I took all of the photographs, except for a couple, that were used in designing the 2004 Program for the Conference on College Composition and Communication in San Antonio, for which I was program chair. I’d taken my camera on 2003 trip to San Antonio to scout the convention site, then sent several images to NCTE. Some were printed in the pages of the program. However, a few of them were selected for the cover by an outstanding artist at NCTE, who then used some brilliant design skills to create a spectacular cover image.

For example, he took my photograph looking out a window from a small museum, onto a courtyard, as the basic frame.

In that basic image, he replaced the central opening courtyard view with my photo of a stunning mural I found on a walk, children (mostly) in white standing in a cornfield, their arms upraised to an angelic figure, doves between them.

Then, brilliantly, he put other images into the side panes of the window. I’ve pasted one of my originals below, so you can see how he transformed those photos. I hadn’t taken a picture of The Alamo, but the designer figured it should be represented, so he used a stock photo. I wasn’t thrilled, but I thought maybe the Cesar Chavez image would counter-balance a bit. I can’t imagine the number of hours he took getting all the angles to work, with all the precise cropping. Then there was that final excellent decision to use a filter on the whole image.

Afterwards, I asked him to send me the massive file with the finished cover. I had two prints made and framed, one for me and one for Lori Ostergaard, who’d served as my program assistant (and who since has gone on to edit College English.) For years, my offices have included a little display: the poster, plus a handful of the contributory images.

The pages of the program itself had interspersed a number of my pictures, rendered in black and white, to serve as decorative filler. Below is an example, though it’s a somewhat cringeworthy one, in terms of design. Following a memorial session for Marilyn Sternglass is a picture advertising the “world’s largest collection of horns and antlers.” Not a very fitting juxtaposition of serious and silly.

If you’re curious, you can see the entire 2004 CCCC program, with my interspersed photographs. (It’s a medium sized PDF, so it may take a while to load.)