With my Grandfather — James Francis Fitzgerald

Today is my grandfather’s 87th birthday, and it’s also the first since 1926 that he won’t be here for, and the world is much worse off for it.

My grandfather’s name was James Francis Fitzgerald (or gramps to me) and he was an amazing man.

So in honor of gramps’ birthday, I’m going to do something I don’t normally do and share a few family photos here. Growing up, I never paid any of these pictures much attention, but now that he’s gone and I’ve become a photographer, they’ve become precious to me. I hope you don’t mind letting me tell you a little about him.

My grandfather was born March 27th, 1926 in Janesville, Wisconsin to a wholesale flour salesman named Michael Henry Fitzgerald and his wife Chloris. By his 5th birthday, the country was already in the midst of the Great Depression, but as Providence would have it, his grandfather (my great great grandpa Beiter) was a butcher in Iowa. So between the flour and the meat, they kept from starving. It was through my grandfather’s grandfather, though, that he got his first summer job at an Iowan rendering plant. For those of you who don’t know, a rendering plant is where they basically boil down dead animals and use their parts for soap or Jello or whatever. If you were a farmer, say, and found that one of your horses had dropped dead on the far end of your property, you’d haul it on down to the rendering plant and they’d take care of things. It was pretty gnarly. On his first day, gramps had to hack apart a several-day dead cow. That’s when he decided that he needed to do anything else in order to make a living.

Fast forward a few years, and gramps was off to college at Baldwin-Wallace University in Ohio. It was smack dab in the middle of World War II, so he’d also joined the Navy and was in the officer’s training corps. After a few years, the Navy sent him to Notre Dame in order to finish school. And by the time he had graduated, the war had ended.

After serving his time and moving back to Janesville, my grandpa got right to business by starting a heating oil company with his long-time friend Fred Weber. Soon after, they bought a service station at the edge of town and Fitzgerald and Weber Oil was born. Gramps was officially an oil man. He ended up partnering with Shell and by the late 50s, owned dozens of franchised service stations in Wisconsin and Illinois.

In 1950, gramps married Marylin Cullen (aka granny girl). Granny was nicknamed “The Flower of Rock County,” and she was a bona-fide babe. Her family was in the contracting business, and pretty soon the Cullens and the Fitzgeralds were in business together. By the end of the 50s, my grandpa had moved into a whole number of different fields. He and the Cullens built Janesville’s first strip mall, first super market, and first Holiday Inn. By the 60s, gramps found himself wrapped up in a brand new industry called “cable television.” And altogether, granny and gramps ended up having six kids: Aunt Marcia, Uncle Mike, Uncle B, my dad (James Jr.), Aunt Carolyn and Aunt Ellen.

In 1975, my grandpa pulled together a group of investors and bought the Milwaukee Bucks for a paltry $800,000. He owned the team for 10 years before selling them in 1985 for $18 million — a record at the time. He then took over the Golden State Warriors and owned them until 1995, when he then sold them for another record-breaking amount. I suppose this is what my grandpa’s most known for — being so involved in the NBA. As a little kid, it served to make gramps seem larger than life to me. He was always doing business with amazing people, or golfing with bigwigs (he counted more than one former President amongst his personal friends). But how he dealt with his success taught me two important lessons: first, even famous (and even perhaps important) men are still just only men. And secondly, the bigger you become, the more humble and grateful you should be. My grandfather had the means, but never spent money frivolously, and died in the same little house that he had raised his family in.

My grandfather loved doing business, but more importantly, he loved people. When I brush all of the history aside, I think that this is what stands out to me the most. He was always laughing — he had a big belly laugh (I can still hear it in my mind when I try hard — imagine a nice, friendly Jabba the Hutt). And he was always listening. He was genuinely interested in everybody and everything. He had a natural curiosity that complimented a honed sense of compassion — and that’s why he was so successful. He was your friend first, and your business partner second.

Moreover, he was an honest man. He epitomized everything good about the great American businessman. In a time when free market capitalism is almost a swear word, I think back on how my grandpa demonstrated to me over and over that good business is not a zero-sum game, but rather an exercise in mutual benefit. He worked hard to provide for his family, but he worked just as hard for those with whom he did business. He never took advantage of people in order to get ahead, and he respected everyone he dealt with. In short, they don’t often make them like gramps anymore.

So on this first March 27th that I won’t be able to call him up and say happy birthday, I’ll say a prayer to God instead — a prayer of thanks that I was blessed enough to have a man like James Francis Fitzgerald for a grandfather. I can’t wait to see him again.

