Scott Cox was an undergrad at RIT in the early years of this decade. Some students come in every year and ask to shoot pictures of my store or of me. I think that the composition possibilities of a cluttered store and a disheveled merchant make for a good photo.
Scott was very modest and insisted that I not feel at all compelled to pose, but we had had several conversations about bikes and traveling, and he was an interesting person. I was eager to see his work. It was October and he thought it would be a good shot if we could go somewhere outdoors where there were lots of yellow leaves on the ground. I took him up the street to Mount Hope Cemetery which has 200 acres of rolling hills and valleys.
Some parts of the cemetery can truly be said to be nearly wilderness in that you can see no city clutter on all four sides. It was gratifying to be the person to introduce an artist to this wonderful location, and we did two days of shooting that resulted in this photo and one other which shows the rising sun from the east and my red outfit with a red racing bike. He used an old fashioned view camera that uses full size glass plate negatives, and a huge flash unit that barely fit into his little car. His eye for detail and for deep focus is hard to discern on the computer screen, but if you come to the store you can see a real good print he made me. He also made prints for my sister, my wife and my parents. This was expensive for a starving student!
I heard from another student some months later that Scott had received some nice commissions after graduating and that he was traveling in Central Europe. His work on Scott-Cox.com is very special. If you see his self portrait I think you can get a good idea of what he is like as a man. His demeanor is calm and he is a good listener. I expect great things from him in the future and that he will make a contribution to the world of documentary journalism. His pictures of the hard working people in these scenes shows real talent.