Three Moustaches
    As a follow up to a recent Story Behind, “my photography has enabled unexpected friendships” I wouldn’t have dreamt possible. I’m blessed to call some pretty famous people in the photography world good friends, certainly the most charismatic of those friends is Monty McCutchen.

    We first met in 2004, I was a featured speaker at a national photography conference in Springfield MA. At the end of my program a younger man came up and introduced himself and said how much he had enjoyed my presentation. I remember him being extremely polite with a deep appreciation of my photography prowess. He apologized as he had to catch a plane for work, I said, “what do you do for work” ? He said he was a basketball referee, but did not expand further. He was wearing a TNT hat, which he gave to me and said, “hope we can catch-up again in the future”. Being a sports junkie of sorts, I knew that the TNT network handles the National Basketball Association playoffs, which are ongoing in April each year. I immediately thought, can’t be, turns out Monty is a fast rising star in the NBA refereeing ranks back in 2004. I share this intro for one reason, without a strong base of photography knowledge I likely would not have engaged his strong personality going forward. My “photography voice” afforded me a confidence that usually is absent in larger social settings. I often think, if I had held true to form that day in 2004, I would have deprived myself of a great friendship which has likely advanced me more as a person, than I have moved his photography forward ! Now, just one month shy of the 20th anniversary of that chance meeting we have shared the deepest of our character flaws, and on countless occasions, cured the ills of mankind while fueled by the darkest of beers.

     Monty won me over as one of only a handful of serious photographers I would actually spend a week long photography expedition with. Seen here in this photo with Joe Freeman we all met in the high desert prairies of Washington state in 2011. Leaving Salt Lake City airport we drove 11.5 hours thru the night to meet Joe in Colfax, WA before dawn. This next photo sealed the bond, it was the first time in 3 1/2 days the three of us actually sat down and ordered food, and then…it was only because Monty needed to change film indoors on a flat surface, seen here in a film changing tent.

   Monty was asked by the prestigious Penland School of Craft to teach a class on his speciality, Wet Plate photography. This would be Monty’s 3rd teaching experience at Penland, a school started in 1929 by Lucy Morgan has grown to 420 acres and 57 buildings. Penland is considered by many to be an Ivy League type learning institution for various handson artforms. So, when Monty asked me to be his assistant for 2 weeks in the mountains of North Carolina, I jumped at the opportunity. A brief overview of the “Wet Plate” process follows. A sticky substance much like Karo Syrup called Collodion is blended with Ether and poured onto a metal or glass plate and then submerged in a Silver Nitrate solution. This light sensitive coating does not see the Red spectrum of light, this causes several interesting anomalies, Blue sky reproduces as pure white, facial discolorations, even those not seen in the normal light spectrum such as freckles are magnified in the final “plate” as seen here in a portrait of me. Within 90 seconds the sensitized plate is brought to the camera and exposed for several seconds in bright sun ! The exposed plate is brought back to a portable darkroom and processed in an exotic cocktail of toxic chemicals under a red light, all this must take place in 10 minutes or so. Lastly, the process is a direct positive result, notice the lettering on my shirt is reversed making the image and plate a true “one of a kind” work of art. Further, the right side of my face seen here is actually the left side! “Oh by-the-way Steve, I’ll have to take conference calls throughout the 2 week class…You’ll have to take over the class “! WTH…fortunately, Monty made a weekend trip to my darkroom the week before the class to get me up to speed on a process I only had passing experience with.

    In the autumn of my life, stereotypes and character flaws are a generational product of age, when those sublimally and self imposed boundaries, right or wrong, are broken down by outside forces, a better person emerges. That is how I perceived my first few days at the Penland School of Craft. Progressive minded and trendingly dressed young people don’t always align with my 50’s & 60’s upbringing. Nevertheless, these younger grad students from leading universities delving into the unknown of Wet Plate photography would soon awaken a new approach. I would soon discard my first impressions loosely sketched out during a school wide orientation my first night at Penland. To my point, first impressions are not always lasting impressions…at the end of the 2 weeks and goodbyes were shared there were 3 young college girls who profoundly impacted my time at Penland. I told each of them I thought they had the brightest of futures ahead of them in any field they chose. One of them named Kobi, (yes, a Los Angeles native, Mom named her after Kobe Bryant the basketball star) said to me, she was suspect of the old timer assistant with the grey beard that first night. She returned a compliment by saying, “you’re one of the nicest men I’ve ever met” ! Towards the end of the second week the creative energy of the class rose to the top when I said I wanted to take a class photo outside on big film.

Seen in this photo getting ready for the shot, when one of the class said, “I’m going to run to the cafeteria and get some white plates to put on our heads”. The class became known as the White Plate class. Monty and I would return to the studio after dinner where many of the class would work till 10 o’clock at night on the Wet Plate process. This was Monty’s 3rd time teaching Wet-Plate at Penland, he shared with me privately this was his best class, in large part to the class became one supporting each other learning a difficult process in a short time. I would agree, for me the long days were inspiring and rewarding making new photo friends in the niche world of serious photography. There were 16 disciplines and 197 students on campus, more than half came to have their portraits taken by such a fun class, their words, not mine. A video I made of my “Wet Plate” experience during the Penland class is at the end of this Story, give it some time to load. 

   Monty began his refereeing career in 1993 and continued till the end of the 2017 finals. In that time he rose to become a Crew Chief of the Final. In July of 2017 he was promoted to Senior Vice President, Head of Referee Development and Training across the NBA, WNBA and the G-League. On numerous times he has traveled to Europe, Africa and Morocco to foster a world wide expansion of the NBA brand. 

      There’s an energy when we get together that is unique to that friendship. Monty has hung out with each of my own children and developed a bond with my CT granddaughters, once again that I would not have anticipated. So many fond memories over the years with Monty, each of us pretty skilled at playful banter and one-liners. One of his best was just last summer at the Penland School of Craft in the Carolina mountains where Monty told me “I don’t have 5 friends that talk with each other like we do”…all thanks to a photography voice !!

Monty over the Years