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In my many years of publishing photographs, I have seldom entered my work in contests or offered photos for inclusion in anything but one-man shows. In 1972, however, when I was twenty-three years old and living in Honolulu, the Photographic Society of America announced a juried competition for a First Youth Showcase. Accepted photographs would be exhibited at the society’s annual convention at the Commodore Hotel in New York City. I don’t recall the criteria for submissions, I don’t recall the age limit for “youths,” I don’t recall whether a fee was charged for entering, but I doubt it. I am sure membership in PSA was not required. I am not a joiner.
I remember submitting three photos, but I can’t tell you what two of them were. One of the three was accepted, and I hesitate to tell you about that one because of its disturbing content, a racial slur emblazoned upon a wall on a street in Chinatown in San Francisco in 1969. I cannot tell you why I chose to submit that picture, but I do remember estimating it was the least likely of the three to impress a curator. Ha! Sometimes I like to be wrong.
I remember thinking that the photo’s sole virtue, its only distinction, was its content. I happened to recognize a scene that was worth preserving on film, but anyone could have gotten essentially the same shot. I did not expend any skill on lighting or composition. I didn’t deal with a moving target. Anyone could have pointed the camera, could have pressed the button.
My film was Tri-X 120, two-and-a-quarter square. I made the print myself, cropped the image as little as possible to fill a borderless eight-by-ten sheet of double-weight matte paper. I clumsily mounted the print on a Crescent board and submitted it to the PSA. Someone liked it, and so it went up on a wall in New York, came down again, and came back to me in Honolulu. I received only one word of commentary: “Accepted.” That’s a pretty wonderful word, but, as you may have discovered, I always wish for more.
I would like to know what the person who chose the photo saw in it.
I would like to know who wrote the four words, one word per line, that I have called “a racial slur.” Who and why?
I would like to know who the white boy was. We all got it coming, I think that’s true enough, but was there one particular white boy who inspired those four cold syllables? What did that one particular white boy do?
And is there anything you would like to know? Tell me about it.
If you want, click on the photo at the top of this story and you will see the front side of the matboard. That’s not the entire eight-by-ten, my scanner is only so big, but it’s the whole four words that went to New York and came back to me again.
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