Eddie's Club, Missoula, Montana 1970

They say that eye witnesses to something aren't real reliable in terms of an accurate report of the event.  Even more so after 49 years since it took place.
So take that into account.

Two posts below this (for future archeologists) the moose lodge I referred as a bar really wasn't.  But it felt like one to me.  I've been in many like it, while living in Montana all those years ago.  It got me thinking and I realized that by walking into a bar in Montana in 1970,  it started and led everything to this very point in time for me.

It was by walking into a bar that the man behind the bar and the photos he took that ran down the wall changed everything.

Eddie's Club.  The man behind the bar was Lee Nye.  If you've been in an old bar in Montana, you would know it would be filled with regulars.  Old Timers.  Middle Timers becoming Old Timers.  And the young pups.
With names like Plato, Dutch, Honk, Yum Yum, Rock Creek Hermit.
Those would be the faces on the photographs on the wall of the bar.  Black and White.  Natural lighting that shafted down in the alley behind the club.

It was those faces, weathered from the winters, from the Bourbon Ditches, from their cigarettes, that turned me.   The eyes.  Someone can do this with a camera?  Make something so compelling to look at, with light and lens?

Lee would put down his Boston Shaker, pick up his camera and haul a regular out back to photograph them.  Always always with truth and compassion for the person.  Dignity.

As I remember Lee was a gruff one.  Had a big cigar in his mouth, missing a good portion of a finger.

Well, Lee offered photo classes and I signed up.  Borrowed a 35mm camera.

He taught an incident light system of exposure determination and the film development schedule.
It was the system taught to him from a commercial photography school he attended in California.

We went on a field trip up Highway 200 to a ranch right out of a Hollywood backlot, complete with snow capped Mountains rising up the fields.  Lee drove his car, a 55 Chevy (don't fact check on this one) with straight pipes and a white Hurst gear shift knob.  Cigar smoke getting ripped out his open window.

Lee liked one of my photos.

Maybe that was the moment that led me here?

The idea of doing what I do now was planted there.  Missoula 1970.

He, of course, had no idea of his influence on me. I decided to go to the same school he did in California.  I was retaught the same incident light metering system.  Learned the view camera, and lighting and problem solving that is (was) commercial photography from there.
Been doing it since.  Wouldn't had it any other way.
Today I used the same tripod I had in school, a model 1500 from Majestic out of Chicago.  Goes up 8feet.

So Thank You Lee.  It's a beautiful thing when something gets paid forward without any knowledge or agenda.

Addendum December 27, 02019.  Lee's widow contacted me to tell me he rarely smoked cigars because she was very allergic to them.  He did roll his own smokes though using Velvet tobacco.