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Before I go, just a note on a few of theses photos: The first is from the 1983 NBA playoffs when his Bucks defeated the Celtics in the semifinals. I think this is my favorite photo of gramps. It perfectly encapsulates to me how jovial he always seemed. He always had that smile on his face.

The last is a photo taken by the legendary photographer Yousuf Karsh. I think that this was gramp’s favorite photo of himself. He used it for decades. The photo immediately above it is gramps with Karsh. I’m jealous. ^_^

About 10 photos down from the top is a shot of gramps with his soapbox car. This is my second-favorite shot of him, but it’s just a great photo all by itself. I think the year is 1950 here. Immediately below it is my favorite picture of my grandma. It’s her freshman college photo. What a babe.

I debated heavily on whether or not to add any color photos to this post but eventually decided against it. I wasn’t able to get scans of some of the photos I wanted to include here either — especially shots from gramps’ time with the NBA. I’ll most likely add them at a later date. In the mean time, thanks for reading. ^_^

With Kinfolk — Ice Cream and Flowers

Today is a great day for two reasons. First, it’s my birthday. I’m now officially 29 years of age. Woo. Secondly, Kinfolk Vol. 7 has just been released and I had the honor of being able to shoot the cover for this one.

I think this is my favorite Kinfolk to date. And not just because I got to shoot the cover. This is officially the fourth issue of Kinfolk I’ve had the privilege of contributing to — a whole year’s worth of them, now. And each new issue brings with it greater and greater adventure. The juicing portraits for volume 4 are still some of my favorites ever. In volume 5, I was able to transform my garage into a herb cellar. For volume 6, I got to take photos from a helicopter, shoot in New York City, and road trip with my brother down the Oregon coast to visit a cranberry farm. For this volume, though, I was able to travel to New Hampshire, England and Italy. Shooting for issue eight has been even more epic (but I can’t talk about it yet)! And since there’s such a gap between the shoots and when they appear in Kinfolk (sometimes more than 6 months), each of these stories take on a very nostalgic tone by the time I see them in print. As I flip through the pages, I’m taken back to all of those trips that I’m finally able to really enjoy (who has time to properly take things in while working?). I feel incredibly blessed.

Now, Kinfolk Vol. 7 is all about Spring, and ice cream (also crabs). So I was once again able to partner up with Amy Merrick to combine those things together (minus the crabs). The result was ice cream flower arrangements. I must say that of all the things Amy and I have partnered on, this was probably my favorite. Simple and to the point. Different and kinda weird. Perfect. Please do check it out. The story looks a lot better in print. The whole issue, actually, is truly one of the finest yet from Kinfolk. It’s worth the dollar bills.

And now, if it’s alright, I’m off to eat some birthday dinner with my lady, my brother, and some of my favorite friends.

P.S. — Don’t eat hydrangeas with, on, or instead of ice cream. They look pretty but are mildly poisonous. You’ve been warned!

With Jarrod Renaud, Christmastime 2012

The year 2011 was winding down, it was close to Thanksgiving and I was home visiting family in Colorado. While there, I had an opportunity to get together and shoot some photos with a new friend of mine — a guy named Jarrod Renaud. Since then, Jarrod and I have become pretty close and this last Christmas, we had that same opportunity to meet up and take photos. I’ve really come to appreciate short, reoccurring sessions that allow me to kinda gauge my progress as a photographer. I consider shooting with Kara Caldwell something like that, and now hopefully I’ve begun the tradition with Jarrod.

So as the year 2013 begins to gear up, I figure it’s a good time to share just a few of my favorites from only a few weeks back. And, if I didn’t post these now I’d be running the risk of Spring showing up, and once that happens, snowy photos will totally feel out of place. So, ya know, there’s that too.

For those interested: all photos taken with various Contax cameras using Kodak Portra 160 and Tri-X 400.

Oh, and yeah! I just totally updated my portfolio. Almost completely restocked it with imagery from 2012 like some sort of visual fish pond. Maybe you’d like to see?

With HUGE Magazine (Japan) – Go! Bookstore!

When I was a young boy, my parents would take my brother and I out every Friday for “family night.” We’d do all sorts of things for family night, but most often it consisted of a trip to Stadium Pizza followed up by a stint at the video game arcade to the tune of $5 each (20 quarters!). One evening, though, while we were going through our tokens, a gang fight broke out in front of the arcade. I don’t remember seeing much except a few puddles of blood and police lights — my parents snatched us up real quick and we were outta there. The next Friday, my dad came home with an NES. Soon thereafter, I learned that Super Mario and Legend of Zelda and Megaman all came from Japan and that was the beginning of what has become a deep life-long fondness.

