Photography art

Charlie Taylor’s photographs are more than pictures, they’re works of art

OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi — There’s probably no 1 in Ocean Springs who’s extra of a “people person” than Charlie Taylor.

Taylor and his wife, Ginny — Ms. Ginny to most — have resided in their Lover’s Lane house since the mid-1980s. Around the years, especially for the duration of his retirement yrs given that the early 90s, Taylor has develop into a fixture in local espresso outlets and pubs, where he and some of his lifelong close friends keep court docket every single morning with espresso and afternoon with cocktails.

Together the way, he’s produced scores of good friends — numerous who are 20, perhaps 30, several years his junior. Taylor enjoys laughing and generating many others laugh, normally at his very own expense. A several decades in the past, he came to the downtown Ocean Springs Halloween function dressed as Uncle Fester of “Addams Family” fame — complete with the lighbulb in his mouth.

So it is a thing of an oddity that this male who so loves individuals and is proficient with a digital camera in his palms hates having images of people today.

“I’m not interested in executing men and women,” he claimed flatly all through a the latest job interview with The Mississippi Press. “I’ve performed it — higher faculty senior pics, wedding day, all of that, but it doesn’t seriously curiosity me.”

But the topics he loves to shoot become functions of artwork.

Taylor, 76, was born in Laurel but invested most of his childhood and adolescence in Biloxi, wherever he graduated from Biloxi Significant Faculty right before relocating on to the University of Southern Mississippi, the place he was in the Army ROTC program.

In May possibly 1967, Taylor graduated from USM, married Ginny, was commissioned at 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Military and obtained orders for Vietnam — all in a span of two weeks.

He delivered out to Vietnam on New Year’s Working day 1968. With bad eyesight, he could not get into a beat arms device, so he was assigned to the Quartermaster Corps. Arriving in Vietnam, he was assigned to a logistics unit in La Drang, wherever he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant.

Taylor and his device were being there for the Tet Offensive. He recalled his device killed 600 North Vietnamese during a two-7 days interval, an knowledge he phone calls “pretty grotesque.”

Taylor suggests he recollects being intrigued in pictures from seeing his father with an previous Kodak, and afterwards a Browning, as very well as a school friend who experienced a Polaroid. But it was during his tour of responsibility in Vietnam he first acted on that interest.

“I experienced R&R in Hawaii with Ginny,” he remembered, “and on the way back I went into this little PX and acquired a digicam and some slide film and commenced operating with it in the course of the minimal bit of time I experienced.”

Ironically, a male whose do the job now options birds, plants, butterflies and stunning landscapes together the coast took his 1st images in a war zone. Taylor stated he however has every slide he took in Vietnam.

The moment he returned after his tour in Vietnam, arriving in the States on Xmas Day 1968, Taylor experienced to established apart his budding interest in pictures, focusing as a substitute on “building a occupation and beginning a household.” He remained in the Military, growing to the rank of Captain, stationed at Ft. Gordon in Georgia. Taylor could possibly have remained in the Army longer, but circumstances dictated normally.

“They wanted me to go back to Vietnam, but I experienced shed have confidence in in the management in Washington by that place, so I acquired out,” he reported. He would continue being in the Army Countrywide Guard, retiring in the mid-1990s as a Lieutenant Colonel.

Returning to the Mississippi coast with Ginny, Taylor would in the end forge a career in the mortgage loan loan small business. He notes his pretty initial loan was to life time buddy and fellow Vietnam veteran Ron Skrmetta to develop a home.

The Taylors would welcome two sons in the 1970s — J.T., who turns 48 following thirty day period, and Jason, now 46. They have two grandchildren, Landon and Charlie — named immediately after his grandfather, of study course.

It wasn’t until he retired from equally the Nationwide Guard and the mortage enterprise Taylor would uncover his way back to pictures.

“Ginny and I have been at a flea market place in Mobile,” he recalled, “and I saw a tiny Minolta movie digicam and acquired it. It value $26. I received some film and commenced to teach myself again.”

Outside the house of a several seminars, Taylor is fully self-taught. As his pictures competencies advanced, so did photography with the introduction of the electronic age.

“It was close to the late 90s I started getting into a number of pictures contests and demonstrates, like the Ocean Springs Artwork Affiliation present and the Singing River just one,” he reported. “I gained some awards and did effectively with it, so it just form of progressed from there.”

It absolutely did. Taylor estimates he’s received 20-25 awards at a variety of exhibits and prints of his get the job done — generated on canvas, paper and steel — can carry concerning $100 and $500, at times more. He’s the lone photographer between the showcased artists at My Delighted Area Gallery in downtown Ocean Springs.

Taylor stated what really pleases him about some of the awards he’s won is that they are not usually provided to photographers. He obviously will take delight in the truth his photos are more than just images. They are artwork.

But his enthusiasm for images is not driven by awards or income.

“I do it simply for the enjoyment of it,” he mentioned. “The actuality I have been in a position to win awards and make some income executing it is just a bonus. What I adore is what I contact the ‘Wow!’ issue. I adore to be in a position to build some thing with the camera that provides a ‘wow’ from persons when they see it. That keeps me likely.

“I may get 100 pictures and maintain one particular. If it says ‘wow’ to me, I know the colors and composition are ideal. If it does not say that to me, it’s not likely to say it to another person else.”

Whilst Taylor has completely embraced the digital age of pictures, he has not abandoned the “old school” ways. Lots of of the pictures he’s creating these days are taken with classic lenses from the 1970s and 1980s that he’s tailored to a electronic digicam. All of them are handbook target.

In addition, he insists a photographer’s perform isn’t total until finally there is a print.

“Some people today are joyful to choose a photograph, article it to Facebook or Instagram or some other web site and which is it,” Taylor mentioned. “But I imagine a print is an integral element of images. I do not feel it’s finish until eventually there is a print, whether it be on metallic, canvas or paper.”

He claims his inner thoughts towards his craft are summarized in a quotation by expressionist painter Camille Pissaro: “Blessed are they who see beautiful matters in humble places where other folks see practically nothing.”

But Taylor’s blessings go further than his potential to “see lovely things in humble places.”

Taylor admitted to taking into consideration putting his cameras absent a pair of years ago, indicating he was emotion “burned out.” But he credits the homeowners of My Content Place, Dr. Ray and Hyla Weiss, with supplying him a 2nd wind with the digicam.

“I was heading to market all my machines, drink far more whiskey and place out the ‘Gone Fishin’ indicator,” he explained. “But I was at the OSAA awards exhibit and Ray Weiss came up to me and stated he was turning the kitchen store into a gallery and required me to be the showcased photographer. ‘You’d be the only one,’ he explained to me.

“I considered about it and agreed to do it. I’m glad I did. It is kept me likely and been a blessing to me.”

His greatest blessing, nevertheless, has been by his aspect for practically 55 many years. Charlie and Ginny Taylor will rejoice that milestone anniversary in June. Army wife, mom, homemaker, very best close friend and proficient gardener — Ms. Ginny’s garden has usually been the subject of her husband’s pictures — she has been Charlie’s North Star.

“She’s been my right hand, my rock,” Charlie reported. “If it was not for Ginny, I’d possibly be useless or in jail. She’s just a great, wonderful, superb lady. I’m fortuitous to have ever met her.”

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