It’s the height of trout season and many roadside pull-overs along state highways are filled with jumbo pickup trucks, the favored vehicle of local fishermen. I spot an angler now by the river’s edge all suited up in a fishing jacket with a willow tree pattern, better to blend in with the river side flora. This gentleman is a bit annoyed when I ask for a picture and he’s not keen on the idea of a book about West Virginia either.
“Too many people out here already,” he grumbles.
I take four photos then leave him in peace. Across the highway, a man and a young girl are sitting on their porch. I load a roll of film just in case and head their way.
Danny and his daughter Evangeline prove to be the antithesis of my previous subject. The two are relaxing at their camp, a single-wide trailer perched above Route 55 and the Potomac River, Southern Branch. The two sit on folding chairs around a card table and are well into a game of Fours. Evangeline screws up her mouth pondering her next move. Her Dad agrees to pictures; they chat amicably as I make shots.
After hearing of my origins in the Adirondacks of Upstate New York, Danny says,
“You’d love Dolly Sods, just down the road from here. Full of big evergreen trees. Mid-summer you can find the best elderberries and blueberries. Been there?”
Meanwhile, a brown and black hunting dog is straining at his tether in the yard, aching to be part of the company.
“”What’s his name?” I ask.
Bud is thrilled when I arrange he and Evangeline for a photo or two. He licks and jumps—he can hardly contain his excitement. But then Evangeline has had enough of Bud’s wet kisses and returns to the porch.
“Hmm…I wish…I’d like to see…” she breaks off.
It’s the old problem again. What is film? Why isn’t the picture we just took appearing on the camera back. I hold up a roll of unexposed film for Evangeline to see. At 9 years old, she’s getting a quick lesson in analog versus digital photography. She is not the first young person I’ve met who is a complete stranger to the world of film cameras.
I promise I will return with photographs not tomorrow but sometime soon. We chat as trucks and cars whiz by, some words lost to the varoom and whine of speeding vehicles on the road below.