The "Top Scholastic Art Winner 25 Years Ago" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Thursday, March 3, 1994 and there on page 5 of the "Teen Weekend" section was a large photograph of a young man holding a sheet of negatives toward the light while his teacher looks over his shoulder pointing out one particular negative that may be a good one to print.  The reason I know so much about what happened that day was because I was that teacher who was examining the sheet of negatives that his son was holding in front of him.  All my children shared my love of photography with me and every one of them won special awards in the National Scholastic Arts Competition during their high school careers.  I know...it looks fishy that they would all win awards and I'm their dad and teacher, but they really did it all on their own.  If anything, I was a bit tougher on them than on my other students I had in my photography classes.  

Lancaster newspaper photograph of Tad
examining negative with his dad pointing
out a few negs he should print.

The story in Lancaster Newspaper's "Teen Weekend" tells of Paul, whom we call him Tad since he was born in 1976, the Bi-Centennial Year, and we named him after Thaddeus Stevens who was a Lancastrian and member of Congress, deciding to take a photograph of a fish.  He went to the local store and purchased the fish which he took to the school studio where he colored its gills with a rainbow of inks, loaded his SLR camera, set up the lights, and shot a photo without the use of flash.  When he developed the photograph, the fish looked as if it was surrounded with liquid gold.  He liked it and entered in in the Scholastic contest.  The judges evidently liked it also since they gave the photograph a Gold Key, one of five Gold Keys he won in the competition which made him the most honored student in the competition.  His seven piece portfolio of photography was accepted for the national Scholastic Arts Awards show to be exhibited in New York which was another big honor.  Newspaper also said that it didn't hurt to have a darkroom at home as well as having his father as his teacher in Photograph class.  He told the reporter that to him "It's just like having any other teacher, except that I call him 'Dad'."  Tad has had other photographs that have also received  acclaim in the past.  He once took a photo at a football game and used too slow of a shutter speed, but the blurred black and white of the players in motion won a national award.  Another photograph of a cemetery statue of Mary holding Jesus was developed and printed with the print being reshot on litho film which brought out a stark contrast between blacks and whites.  That too won an award.  Tad explains that his mistakes do quite well.  Another Gold Key winner was a photograph he took at St. James Episcopal Churchyard and printed on matte paper and used oil tints to add his own color.  Another winner was taken on Polaroid film and before the emulsion dried within the print's surfaces he altered the image with wooden tools.  Another technique he learned in his photography class.  A final Gold Key winner had him using a slow shutter speed while at the Lancaster train station.  The photo shows people on the platform with streaks of light behind them from the passing train.  

Tad using a large format camera at Antonelli Institute.

Tad had more than his dad to help him with his photo- graphic skills, since both his older brother and sister won awards for their photos in the National Scholastic Arts Competition.  Tad eventually went to Antonelli Institute of Art and Photography in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania to study photography.  He worked for renowned photographer Jerry Driendl for a few years then changed careers and went into the printing trade...which he also took in high school...with his dad as his teacher.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.