide-branched but shallow-rooted tree. Kat asked me to document the tragedy in photographs. City crews with chain saws would be arriving soon, she was sure.
Kat described the shattered limbs and the indecorous display of the dirty underside of the once-majestic tree. “Bring your camera, and hurry!” the sweet woman firmly ordered.
“Can’t do it,” I said. “Sorry, but I’m here alone with the kid”—David was a brand-new baby then—“and, besides, Kat, I’m fresh out of Kodachrome.”
“I’ll watch David, and you can use my camera,” she said.
“Nope. No way. Sorry. Shoot the shot yourself. Bye, now.”
Twenty minutes later, though, the lady was at my door. Persistence is Katherine Wong’s middle name. She looped her camera strap around my neck and took my baby from my arms. “Bud,” she said, “you’re a photographer. Go and take the picture.”
“Kat, Kat! What is going on here? In the ten years you’ve known me, you’ve seen thousands of my pictures. Have you ever once had a single word of praise for my artistic skill? Shoot the shot yourself. You’ll do fine.”
“I like your pictures!” she said. “You’re a good photographer!”
I was not convinced. I was puzzled. “Katherine, just what do you think I’m going to do with this tipped-over tree today?”
She crossed the room and pointed to a matted-and-framed eight-by-ten. I had snapped a photo near an erupting volcano—it shows a scorched ohia tree, felled by flowing lava. Leafless, barkless branches reach like pleading fingers toward bright billowing clouds beyond a barren, black landscape. The photo is a prize-winner—it has appeared in exhibitions, and it hangs in private collections. People meeting me for the first time sometimes say, “Oh, I recognize your name! I’ve seen your tree!” Like many great pictures, this one represents about 25% skill and 75% plain good luck.
Kat tapped a fingernail against the glass over my ohia. “This is it,” she said. “Take a picture like this one!”
Well, Granny, I tried. I left my baby with his auntie, and I went off to pursue my assignment. I took a tripod and all my talent, but the tree, I regret to say, chose not to pose. The shadows were wrong. I couldn’t get far enough away. Power lines intruded into the scene. Still, I did the best I could and gave Kat back her camera.
When the prints were made, I saw the photographs had no soul. Anyone could have snapped those shots of a tree deprived of dignity.
“So,” I asked my sister-in-law, “are these the pictures that you expected?”
“Yeah, they’re good,” she shrugged. “I really wonder, Bud, why you made me work so hard to get them.”
Gramma, that was many years and many trees ago. I’m not sure I am any quicker today to accept a tough assignment.
Love,
Buddy
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