Tribute Obit

If I were important enough to rate a tribute obit on my passing, what photo would they use of me? 

It's a hypothetical question, since I really don't think between now and my passing, I'll do enough to create a need to cobble a tribute obit together and include a photo, or two if there's room. For sure at this point, there is no prewritten obit lying about on disk drive waiting for me to pass on.

I read the NYT obits daily. I scan the online edition before I even open the door and retrieve the print edition from the front lawn. Thus, I'm always looking at the head shots of the recently departed who did something worthy, notable, or bad enough that the editor of the page lobbies for the inclusion of their obituary at the daily meeting.

There are all kinds of photos that accompany these obits. Professional executive head shots with shadow lighting, with the subject seated at a desk, leaning on a desk, standing in front of an array of  books in a cluttered living area, whipping up something in a kitchen or laboratory, or a news photo of when they were in their prime from the era that created the need for the obit. Famous, for doing something famous.

One recent photo I particularly like is that of William Wulf, with a two-fisted grip of a handrail on a circular staircase of many stories. It looks like he's standing in the barrel of a huge gun.

Mr. Wulf, 83, was a pioneering computer scientist who worked with Arapnet, the precursor to the Internet we use so widely today. It's a great shot because it shows an image of someone who looks like they did what they did. It's also a fairly recent photo, showing that advancing age didn't seem to diminish Mr. Wulf's stature.

Photos of all kinds of poses and vintages dominate the tribute obits.  You find when the NYT does one of those "Overlooked No More" tributes—usually for  a woman—who passed away maybe as much as 100 years ago, but whose passing was hardly noticed, despite what might have been significant achievements, they've even managed to retrieve a very faded daguerreotype,. giving us an idea of what the subject looked like.

An example of that was when they did an 'Overlooked No More' tribute obit for Clara Driscoll, a designer of the glass lamp shades for Tiffany lamps in the early part of the 20th-century.

Maybe because I'm a sports fan, I like the photos that accompany the sport figures who have passed away. 

A recent one was for Dick Fosbury, who stunned the 1968 Olympics with his at-the-time unique "Fosbury Flop" of going over the high jump bar backwards.

I paid attention to the Olympics then, and marveled like everyone else that Fosbury was able to do what he did. I tried high jumping in high school and used the "scissor" technique, which eventually led to those who used a "barrel" roll over the bar.

I wasn't any good at it, and never competed in the event. I can almost still fell the strain the technique put on my groin. I can remember the announcers during the 1968 telling the youth of America to stop leaping over the back of their family coaches. They were ruining the cushions.

Sometimes the photo doesn't seem to fit the subject's achievements. Consider the one accompanying Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel, the computer chip making company in today's NYT.

He is seen in the Silicon Valley Headquarters of Intel, posed with mannequins who look like they've just auditioned for Star Trek. The photo seems at odds with the man credited in 1965 with formulating "Moore's Law," that the capacity of computer chips would double at predictable intervals, making computers faster and able to hold more data, in effect eventually making them cheap enough for the mass market. It all came true.

We read in the obituary that in the 1960s a single silicon transistor cost $150. It didn't take long before eventually being able to buy100 million transistors for $10.

The print edition of Mr. Moore's obituary has yet to appear. But further down in the online edition he is shown next to a fairly large silicon wafer disk, likely capable of an untold capacity for holding something. It would seem to be a more fitting image to be next to than an exhibit of space-age mannequins.

As for myself, I really haven't given any thought what photo I would like to see of myself being used for a tribute obituary. Maybe because there is zero likelihood of there being a tribute obituary, at least one written by others.

But, should the need ever arise for some cosmic reason, perhaps a photo yet to be taken of myself at this keyboard, writing about other people who have passed away.

I might like that.

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