An Iconic Photography from the Mid-90s

by Skip Cohen

I've written a lot about the fun of looking in your rearview mirror now and then. While we can never go back, photographs allow us to relive those great moments we cherish.

That's Terry Deglau, Tony Corbell, Spiro Nichols, and Don Blair at WPPI. Terry was Kodak's industry liason, and nobody's done it better since. Tony was working with me at Hasselblad back then. Spiro was Don's favorite lab in Salt Lake, but he was more than just the lab owner. He was a pretty incredible buddy; the more I worked with Don over the years, the better I got to know Spiro.

The shot of these four icons was captured at WPPI the night we launched Don's book, Don Blair's Guide to Lighting and Posing Body Parts. The book was spiral bound and designed to go in your camera bag. It hit on most of the biggest challenges in portraiture.  

When we did the book, we decided it would be great to shoot everything in Las Vegas and use the same models on the opening night of WPPI for the program kickoff. We had 300+ people in the room that night, and the book was available on the trade show floor the next day.

I know I use Jodi Picoult's quote too often, but nobody's ever said it better:

This is what I like about photographs.
They're proof that once, even if just for a heartbeat,
everything was perfect.

Terry passed a way just a few years ago and Don, in 2004. But nothing changes the pieces of my heart these good buddies occupy, even when they're gone. There are really no words to describe how much I miss those two, but it's photographs like this that turn yesterday into the present. They simply make me smile!

​Happy Throwback Thursday!