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Once a month or so, someone comes up wanting to tell me of their fond memories of Barry Edmonds, not realizing the slight differences in our last names. It has been an astounding number of people. • • • Edmonds was a great guy, except for the occasions when he�d send me out in the snow to get him a cup of coffee. Really, I never minded the walk to Halo Burger, or the mistaken blood association with Edmonds. It�s understandable; I�m the right age, with the same Celtic background and bit of red in the hair. Edmonds, The Journal�s director of photography until his death in 1982, was responsible for delivering a number of lessons that would have been much delayed or never learned had I not had the fortune of working for him. I never really understood why he hired me. We were photographers in different leagues. He was a guy who could have done anything or gone anywhere with his camera. He had been offered opportunities to become a staff photographer with National Geographic magazine, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. �That�s not for us,� he told his young wife, Lily, who still lives in their Grand Blanc Township home. �I was disgusted with him. I think he should have taken that job (at National Geographic), but he just loved Flint and Genesee County,� she said. She said Edmonds� success was the combination of his passion for art (he was a painter as well as a photographer) and his love of people. �He wanted to share what was going on in the area with the people.� Turning away from the lure of national publications was also a decision he made understanding the value of family. Lily Edmonds remembers watching her husband from the kitchen as dinner progressed in the dining room. �I wasn�t sure if he was the head of the table or one of the kids. It was chaos. They were having a wonderful time.� Edmonds invited me to join the photography staff in 1978. Being young, I was too wet behind the ears to fully understand what it meant to be a witness to the world with a responsibility of translating observations into images. But Edmonds understood. • • • There�s a way of taking this mechanical device and loading photo-sensitive material inside, pointing it in the right direction and opening a small window at the right moment that can make people laugh or cry. Edmonds grasped the concept that some photographers never will. He knew about light and how the quality of light can help to tell a story. He understood about how a look in someone�s eyes was really a reflection of a person�s heart. Perhaps more than any other quality of Edmonds was the size of his own heart for his subjects. �I don�t know if he was a great humanitarian or a great photographer, or both,� said Lily Edmonds. She tells of Barry checking up on transients in Willson Park in Flint and walking with them to a local restaurant to fill their stomachs, or taking them to see his friend and physician, Dr. Sarjit Singh. The veteran of 27 years at The Journal knew early in life what his future would be. �He just fell in love with his mother�s Brownie camera,� said Lily Edmonds. �He was mesmerized by it. He just decided that�s what he wanted to do.� Edmonds agreed to pay the neighbor�s water bill if he could use the darkroom in their home. �He just loved what he was doing. It was the only job he ever had,� said longtime friend Bud Thurston of Grand Blanc. It wasn�t the only job Edmonds had � he taught art at Mt. Morris High and he took photographs for the Flint News Advertiser � but it may have been the only job where Barry was able to demonstrate his gifts. �He was a very sincere talent, a super guy,� Thurston said. Thurston recalls the hours of sitting and talking with Edmonds in the University Club on the top floor of Genesee Towers, where a fresh supply of Edmonds� photographs and portraits continually greeted diners from behind the bar until the club was redecorated. �He liked faces and he liked people,� Thurston said. • • • Edmonds was able to anticipate a photograph in the making. On one occasion, he and I both responded to a fire at the old General Motors Fisher No. 1 plant in Flint, when suddenly Barry pushed his pointed finger over my shoulder saying, �Go get it!� Turning my head, I could see a firefighter being carried from the building by a small group of other firefighters 100 yards down the road. The photo made the front page the next day with my name under it, but it was hard to accept any credit.
Staff photographer Bruce Edwards started at The Journal in 1978. He can be reached at (810) 766-6252 or bedwards@flintjournal.com. 
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