My Photographic Adventures with Norman Rockwell and Charles Brewkowski

Almost exactly seven years ago today, I took my car one early Monday morning into the Les Schwab Tire Center in Poulsbo, Washington. While waiting for my new set of steel-belteds, I wandered a couple of blocks down Viking Way into the Junction Diner, a hole-in-the-wall breakfast joint that looks for all the world like a time-travel portal to 1970.

In other words, my kind of place.

I snagged the one remaining seat at the counter, ordered my bacon and eggs and coffee, and subtly studied my fellow diners over the din of knives and forks clattering on plates. It was a tableau of the American working class, a buffet spread of burly forearms and blossoming tattoos and bushy beards, and I found myself thinking: I wish I could photograph them.

I knew I couldn’t.

But neither could I move off that thought.

And before I had formed any intent, I found myself switching on my iPhone camera. And lowering the phone to my belly. And looking away, so fake-casually that I fully expected to be spotted, to be told to beat it, breakfast be damned. I would have completely deserved it.

But I was in luck: everybody not drinking coffee or shoveling a forkful of hash browns into their gobs was as intent on their phones as I was on mine.

So I fumbled with my thumb, hit what I hoped was the right button, and snapped off six or seven shots.

Then gave them a look.

Crap. All crap.

Wait.

I thumb back a few images.

Not crap.

Holy crap.

The best photo I’ve ever made. And I will say, the best photo I’ve ever taken, because I definitely stole this image.

And that may not be saying much, but. I was the photo editor of my college newspaper, and during my years a s a reporter for small daily and weekly papers, I probably had at least 500 photos published. I don’t know that I have any gtreat talent, and I didn’t learn much formally about photography beyond a rudimentary understanding of apertures, film and shutter speeds, and the rule of thirds, but in the last fifteen years ago I’ve developed my own photographic voice. A sort of playful, inverted approach to film noir blended with a journeyman journalist’s fly-on-the-wall documentarian style.

But Norman Rockwell? Not really my line. If anything, I’m more “Noirman Rockwell.” As evidenced by this image I made at a bar down Viking Way from the Junction Diner. Which I titled “Charles Brewkowski.”

And yet.

I quickly edited the diner photo, which mostly involved adding a light sepia filter to subtly play up its Rockwellitude, and posted it.

Here are some of my favorite responses to it:

— “I see more the longer I look.”

— “I can actually hear this photo.”

— “So Americana, this.”

Also, two people asked me for permission to use my photo so they could reproduce it as a painting. That may be the highest praise of all.

And one discordant note:

— “Invasive.”

Yes, he says a tad sheepishly. Yes, it is. But well-behaved photographers rarely make history, in my observation and experience. I’ll plead out and do my time.

I shared this image on Threads and got more than 2,200 likes, which is about 2,187 more than I usually get for a Threads post.

*****

I know I’m tooting my own horn here, but the universal point I hope I’ve already made with you is this: Sometimes you just bump into your moment, and the moment teaches you something about what each of us all have inside if we dig deep enough. Your job is to recognize the moment whrn it comes and make the most of it — be it a photo, a painting, a song, a short story, a novel, or just a peaceful easy feeling you can carry around in your pocket a good long while. Here’s hoping you have a similarly happy accident. Which begins by looking for places to have happy accidents, I believe.