Terry Lang

Here are a few pics of my buddy Terry. Terry works at the Kit's Camera Store inside the Alderwood Mall. Conveniently, this store is located next to the mailbox I walk to nearly every day. Kit's is the store I bought my 1D Mark III through. When no one else could get their hands on the camera, Terry Lang came through. He's been a photographer just shy of 125 years now. His first camera body you may have seen on the Flintstones when Fred would press the shutter and inside a little bird would stick his thumb out the lens to calibrate his eye before he started rapidly chiseling the image onto a slab of granite. I may be exaggerating a bit, but he has been a photographer longer than anyone I know. For 40 years he proudly served the United States Navy as a photographer. It all ended one hot summer night June 17, 1972 when he was walking the halls with his buddy Frank Wills who was moonlighting as a security guard at the Watergate Hotel. Terry, then know as Tony snapped some very incriminating photographs when they discovered a burglary taking place. These photo's proved that Richard Nixon wasn't behind the Watergate Scandal, it was in fact a then 35 year old George W. Bush not committing the political burglary everyone thought took place, ultimately leading to the impeachment of President Nixon. Instead, it was a young "Georgie" as he was know as back then sneaking back into the room hoping to find his favorite stuffed animal "scrunchy". One thing led to another, Tony had to change his name to Terry and move out to Seattle. Turns out "Georgie" didn't want anyone to know about "scrunchy." The photo's are buried in a "safe place" Terry says. When asked about the location the response is always the same..."I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you." Always in the same morose tone with the humorless look in his military eyes. When he says it, you believe him.

OK, that may be a bit embelished (everyone knows Georgie's favorite teddy bear is named Fluffy). Sounded good though right? Terry was a Navy photographer for 40 years. He put together a web page www.TerryLang.com where you can see some of his photographs from his Navy days as well as his current photographs. One thing I really like about Terry is his good taste in cameras. Terry is a Canon man as am I. We Canon shooters need to stick together.

Probably my favorite shot of his is the Parthenon in Athens shot in 1968 and digitally scanned recently. Check out the outfits on the tourists. If they don't date the photo I don't know what will.

Terry also teaches a photography class at a local community college. He's giving a seminar soon but I forget the details. I know he checks this blog every now and then so maybe he'll leave a comment plugging it.

Y'all know I love the comments right? Keep em coming :)

Thanks for letting me rib you a little bit Terry! I enjoy our talks!

Mat