A First Time For Everything

January,1972 at the old North Miami Armory! It was try-outs for the annual Miss North Miami Pageant and it was my job to shoot pix of all the contestants. For several weeks every issue of The North Dade Journal would feature pictures of the girls, and I was forced to spend endless hours all over town in their company. Photography can make for a tough life!!!!

At the time the public schools here were just starting to be desegregated and I think that this was the first year where we had a colored contestant. It'd be a few more years before "black" became the word of choice. No, I don't recall her name.

Notice the ash tray on the table? The red check mark and red circle around the ash tray had nothing to do with the ash tray. It was the editor's way of saying "Print this one!"

Jonathan's Early Years ~ The Lady Killer

That handsome young gentleman is my son Jonathan. I don't remember exactly why he owned a suit at the time. Perhaps for a wedding in the family? He was five years old when I shot these photos at the annual Miss North Miami Coronation Ball, but he'd reached the age where he loved to go places with me, meet new people and find out exactly what it was that Daddy did for a living.

We got dressed and I checked to make sure that I had enough film and batteries to get through the evening. A lot of the pictures had to be shot in black and white for the newspaper and the Chamber of Commerce newsletter, as well as get color shots of the girls with their sponsors. I think that Jonathan was the only one there that not only got to dance with all twelve of the contestants, but they were the ones who asked him to dance.

These scans are off some old prints and somehow it just seems more authentic to leave the faded colors and age stains. The photos were taken with a 35mm Summicron on a Leica M camera, but I don't remember which model.