‘A friend of ours.’
When I speak to journalism students, they always ask about the process of photographing victims of violent storms or natural disasters. The perception, I guess, is that news photographers and storm victims have an adversarial relationship. I’ve worked at newspapers through 13 Oklahoma storm seasons and only once have I encountered someone who preferred not to be photographed and was not shy about letting me know it.
Last week, when neighborhoods in Little Axe, Oklahoma, were destroyed by storms, I was sent at dawn the next day to get pictures of the damage. After a few conversations and laps around the town, I saw resident Keith Bolles waiting at a blocked intersection on the east side of town. I pulled into the grass and approached he and his son. From the first handshake and introduction, I could tell that the Bolles family, while dealing with a huge loss, were nice people who were not only willing to talk, but eager to.
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