Imagine There's An Image

Rosh Hashana morning. A tentative knock on the bathroom door...

"Dad?" It was our daughter Leah, home for the holiday. "Did you call the police?"

Standing in my dress shirt, tie, socks, and gatkes, I wasn't really prepared for such a question. "Noooooooo...." was all I managed to get out of my mouth.

"Well they're at the door right now asking for Mr. or Mrs. Rosenbach!"

"Ah...!" Suddenly it was all clear to me. "Bridges."

On went my suit trousers and down the stairs went I. I opened the screen door and stepped out into the beautiful morning with a smile and a bright, "Good morning, officers!"

There were two of them, Anne Arundel County Police. A policeman, let's call him "Officer Hodges," stood on the porch, while a woman, "Officer Parker," remained a few feet back. Officer Hodges had a concerned look on his face.

"Mr. Rosenbach, were you in taking pictures of bridges on September 2nd?"

"I have taken pictures of bridges," I said proudly, "but not on September 2nd."

"No, I think I have the date wrong," he continued, "... in Baltimore?"

I volunteered that I was in Baltimore and did take some bridge photos the day before Labor Day - "... let's see, that would be the 5th," I said.

On that trip into Baltimore, I was stopped by a University of Baltimore policeman when I was snapping photos of a light rail overpass and the Charles Street Bridge. It turned out that what I thought was a blocked ramp to the Jones Falls Expressway was in fact private property, and I was trespassing. That policeman apparently filed a report, including my license plate number, and my county police were following up.

Of course, Officer Hodges asked why I was taking those bridge photos. Now any passionate photographer would have immediately know the answer to that question, but not in terms that a "civilian" would understand. So I said something golly-gee-whiz about the bridges being painted yellow and green and making nice patterns. Well, true enough, but of course it really didn't express my true motivation behind the photos.

What I wanted to say was something like this quotation from Sam Abell:

"... taking something mundane and seeing something transcendent in it is the high ground of photography."

But who, other than another photographer, or an artist, perhaps, would understand?