I went to grad school to not only fill in the gaps of my self-taught photo education but also to get that piece of paper that would open the door to teaching at the university level. My photo education in grad school continued to be self-taught, but at least I got a piece of paper out of it. Teaching itself was also self-taught. I modeled myself after the best teachers I ever had and tried not to make the mistakes of the worst I had ever had. Coming right out of grad school I applied for several positions and even got a couple of offers. A tenure track position at Salisbury State on the eastern shore of Maryland was one. But I just wasn’t ready to commit to teaching full time. I also wanted to move to Seattle and see what life was like on the west coast. My plan was to teach part time, do assignment work and do my personal work. I found a part time teaching position at Seattle University, found assignment work and even found a gallery to carry my art works within the first six weeks of arriving in Seattle. The thinking was I would eventually find a full-time teaching job and bring my experiences to the classroom. But it was difficult trying to juggle all three. Teaching didn’t pay much, my personal work paid even less, and maintaining a photography business was demanding. After ten years in Seattle I decided to pursue a full-time teaching gig. I was teaching at the University of Washington at the time and they had an opening for a ten track position. I knew I wouldn’t get the job, I was told they were looking for a woman, but I was hoping for at least to get an interview. My application never made it past the secretary. I realized at that point I was just too old, too white and too male to find a job in academia at that time. So, I just quit teaching altogether. It wasn’t until 2007 that I was approached by the director of the school of art at UW to go to Rome and teach with him a class about design and photography in Rome. Sounded like fun. I was more visiting artist than anything. I could just teach. No grading, no disciplining, no nothing but teaching. I am good at lecturing, if you want to call it that. I just love talking about photography. Its history, its technology, the process, all of it. I do kind of suck at critiquing. But I can get through it. Plus, the Rome students were advanced and hand-picked and pretty much ready to rock and roll. My previous classes were all 101 stuff. Also, the Rome classes were all digital. So no messy darkroom stuff. And most of the kids were more digitally astute than me. Much of my teaching was about developing good habits, good workflow and a heavy dose of ethics. Making good images in Rome is like shooting fish in a barrel. What started as a one-year thing turned into five years. By then I knew I was done, it had become repetitive, and it wasn’t fair to leave Carter home alone with the dog for a month. But I enjoyed it and got a lot out of it and have a wealth of images to show for my time there. I don’t think I could teach again these days. I really don’t know what photo education is about anymore. When I look at what UW is doing, the faculty and students, I don’t recognize their work as photography. I guess it is visual research of some kind. Maybe it’s “Art”. And maybe I am out of touch. It is a good thing I didn’t get that teaching gig all those years ago. I would have washed out.
