Sunday Support Group: The Class of '69

If you're a regular reader who happens to pay attention to the comment bylines, you probably know the name Dave Levingston. Dave is a retired photojournalist who lives in Springfield, Ohio. He took the last photograph in this post.

Dave and some members of his family visited last Friday, just in time for an epic rain squall that flattened the area and cut power to hundreds. ("Hundreds" meaning "lots"—we're the third least-populous county in New York State. There are hardly any people here.) He showed me several boxes of his work.

My favorite was a group of "environmental portraits" (portraits of people showing their surroundings). He was attending his 50th high school reunion and started making pictures of his classmates. Then he got a good idea, and decided to try to get as many of them as he could, and at that point he titled the project "The Class of '69." Then he got a really good idea, and thought, hey, why limit this to our class?

Since then, he's been finding people who graduated in 1969 wherever he goes.

Isn't that a great idea? It's a very specific project, yet the potential subject matter is functionally limitless. It's a great entrée by which to make contact with people, even strangers, and oh by the way, make photographs of them. It's comprehensible to everyone instantly and most everyone would be happy to participate (you can tell this because all most all of the people in his portraits look genuinely happy and good-natured) and it's a great way to make new friends.

Perfect. I thought it was a little bit of genius.

Great ideas are actually tough to come up with. They have to be flexible but specific, easy for people to grasp but a rich vein to mine, varied enough to keep everyone (subjects, photographer, viewers) interested....and having that entrée never hurts.

The portraits, by the way, were very nicely printed, I'm going to guess about 9x13" maybe? He did the conversions in DxO and took the pictures with a Micro 4/3 camera. I thought they looked like small enlargements from about a 645 film camera.

The beardy guy in the example portrait above is, as you have probably guessed by now, one Dave Levingston of Springfield, Ohio. Self-portrait using the camera's timer. Class of '69, of course.

Mike
(Thanks to Dave)

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post said Dave was from Canton, Ohio, but that was merely his destination when he passed through here. He lives in Springfield, Ohio. Sorry for the error.

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Amazon.com • Amazon UK • Amazon Canada
Amazon Germany • B&H Photo • Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

William Schneider: "Being from the class of '68, I felt a strange tinge of disappointment that I did not qualify. Upon reflection why, I realized that exclusive projects like this have something working for them. Leveraging human nature, they motivate people to become willing subjects. Clever!"

Gary: "I will be attending my 1969 high school reunion in San Diego in September. It was a momentous year: Moonwalk, Woodstock, and great music. The previous year was momentous also, but tragic. Please provide a link to Dave Levingston's project!"

Dave Levingston adds: I can't thank you enough for your very kind words about my Class of '69 project. I really appreciate it. I've been posting this project on Facebook. If anyone would like to see all the photos they can look at them there. But please remember that Facebook does awful things to photos when they are uploaded to their site. The prints I showed Mike were 8.5x11 work prints. I hope to find a venue to do a little show with some of these before this 50th anniversary year is out. I will likely print them to around 11x14 for framing and display.

For those who care about technical stuff, I'm shooting with a pair of Panasonic GX8s and using a 12–60mm Panasonic lens, mostly around 12mm, for these portraits. I use DxO Photo Lab 2 for RAW conversions and black-and-white conversions. I use ACDSee Photo Studio 2 for most other editing tasks. The prints were made with an Epson 4900 on Epson Ultra Premium Luster paper.

And, if anyone reading this graduated from high school in 1969 and would like to be a part of this project, please get in touch.

Martin D: "Class of '69 is a brilliant project idea. It is simple and effective and amenable to all sorts of artistic variations. And as you rightly say, with such simple ideas it is always easy to see their value once you have them put before you, but coming up with them in the first place is where most of us struggle. I will not copy this idea directly, as such transfers never work, but your friendly visitor Dave Levingston has encouraged me to go back to the little black book in which I take notes for potential photo projects...and then to actually pick one and get it started! Really good photograph by Dave in your 2013 competition by the way, of the turkey farmer. I remember being impressed by it at the time, and now there is additional context."

Mike Potter: "That is a wonderful self-portrait. I like it, a lot."

Comments

[Kenneth Wajda]

That would be an interesting photo assignment for TOP readers, to make self portraits of themselves in their own environment

[Robert Roaldi]

Shoot. I graduated high school in 1970, missed by one year.

[Roger Bradbury]

I like Kenneth Wajda's idea for a TOP photo assignment. It might make a very big blog post, though!

[Michael Perini]

Love the self portrait, but the Duck picture is beyond wonderful......
Beautiful work !

[Gary]

I looked at the project on Dave Levinston's Facebook page. I love the colossal MIDWESTERN-NESS of these environmental portraits.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

If the mark of a “great” photograph is indelibility of the tattoo it leaves on a viewer’s memory then Dave Levingston certainly achieved greatness with that “turkey man” image several years ago! It certainly has displaced any Norman Rockwellian Thanksgiving images in my mind! And yes its composition and composure reminds me of Alfred Eisenstadt’s equally memorable color environmental portrait of Alfred Krupp. But the turkey man also always reminded me of Max Schrek’s character in the very creepy 1922 silent film Nosferatu.

Re: “Class of ‘69”, nice project concept. I was 15 so I’m (happily) not eligible!

[Arg]

I graduated from primary school in 69...

[Scott Kirkpatrick]

My High School class was '59. I'll be going back there in the fall to see who's still around. It's the school's 100th anniversary as well, so they are making quite a big deal of it. I would be taking a camera anyway, but this gives me an idea...(and a challenge).