........ McLaughlin I do not know her first name, but she had an artist's eye-- I can see it in the clever angle, the way she framed her son. Here he is kneeling beside a truck in hard brown shoes and short-alls, grinning up at her. She chose to disappear behind the camera. she thought she wasn't pretty. I don't know if she was. She chose not to let me decide. Yet i can't help but see her more clearly than if she appeared on film, waiting for that perfect shot, seeing all through another eye, posing my grandfather, asking him Could you do that again? He smiles out of his first darkroom, holding a pan of photo fix, curly-haired, square-jawed. I would not recognize the man who sat dwindling by the fire if i ddi not see that boy's face in the faces of my brothers. This is the man who gave me my camera Nikon FG. Today, early autumn, a bright day calling for high shutter speed, I hold the viewfinder to my eye, stare down the long tunnel of the lense to where my son is swinging. I kneel for a high angle and capture him above me, laughing. Background: clouds, sky.