Publishing a Memoriam

Wayne Swanson, portrait by Donna Cosentino •

With the recent passing of my friend and PhotoBook Journal colleague, Wayne Swanson (1951 – 2024), I realized that I wanted to write and publish a memoriam about him to share in our on-line magazine. First was the shock of his passing, while he had been in and out of the hospital since last November, his last message to me was upbeat about his continuing improvement.

Writing a memoriam about a friend is probably the hardest thing to do, even for a veteran editor. Honestly, with the PhotoBook Journal we have a lot of opportunities to review retrospectives for artists and photographers who have passed away. These are my least favorite book reviews to work on, thus I have been extremely diligent to ensure one of the other Contributing Editors are assigned that task. Perhaps as I get older, the underlying mortality narrative of a retrospective is getting too close to comfort. A memoriam is likewise emotional on many fronts, and in part is the underlying question of how might Wayne want to be remembered, while also unstated is how would I like to be remembered?

I have known Wayne for a little over four years and met when he was in my book development workshop hosted by Medium in San Diego. I quickly realized that as a retired journalist and having an interest in photobooks, he would make an ideal candidate as a book reviewer. It only took a little bit of subtle arm twisting and he was on board. Subsequently, as I came to know him better, I became aware of his extensive photographic body of work and his participation is the Southern California photographic community.

After sharing the news of his passing on my Facebook page, I started obtaining a series of tributes about him from others, which started to make the development of a Memoriam for him that much easier. As I had suspected, Wayne made a subtle impact on many individuals.

Interesting, for the many events we attended together, I do not have any photographs of Wayne. Due to his need of a cane to get around, I think he had a strong tendency to be a bit camera shy, more so than most photographers. I suspect that for many photographers, me included, we are a lot more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it. Thus, I was able to tap into his photographic community to obtain the necessary photographs of him, a few at his solo exhibition in San Diego and at another Medium event, for my article.

Likewise, due to his exhibitions, website and events, I was also able to easily obtain his biographical information; where he born and raised, formal education at a university near Chicago and overview of his journalist professional career before ‘retiring’ to pursue his strong interest in photography (and photographic books). He was a proficient book reviewer, as we published 70 of his succinct book reviews, which he was well known for developing a tantalizing introductory hook to bring the reader into the article.

So after drafting a few versions over a little bit of time, I think I was able to prepare an adequately written obituary. In some way, I feel he is looking over my shoulder offering his kind advice on how I might restructure a sentence (or two) and a different way to help articulate a certain point, as he had done so many times before. Yes, he was an excellent proof reader of what I wrote and I would like to think that I had absorbed a few things over the years.

I hope that I don’t need to do very many of these, while regretfully I am getting to that age when these life events will probably occur more often than I like.

Warmest regards, Doug