My Dad's Photos

I come by my love of photography honestly. My dad joined the navy in the 1950s and went to Germany on one of his cruises. One of the things he bought when he was on shore leave was a 35mm Agfa camera, a point in shoot with a fixed lens. He took a bunch of photos on his journeys and had quite an eye for composition and photography.

My dad, Patrick Calhoun, died in 2010. He was a creative guy with a brilliant mind. Many of those photos have been lost to time - some stolen from his footlocker when he was sick with a 3rd degree sunburn, some lost in various moves, some thrown away by my dad who decided they weren't worth keeping. For the record, I think he was wrong on that last count. I rescued some of these from that discarded stack. I really regret that I cannot more fully see the world through his eyes.

This small collection is some of what remains. Please enjoy.

Pat Calhoun, electronics and communication technician in the US Navy. He described this day at sea as "calm." I remember telling him that I would probably be throwing up lunch if I was standing in his place. He said sometimes it got so rough they had to tie themselves into their bunks at night to keep from getting pitched out of bed. And now you know why he was in the navy and I wasn't.

My dad's home port was Norfolk, Virginia. He traveled throughout the Southeast US after his ship, the USS John W Weeks, docked in port between cruises. He took this photo in Georgia.

My mom in the foreground. My aunt (dad's sister) is in the background. Dad took this in the Blue Ridge Mountains on a road trip from his home port in Norfolk to his family home in San Antonio, Texas.

This is my paternal grandmother (my dad's mother), Marguerite Thomas Wilkinson Calhoun. He made this photo in the Smokey Mountains along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

My dad's capture of the misty Smokey Mountains. He loved this part of the world and I think he always wanted to go back.

Mom at the beach. Very Breakfast at Tiffany's!

Dad put his camera down at some point, probably because the practical demands of supporting a family overwhelmed his ability to both create art and work for a living. I think he could have been an awesome nature and portrait photographer if he'd kept going. Instead, the camera only came out occasionally, usually during vacations.

This is me at Inks Lake State Park rocking a combination CHIPS/Billie Jean King look. My dad liked to be out in nature and to hike. I found this trail and couldn't wait to show it to him. He snapped this pic of me just before I jumped over the stream.

My mom and my sister came along for the walk down the trail I'd found. Dad tried to get them to pose on the rocks just to the right of the waterfall, but my mom was worried my sister would fall.

We took a family trip to Big Bend in the early 1970's. My dad took his camera along and took some really lovely photos. This is from a hike we took through the desert areas near Mule Ears in Big Bend National Park.

Same trip, different hike. I think this one was along the trail to Tuff Canyon.

I still remember the hugeness of Santa Elena. Even before we got into the canyon it was a bit daunting. We had to wade through a hip-deep creek to get to the trail, which then hugged the edge of the river and ended in a big, scary looking fossil that started at us with open mouth and sharp teeth from the face of the rock. The walls loomed above us and seemed to stretch all the way up to the clouds. I felt like an intrepid explorer. . . . a 10-year old Indiana Jones.

Patrick A. Calhoun

September 1936 - April 2010