Toms Passing and What It Meant To Me

   Today I attended a memorial service to honor and remember Tom Riley. Tom wasn't famous that I know of and he didn't invent anything or become some wealthy mogul that people would be familiar with. Yet Tom will be remembered to many as a Husband, Dad, Brother, Brother in Christ, a Helper, Teacher, Friend, a Train enthusiast, and perhaps in some ways the least on a very long list, a Photographer.
     This of course is not to under-mind Tom's ability as a Photographer but instead to explain how amazing a privilege it is that we as Photographers have. While Tom had many friends and family who loved him and whose lives he touched in various ways, he touched the lives of many others in a way that goes unnoticed. People who might pass by him and not even remember him at all. You see in addition to his day job Tom was a Wedding Photographer. Tom photographed couples on what has to be describe as one of the most significant days of their lives. Using his creativity, knowledge and know how to evaluate and judge the environment of the occasion, he would press the shutter button of his camera at just the right moment and capture an image. He stopped the hands of time as he clicked that button and simultaneously captured the emotion of that moment as well. Now, frozen in time in a photo album or on the wall of some home he's never been to in a town he may not know, lived in by people he never met are the children and children's children of those couples and they are enjoying photographs that he created. They tell a story, a piece of a bigger story about the lives of two people, who after meeting and falling in love, decided to marry and perhaps start a family together. Whether the couple or Tom himself knew it at that time, Tom was creating that families first heirlooms.
   Yes, Tom did indeed touch the lives of many. This explains perfectly what I love about photography. I do wish I knew Tom better. I would probably ask him a lot of questions about his picture taking years. I wonder if he ever had a sense of how much he mattered in the lives of those he photographed. I do. I love knowing that although my time on this planet is short, what I do here has the ability to speak volumes both now and after I'm gone.

W. Thomas Riley

December 12,1946-February 11,2012