Legacy of light
T
he best photographers are light whisperers. They measure and meter illumination, taming and harnessing it using aperture and shutter speed. To the rest of us, light is common and unwieldy; but in the lens of a master photographer, it is magic and malleable.
One of the brightest stars in the constellation of Arkansas’ finest photographers went out last month when Tom McDonald passed away.
Legendary in his own time, with a successful career spanning four decades, the legacy of Tom and his wife of 63 years, Jo Alice—a renowned photographer in her own right—is boundless and timeless.
In addition to legions of customers with McDonald photographs still near and dear to their hearts (myself included), Tom’s reputation gained international recognition, credentials and acclaim.
The most prestigious honor presented by the Professional Photographers of America (PPA), which has approximately 30,000 members, is the George W. Harris award. Established in 1951, only 20 medals were struck to be given to individuals for distinguished service to photography. Tom McDonald was the 17th photographer to receive one of the coveted medals in 1996.
The PPA also honored Tom in 2018 with its Lifetime Achievement Award (this year’s recipient was Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Ken Burns).
Tom was also the only Arkansan to earn a Fellow of Photography award from the American Society of Photographers.
In 1996, Tom wrote “The Business of Portrait Photography,” which was revised and updated for new-edition publication in 2002. Even after all this time, it remains timely as a great read for the startup photographer, full of advice, insights and anecdotes delivered in Tom’s well-expressed manner.
You can hear him smiling through the words.
Tom’s personal life was as storied as his professional career. An officer, gentleman and scholar, Tom served his country, taught Sunday School for 40 years, and presided over state and national associations as well as hometown civic organizations.
In his book’s introduction, Tom included this quote attributed to Louis Nizer: “A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and
his brain and his heart is an artist.”
Long before I ever commissioned a photo session with him, I had frequently walked past the inspiring Tom McDonald artwork that lined the long entryway of Wyatt’s Cafeteria in the old Indian Mall in Jonesboro.
Not a day passes that I don’t still notice and admire one of the several McDonald masterpieces on canvas that adorn the walls of my home. It is an honor indeed, and an aspiration beyond what most of us can imagine, to have one’s artistry live on so beautifully after death.
When I see those various family portraits, spanning years of my children’s young lives, I remember so much more than just those 1/100ths of a second frozen in frame.
Looking at a portrait of my young sons laughing amid a swirl of descending yellow ginkgo leaves, I remember Tom being “on call” while my wife and I waited for those leaves to start falling (ginkgoes lose the bulk of their leaves in a single day) and the flurry and hurry to get the boys dressed and set up the shot.
A big framed portrait of our first three kids, barefoot and beaming and dressed in white on a wicker settee, hangs over a desk near a bank of windows. Tom and Jo Alice were at our new house much of that day, and the session featured numerous scenes and a few wardrobe changes. One of my favorite McDonald pieces is a “tea party” photo in our front yard from that day—it’s in an upstairs bedroom.
My youngest daughter peeks out between large sliding pocket doors in another portrait in our front hall. Up the stairway wall, my wife cradles that same daughter as an infant, and all the Kelley kids at various ages look out from Tom McDonald prints. Every session has a story, each brings back memories, and all espouse joy.
Tom wrote in his book that he got fulfillment not only from winning awards (in one 10-year span he had 34 of 40 prints accepted for the PPA national Masters exhibit), but also from creating portraits that pleased people.
“Nothing is more gratifying than to hear clients say that I’ve shown the love they feel in a portrait,” he wrote.
In 1997, Jo Alice gave us a copy of the PPA Exhibit 96 coffee table book, with a note inside and a page bookmarked. I looked again at her photo selected for inclusion that featured two of my daughters in an autumn meadow; prints of that portrait hang at home and in my office.
This time, I noticed the page number: 88.
Unlike Tom’s life, his art will never be measured in years. How do you count the worth of a smile, a watery eye, a heart tug?
Art transcends time and extends life; Tom McDonald lives on in every place one of his portraits is displayed.
That’s an enduring blessing, for me and so many others.