Bret Harris:  

aking a smattering of courses, including "The Teachings of Don Juan in the Works of Carlos Castenada". Good course, not so good for guiding a 19 yr. old in his future. But some really good things came from Antioch. One was a work-study semester teaching at an outdoors school in New Hampshire - "Otter Lake Conservation School". There was also Ultimate Frisbee, and working in the school's photography lab and as a "ranger" in nearby Glen Helen, a beautiful natural area next to campus. Finally however, 1 1/2 years in, when a friend said "I'm going to New Orleans after the semester - want to come?" I agreed. After a couple years in NO I moved back & attended University of Maryland. Not much to say further about that. Later I finished my undergraduate at the University of North Carolina. Workplace Bicycle Mechanic - New Orleans: Located in a poorer section of NO, we prided ourselves in fairness and our ability to fix anything from racing bikes to the neighborhood kids' rides. "The Bikesmith" also had a mobile van filled with parts and tools which we would take all over town in the afternoons to fix bicycles at people's homes. Nice days were spent on the Tulane campus, where my partner, local boy "Bick" would try to sweet talk the co-eds. I soon learned that NO was very very rich, or very very poor with not so much in between. I recall going to some extremely seedy-looking French Quarter houses...only to find a little paradise of luxury in the courtyards behind the drab doorways. Messenger in DC: Now, those times could certainly merit a book by themselves - before the Internet - heck, before the fax machine - the only way to get letters and materials from place to place in a hurry was to use a messenger service. I worked for two elite companies, Speed Service and Metropolitan Messenger. The first was cool in that unlike other companies we were paid a salary. In the midst of many other messengers paid by the job and scrabbling for "runs", we had a fierce comraderie and took great pride in working our butts off even though it didn't mean more money on a daily basis. Ultimately though, I tired of working all week and fixing my motorcycle all weekend to get ready for Monday and moved to Metro Messenger, which had a fleet of BMWs for its messengers. A little aside - in these days of terror threats and tightened security, it is hard to imagine the relative freedom we were given to go here and there around town: Senate and House office buildings on Capitol Hill, pretty much anywhere in the Capitol Building (except the mysterious third floor) - in retrospect it is staggering the places we were able to go. I was present at many news events but perhaps the most memorable one was the crash of Air Florida flight 90 one wintery day. We had brought our motorcycles back to base when the snow had hit 4" or so and it was getting hard to move about safely. Out in cars trying to finish up the most important of the day's work, my partner and I heard reports of the crash. Figuring there would be photographers who would need their film taken to the office, we decided to see what we could do. Ditching the car near the 14th St bridge we literally ran all the way across to the VA side, spurred on by each other's refusal to stop and the sight of motorists lining the bridge rail trying to see what was going on. When we saw the tail of the aircraft sticking out of the water we began to realize that not only were there going to be no photographers for a while, but that the rescue, what there was of it, was taking place right before us. I helped a person to shore from the helicopter and he or she was taken to an ambulance but there was no room for the next person so I helped carry her to a Metrobus and helped a paramedic give first aid. To this day I will never forget the smell of aviation fuel... After almost two years on a motorcycle and one accident where I narrowly missed serious injury I decided that I was pushing my luck hurtling down city streets at 50 miles per hour and switched to a bicycle. Although it did not have the panache of a motorcycle courier, I felt that this was healthier on many levels. Photo Assistant, Chicago: I paid my dues at a huge studio where we shot furniture layouts that most closely resembled movie shoots in a soundstage, which allowed me to get a job working for a very good photographer in a downtown studio. I generally loved this experience, and was confident that I was truly a very good photographer's assistant, but that I didn't see myself becoming a full--time photographer. Perhaps it was the fact that my boss, who had probably more talent in his little finger than I had altogether, was constantly struggling to make ends meet, and shouldering a huge debt for all his equipment.