Opa and Ben

Here's my favorite photo of my my late father and Ben. I took it in February 1992, when Ben was not quite six years old.

What prompted me to get this one out and scan it is that Ben finished his very last day of school this past Thursday (classes, at least - finals are this week.) I asked him to have someone take his photo on campus so that I could pair it with the one Sandy took of him on his first day of kindergarten. While I was looking for that picture, I found this one just a few pages later in Sandy's well-organized photo album.

Back in '92, I had considered myself no longer a photographer, but simply a family snapshooter. I used a succession of auto-focus rangefinders that I bought for Sandy, my "good cameras" having been long before sold off.

But every once in a while, the photographer in me would come out, and this was one of those times. I had visualized this photo earlier in the day, knowing that Grandma and Opa were coming to visit. I got out my dusty, little-used Nikon EM and had Dad and Ben pose for just a few seconds.

I'll take some of the credit for this photo but not by any means all of it - the lion's share is thanks to the loving bond between Dad and his grandson.