No, my post title is not a joke, even if it sounds like one. And no, I am not going to suggest that lawyers actually make the best photographs. However, having had a wonderful phone interview this morning with Bernard Friel, a very accomplished nature photographer and an extremely successful lawyer, I do want to share something that Friel brought to light.
“Lawyers tend to be a pretty sociable group,” Friel told me at the end of our hour-plus conversation, in which he shared more than a dozen names of photographers and influential people he has met in his journey as a photographer. Friel, who is 80, laughed often during our talk, and spoke of his many friends with fondness and respect.
“I had never been to a photography association meeting,” Friel told me of his unlikely participation in the first annual meeting of the North American Nature Photographers Association (NANPA). “I didn’t want to talk about pictures; I wanted to make them.”
However, being a social creature, the fist night of the conference Friel introduced himself to the “elderly man” sitting at the same dinner table. “Hello,” the man responded with outstretched hand. “I’m Roger Tory Peterson.” Friel had made another friend. And yes, this friend is the Peterson of “Peterson Field Guides” fame. Continue reading “Why Do Lawyers Make the Best Photographers?”
