John N. Phillips

Dave with his trusty Voigtlander Bessamatic. He probably got the bug from my father, who was a polaroid land camera nut. Dad would take hundreds of instant photos of his many children, mostly rolling their eyes. The fun part was sealing the prints with that sharp smelling gel liquid you squeeged on with a wiper.

I don't recall seeing that many photographs that my brother took. Although Dave was interested in photography and writing, and becoming a lawyer, he became absorbed in his medical career and family. 

My portrait of Dave was created in 1966 or 67, down the shore, with a Pentax Spotmatic, and a 55mm F1.8 lens. I bought the camera to take photos of my brother's wedding, paying for it with a summer job.

In college I learned that writing poetry and short stories, and taking photographs, was much more important to me than becoming anything, even a doctor.

Dr. Fox, my freshman year Mod. European History professor, pointed out that pursuing the "life of the Mind" and becoming a doctor were not necessarily the same.

She was seated on the back of Robert Kennedy's funeral train as it passed through North Philadelphia station June 8th, 1968. This is a microscopic enlargement, about 30 x, of a section of the color slide that I took that hot day{see the image of the original color slide included on this page).

I arrived at the station a few hours before the train, shooting color slides and B&W. Some time after I took these photos, I happened to see an article in a photography magazine about how to adapt your SLR to a microscope to create images. It was an eerie feeling scanning these slides with the microscope, as I could recognize different people in the crowds I had walked through, taking photographs. A lot like the film "Blow Up". Notice the grains of color that form the image, a pointillist effect.

Robert Kennedy's funeral recalls the funeral train of President Lincoln, as well as the death of John Kennedy. Which recalls the death of Dr. Martin Luther King jr.. Although the individual circumstances vary, with all four men it was as if someone had turned the lights out in this country with their untimely deaths.. This is why I call this photograph Woman In Black. She mourns them all.

This is also why the Woman In Black is on the cover of my first poetry book, Sleeping By the Ocean, which is dedicated to my friend Bob Bird, who died as a result of the Viet Nam war.

Here is the back of Robert Kennedy's funeral train as it passed throu North Philadelphia station. Edward Kennedy is standing in the center. To his left is the woman I call Lady In Black, her portrait here being enlarged about 30 times with a microscope.

Had Robert Kennedy been elected president, he might well have ended the Viet Nam war much earlier than President Nixon. What seems strange today is that President Johnson launched "The Great Society", and then, God help us, the build-up of the Viet Nam War. As Dr. King noted in his speech of April 4th, 1968, "A Time To Break Silence", the Viet Nam war defunded "The Great Society" of any chance to exist.

Some people think that President Johnson was a great president. He wasn't. He might have been a great back room deal maker, but he apparently didn't understand, forgot, or just didn't give a shit about American history. We had no business fighting a colonial war on the wrong side. Or maybe President Johnson was just in over his head. As a result, thousands of young Americans got nailed to their crosses and rolled down that long, terrible hill to their deaths...for nothing.

It seems that some societies must war in order to govern themselves, as they lack the skills and courage to wage peace.