Reuniting With the Past.....30 Years Later

I was surfing about Facebook today, when I came across an image by Detroit photographer Don Hudson, a photographer-friend of mine who I've known for only a short period of time. There was one particular photograph from his "archives series" that caught my eye. An attractive young lady is seen firmly gripping the base of a scaffold tower with her eyes softly closed, in what appears to be a trance-like meditation. The background implies it was taken at some large public gathering in Detroit. The photograph was titled "Detroit, Michigan 1982". This peaked my interest because from 1979 to 1984 I worked as a stagehand for Brass Ring Productions and set up dozens of similar scaffold towers for concert venues and just about any other public event you can think of. This was an amazing job that not only allowed me to see hundreds of concerts for free, but it also had the added advantage of paying for a good deal of my art education.

Looking at the photograph I had this strong feeling that somehow I was a part of this event, but because my memory is shit, I figured my imagination was getting the better of me. I opened the picture and noticed to the right of the dreamy looking blond was a shirtless young man tucked away in the right hand side of the photograph. He's glaring directly into the eye of the camera as if he's pissed at the photographer for pointing his camera at him. A beautiful image I thought, and then it hit me, the shirtless guy in the picture was me, and now 30 years later I'm seeing it for the very first time. Even stranger, is my older brother appears in the background, pointing his camera back at the photographer. What an odd sequence of events...A friend I hadn't met yet, photographing another photographer he hadn't met yet, then discovering it way after the fact!!!

I was so mesmerized by the opportunity to work with the musicians I idolized as a kid, it never dawned on me to take pictures of all the personal experiences I was having as a stagehand.  My older brother was also a stagehand, and despite our shared interest in photography, I've never seen a single picture of myself from this remarkably fun period in my life. What I'm now left with are thousands of band pictures and backstage passes, that seem like trivial mementos compared to the undocumented memories of my youth.

There were tragic losses too, as many of the people I worked with back then died way before their time. These were losses that profoundly impacted my life and still weigh heavily on my heart when I look back on what might of been. Ross Marino, Wilson Weir, "Smeng", and my older brother Walter, are all gone now; none of them having ever reached their thirtieth birthday.

Looking at Don's picture thirty years later, I see a young kid with no idea what lies ahead, but feel fortunate enough to finally have some record of a memorable period in my youth.

 I can only wonder what the dreamy blond is thinking about?

©Don Hudson 1982