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Broadcasting was my vocation for several decades.  It started way back in 1956 in Waupun, WI when I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but my only contact with radio back then was on Sunday mornings when I did the audio engineering for Pella Lutheran Church for an hour riding levels on the churches broadcast on WBEV radio station in Beaver Dam, WI.  The next job had to wait for me to spend a few years in the US Navy, and brief stints with IBM, Xerox, Alpha Photo in Oakland, CA and Chalet Sales and Service in Waupun.  It was as an announcer on WCWC, Ripon.  But that is not what I want to talk about now.  At about the same time that I decided to follow a career in broadcasting I also developed a love for photography.  Photography has been my constant friend ever since.

One of the reasons for this strange love is really hard for me to understand and even harder for me to explain.  Let me try by showing you a picture that I took about a month ago.  It is a simple photo that represents three distinct points of view, that of a hungry seagull, and equally hungry pelican, and a very frightened fish.  Of the three subjects in the photo, only one will be around to see the sunrise the next day.

It is at first glance a pretty simple photo.  A pelican has grabbed a fish for its lunch.  A seagull has spotted the same fish and tries to steal it from the pelican, and the fish, well, the fish has pretty much lost any chance of survival from the first chomp at the bill of the pelican and no matter which of the two birds ultimately wins, his future is very limited.

There is a lot going on here, a lot more than first meets the eye.  The gull pretty much has sealed its own doom because either its mother never warned him of the pelicans razor sharp bill... too bad!  It is information that moments before the picture was taken could have made a difference to the gull, but by the time the picture was taken, it was too late.

Many years ago some ancient Chinaman said, "A picture is worth a thousand words".  He must have had a picture like this in his mind when he said that.  I cannot describe the emotions being displayed in this snapshot using all of those 1000 words, and wouldn't even try.  That is a limitation to the written word.  It is a limitation to even "the theatre of the mind, radio" but a simple little snapshot is capable of capturing it all and holding it forever for anyone that takes the time to look at it, experience this struggle for life from three distinct viewpoints.

Over the years I have taken thousands of photos, not all of them are as dramatic as this one, but each one does tell a story in a way that words alone cannot.

lee