The reason I tell all of this is to illustrate just how big an event it was for me to get an email from Ms. Sawako Akune asking if I’d be willing to shoot a story about bookstores for a special Christmas Eve edition of HUGE Magazine out of Tokyo. I must admit, I hadn’t heard of the magazine beforehand, but a quick interwebs search both intimidated and made me excited. The magazine is very well put together and has a pretty impressive distribution (unfortunately almost exclusively in Japan). In any event, a few emails back and forth and things were a go. HUGE was sending Sawako to Portland, and we were supposed to travel around the city to different bookstores and photograph and interview the owners. The little catch was that we were going to be doing most of this on Black Friday. Fun!

Early on Thanksgiving, I met up with Sawako and her friend Hitomi at the Ace Hotel (where else?) to go over the schedule. In order to try and stay ahead of the shopping rush — most specifically at Powell’s, we decided to get an early start. It was a particularly dark and rainy day, but thankfully most of our stops were within a few blocks of each other. I struggle when having to shoot with incandescent light, and I don’t have a proper filter kit to balance the film for tungsten, so things were a bit challenging. It was one of those days when I silently wished that I was shooting digitally so that I could just fix my white balance with a few clicks. Still, we made it work (and in the end I’m glad I stuck with film).

Day two was just about as nice a day as you could hope for in Portland in the Fall. The sun was out (sorta) and it was dry and the light was just about perfect. We wrapped with our last stop (Monograph Bookwerks) as the sun was going down and had dinner that night with friends and breakfast the next morning before Sawako had to leave for the airport. It was a fast-paced weekend to say the least.

Several days later, after I’d had a chance to go over all of the film, I decided I needed to head back out and do a little reshooting with a controllable human element. Note to self: bringing along a subject or two for something like this makes life so much easier. Luckily, my good friend Daniel Dixon was more than willing to oblige. We hopped around between my favorite three locations and ended at Powell’s. Thusly, we were able to grab the image HUGE chose for the cover and Dan is officially big in Japan. Bam.

HUGE is almost entirely written in Japanese (but with amazing English embellishments and headlines, as you can see), and the only place I know were to pick up a copy outside of Japan is Amazon. Even if you can’t read the language, the magazine is great to flip though. Please do pick up a copy — if only because you love me so much. And I know I say this about everything, but it truly was an honor to be asked to shoot for HUGE, let alone win the cover. I hope very much to be able to work with them again in the future. It’s a mini-dream come true to be published for something in Japan. My most sincere thanks go to Sawako-san, Hitomi, and Mr. Satoshi Taguchi!

As for notes: words by Sawako Akune. Coordination by Hitomi Thompson. My most special thanks to Daniel Dixon. All photos were shot with a Contax 645, Zeiss Ikon ZM, or Contax G2 using Kodak Portra 160 and 400. The end.

With Kinfolk – Winter Flowers

In my mind, every January opens a loop that we all move down and around, growing as the months unfold and the events of the year play out until it is closed in December, when everything gives way back to January and things begin anew. Thus, I see this as the season of finished circles and of endings and reflection. And in the spirit of reflection, I cannot think of photos more fitting to share than those which were shot all the way back in January.

In many ways, these photos set the tone for what the rest of my year would look like — quiet, composed portraits, improvised backdrops and a newly-formed appreciation for flowers. And, as the year has worn on and I’ve able to work with amazing people in awesome places, many of these photos have remained among my favorites. Even though I’ve partnered with Amy Merrick on numerous occasions, these stand apart from the rest to me as they were the result of our first cooperation. Perhaps that’s why I’ve thought them particularly orphaned as they’ve lain dormant for most of the year. We knew we wanted to submit them for publication somewhere, but weren’t sure what would be appropriate. Time got away from us, we shot other things (you may recall this story), and we found ourselves out of season for flowers. In the end, though, as with so much of my work this year, a number of these shots finally found a home in Kinfolk Magazine — and as the year began, so it ends.

So, with Christmas a mere 6 days away, and the year drawing to a close, the time is fast approaching where we all must (Mayans willing) begin another lap around the calendar. As I wind down the rest of 2012 with family, I reflect upon the year and all of the growth and friend-making and change it has brought with it. I hope that yours has been just as fulfilling. And as we look to begin 2013, I wish the utmost blessings upon each and every one of you, and of course, to all the most Merriest of Christmases!

Now lastly, some notes: flowers and styling were executed impeccably by Amy Merrick. Francesca Zmetra and Amy’s sister Micha were both kind enough to act as subjects. All photos were shot with either a Zeiss Ikon or Contax 645 using Kodak Portra 160. And please do check out the full story in Kinfolk Vol. 6! That’s all!

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