‘Look at what I goto’

‘Look at what I goto’

By Bill Kossler

Rappahannock News Staff Writer

There is a whole genre of photographs found exclusively in small, local newspapers. It’s a phenomenon unremarked and unanalyzed until now. Everyone has seen them, and newspapers know what they are. Yet they don’t even have a name and the professional picture taker would never think to submit one for review for an award. They seem too everyday, too common to take seriously. But in reality, they aren’t common at all. Larger newspapers and magazines rarely have examples of it. A photographer styling him or herself an artist would be unlikely to take pictures like it. Private citizens taking snapshots might have one, but not often.

For the lack of an official name, let us call them: lookatwhatlgots.

You’ve seen them.

They are the country cousin of the award shot, of a person holding a plaque, certificate or trophy. They are the tomboy sister to the “lookatwhatlmade” shot, of an artisan, artist, hobbyist or student holding their creation.

But they are different and rarer than either the “lookatwhatldid” and the “lookatwhatlmade”.

Maybe they only exist in rural areas, where man and nature interact more. The theme is always a person holding their prize. The prize is either a plant or an animal. Generally, it is a man with a dead animal or a woman with a plant she grew. There are men with plants they grew, but you almost never see- a picture of a woman proudly holding up a dead animal. The most ordinary type is the annual hunting season- look-at-what-Ibagged shot of a happy hunter with a deer or turkey. That and the look-at-the-fish-I-caught shot. Interestingly, it isn’t important that they be unusually large or heavy. They just commemorate a successful hunt, especially if a child is involved. People come to the newspaper with their prize, convinced of the newsworthiness of their fish, bird, deer or whatever. And it is news. Oh, not in the sense of a fire, a crash or a budget crisis- but in the sense of documenting the life of the community. They say “gee whiz, look at that thing Bob had”.

For whatever reasons, the 1960s and 1970s were the heyday for the lookatwhatlgot. In the 1950s, at least at the Rappahannock News, the feel of the paper was a bit too somber, too formal and self importantly serious to show a person just holding a snake. More recently, there have been some- but it seems people don’t think to run to the newspaper with their funky big tomato or the snake they found on a winter day as often as in the past.

Rappahannock residents of all stripes and outlooks tend to celebrate and enshrine all things special and particular about our home. And a major part of the mission of the Rappahannock News is to do the same. So next time you shoot a deer with weird antlers, grow a bizarre looking eggplant, or find a really big walking stick bug, stop and think to yourself: “should this be in the paper?”

Bill Kossler can be reached at billvivre@hotmail.com

Editor’s Note: Bill is no longer a writer with the Rappahannock News. He has gone to St. Croix in search of tropical “lookatwhatlgots.”