I worked for a graphic design firm.

A design firm is sort of like an advertising agency but they don’t make any money off the placement of advertising space. They have to live or die off the quality of their design work, and this small mom&pop shop (Literally) had been doing so for years when I came along- ostensibly as sales but I ended up automating most of the business end of the business for them, which helped them immeasurably, I like to think.

At the time, there was a guy who worked in a local bar playing piano and organ. He was very good, but he had almost no other skill as he was blind from birth. His hobby was making audiotapes of thunderstorms, and he had an amazing collection. I used to go listen to them with him, I can still sit and listen to a thunderstorm for hours, I love them so much.

The design firm had to do some work for a very demanding customer, and in order to make sure there were NO mistakes, we did full color proofs. This process was very expensive and very unusual- the fiunished product would look exactly like the proof, except that the proof was sort of “layered”, for lack of a better word. You could easily feel the texture of the different overlapping and intersecting colors because of the way the proof system functioned.

My friend was aware of the flash of lightning, but no more; he had never seen it, and once mentioned to me he would like to have his sight even if only to understand what it was like when lightning raced across the sky.

I knew what I had to do.

I had a friend who had access to a Mitchell GC 35mm camera, and we set out to do a little photography. We set the camera up in a good solid storm, and waited. We managed to catch four lightning strikes on a 100 foot roll of Ektachrome. The processing was not cheap, but we did it. We picked the best sequence, a good arc that spread across the sky and branched into a good half dozen “fingers”

We took those prints to the proof house.

The proof house, once they understood what we wanted, did the prints for cost. There were six prints all in all, and they were a series that showed the lightning strike from the initial “feeler” to the bright arc. The best part was, you could feel the ridges of the arc as it slashed across the paper.

We took the series of six prints to our friend, and he opened them up, wondering what silliness would drive me to giving him six photographs. And then he touched them.

He kept going from the first to the second to the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and tracing the lines of lightning as they arced across the picture. We played the recording of the specific strike so he could imagine it moving as he touched it.

he cried and cried.

Sometimes you don’t have any idea how a tiny, seemingly insignificant thing can affect someones life until you understand how much it means to them. Do you ever look around and see whose lives you might be able to affect?