Pictures and Words, Pragmatism and Discipline

Okay – now to the heart of the matter: Johnstown Industry.  My original plan had been to do a comparative study of the industrial sites, contrasting the past with the present.  I had been to dinner with my parents one evening at a restaurant overlooking the city (Asiago’s Tuscan Italian) from the Johnstown Inclined Plane.  We were talking about the mills in the valley, along with some of the industrial history coursework from my doctoral program, and I mentioned always being impressed with the vastness of the Franklin site.  My parents noted right away that most of it was gone – reduced to scrap, rust, and overgrown lots.  We went to look at it and I felt like something important had been scooped out of me.

That sense of loss, coupled with the coursework, my own disposition of being a history enthusiast, recognizing that I wanted to do some lasting work involving my hometown, all combined to motivate me.  However, as one might expect, Arcadia Publishing has a very specific process to follow in the Images of America series, which is the way that book was brought to the public; my dream project was more along the lines of a coffee table book.

Well – constraints can bestow creativity.  That, along with an editor who understood what I wanted to do and was able to figure out ways where we could reach the goals of the book and my own creative ones.  Instead of using solely archival photographs, we were able to include a number of modern photos that I had taken during that summer.  Of course, I had hundreds, if not thousands, of photos to choose from, so winnowing that down was a considerable task.

That said, however, momentum begets momentum and I realized, at some point, that I was splitting hairs by looking at five different permutations of the same building or site. The reader was going to be leafing through the pages in order to get an idea of what the place was about, and if they wanted a deeper understanding, they could do that.  I didn’t need to chase down every rabbit hole; this is a critical realization.

In hindsight, that realization seems quite elementary: be pragmatic.

“One should suffer for one’s art.”  That may be true, and certainly in my case, there has been some degree of suffering, particularly if one considers a body of work in its entirety rather than a single book.  I’m old enough now to appreciate not suffering.

The momentum is important, though, as it is fueled by both discipline and that pragmatism.  Figure out the pictures well enough, write it clearly enough, and get the project done, for finishing something is as important as beginning it.