He Was Looking Directly At Me
By Steve Orton

Some time ago, I decided to make some photographic copies of old family pictures that were lying around in one of many boxes of genealogy materials.  We all have these boxes, and chances are that yours, like mine, are in considerable disarray.  But still, they contain the images of treasured ancestors of yesteryear and are worthy of our care.  Many of the photographs in my boxes are over 100 years old, having been taken around the year 1900 when the art of photography was still young but available to most people.  They were taken by big, wooden cameras on glass negatives, and since the negatives have long since disappeared there is no ready way to reproduce the photographs.  By and large the prints are of good quality.  The images are sharp and clear even after 100 years, and the posing and lighting of the subjects is as good as photographs today--a credit to the photographers of old.  But the prints are delicate, and with no negative it is difficult to make the multiple copies necessary to feed a large family genealogy organization.

Nevertheless, where there is a will, there is a way.  So on a certain day--long before the day of digital imaging and scanning technology--I undertook to reproduce them by taking a picture of a picture on film.  I felt I was adequately equipped with the technology that was at hand.  I had a high-end 35mm camera with a close-up lens.  My technique was to delicately pin each photograph to a corkboard on a wall next to a window with plenty of light.  With my camera mounted on a tripod, I would ease in close enough to ensure that the picture would fill the viewfinder, and then I would fine-tune the focus and click the shutter.  It was a delicate process to get everything just right.  Numerous adjustments were required: moving the camera in and out, tweaking the focus, playing with the light.  Often, to block out extraneous light, I would put a black cloth over my head and the camera.  I was not intentionally trying to mimic the Matthew Brady’s of old, but I must have looked just like them.  But it worked.  With all the light blocked out, except for that coming in through the lens, it was as if I were in a darkened room with the image from the photograph on the corkboard appearing as if suspended in space. Just me and the person in the photograph, alone in the dark.

On this particular day, I was photographing the picture of the family of my great-grandfather.  In every family there are relatives--and then there are relatives.  Most genealogy trees host some horse thieves and reprobates, but they also have relatives whose sterling lives capture our hearts.  This was my favorite progenitor even though my contacts with him had been few and long ago.  During one visit with him when I was four or five years old, I remember watching him shave with a straight razor and later button a detachable collar to his shirt, things common to the age in which he grew up but which I had never seen before.  He was tall and distinguished.  He had a full head of hair and a moustache, both of which remained black well into old age.  He stood at the head of his posterity as a spiritual giant.  He had been a stake president and a counselor in a temple presidency.  His children similarly followed righteous paths.  Even his descendents several generations removed looked back on him as the “Joseph” of his generation.  Had we all lived in Egypt, we would have carried his bones back with us when he died.

I enjoyed looking at the old photographs of him.  It would have been a pleasure to have known him better, to have had him more a part of my life.  Even though his exemplary life had influenced me regardless of the distance imposed by the passing of time, it would have been nice to have known him “up close and personal,” as they say.

I pinned one of his photographs on the corkboard, put the black cloth over my head and camera, and peered through the viewfinder.  I was busy adjusting the focus when I first noticed it.  He was looking directly at me.  Obviously he had been looking at the camera’s lens when the original photograph was taken, but now he was looking directly at me.  The black cloth had blocked all my peripheral vision and other distractions.  It was just he and I alone as if we were in photo studio together.  The close-up lens was focused tightly on his face, and his dark eyes looked straight into mine.  It was a magical moment, one I will never forget.

Instead of my being a small child watching him shave, we were now young men of about the same age communicating silently over the barrier of time.  It is comforting for me to know that I will have the opportunity to know him again.  I fully expect that when I pass beyond the veil a meeting like this will happen again.  He will greet me and look me in the eye just like our meeting through the camera’s lens.  And then finding that I have been steadfast in the faith and worthy of the heritage he established, he will give me a kiss and welcome me into the glorious realms beyond.

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