My favorite assignment in my classes over 37 years teaching at university level is one I call “Strangers.” Students have to actually introduce themselves to strangers and convince them to cooperate for a picture. The practice of face-to-face conversation is getting to be a lost skill with smartphones taking over our lives. I remember going to lunch with three students and while we were waiting to order, all of us were doing something with our phones. I said, “Stop. Didn’t we come to lunch to talk?”

The Strangers assignment is meant to help people connect with people they would like to photograph. 

When I was an undergraduate student at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, I saw a man about 50 yards away walking across campus. Immediately an image of Santa Claus came to my mind. I yelled and ran up to the man who turned out to be Eoin O’Mahony.

I introduced myself and made arrangements to photograph him at work in the SIU library. We were in a study room with no other occupants. But a librarian saw me and said I would have to leave the library. I could not practice my major of Cinema and Photography in a university library. It was forbidden. O’Mahony immediate took me to his apartment so that I could make his picture.

We became good friends and we corresponded until his death. He was an Irish Catholic whose philosophy of life was having a good time with his friends. My camera gave me courage to stop him and introduce myself. I made a good picture and a good friend.

I was driving home from class when I saw a postal worker taking a lunch break. I stopped, grabbed my camera and introduced myself. I dropped a print by the Carbondale Post Office. I soon learned the picture was a full-page in a postal union plea for better wages. It had been blown up to poster size as well. I had not put my copyright on the print and was angry at myself for not doing so. The man, Jim Montgomery, brought the publications by my house to give them to me and he met my dad. They soon learned they both had horses and struct up a friendship. They went on many horse rides together. I am glad I didn’t mention the copyright issue. Lasting friendships are more important than a few dollars.

Photographers call this type of photograph an “environmental portrait.” Such portraits depict people in the natural environments, in this case a mail delivery route.