My GIANT Pilgrimage Part I

My GIANT Pilgrimage Part I

At summer’s end six decades ago an enormous cast and crew rolled into tiny Marfa, Texas to film Giant.  Still the life-defining moment in Marfa’s history, the movie is eclipsed  by today’s world view of Marfa with its hipster Austin visitors and wealthy Houston patrons. Unaware in 1955 of Hollywood’s  invasion of West Texas, I lived 200 miles east of Marfa. My mother was a teacher and my father worked for the utility company—a not uncommon family trope for the times. Impulsive and frivolous were not how I’d describe my mother. Fun, yes, but I never imagined Movie Tone and…

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Not Positive about Negatives

Do you have negatives? And I don’t mean your personality. Does a closet or drawer in your house hide slides and faded photographs? Camcorder Tapes? I know you have VHS tapes. Film and negatives have gone the way of the typewriter, but we are as fixated as ever with taking pictures. Digital images are everything and everywhere. Easy to shoot, today’s photos pop with vibrancy unparalleled in photographic history. In a second, we can shoot a picture, edit, enhance, add special effects and share with a hundred friends. I am thankful technology has rendered film and negatives obsolete, but what…

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