remembering Lon

This is a film noir-inspired triptych I did for a final project I had in a digital imaging class taught by Lon Ferguson, one of my favorite professors ever. He recently died and I went to a celebration of life event for him at the school gallery Tuesday night.

Lon taught the first photo class I ever took, as a scared, confused, frustrated CMU freshman - three years ago. He made us learn exposures the hard way - with straight hard math on tests and the pain of long hours in the darkroom pulling our hair out to find what number of filter to fix a horribly flat print. He always had a terrible joke on hand and an ear to listen to whatever mildly trite art idea we had or technical issue we struggled with. He graded hard and made us laugh. I continued to take classes with him because he pushed us to be better, and I knew I'd learn the technical things I needed to.

I owe any technical understanding of exposures to him, and even more any understanding of Photoshop. I'll never forget how encouraging he was every time I beat myself up for falling short of my lofty artistic expectations. Thanks for everything, Lon.