The Genius and the Muse Read Free

course.”
    “Oh, of course.” He chuckled. “Pay attention, Kate. You can learn a lot from history. It informs everything we do as artists. Our vision is formed by our past.”
    “I thought our vision is what we want to see in the future.”
    “It’s both, of course.” He ran his fingers through messy brown hair and kicked his chair back. “Our history informs what steps we take toward the future. We can no sooner dismiss our past than we can dismiss the medium we choose to express ourselves through as artists.”
    Kate whispered, “Yes, Master Jedi.”
    He shook his head and smiled. “So young,” he said. “You’ll figure it out eventually.”
    “And moving along with the theme of ‘figuring it out,’ I have some questions for you on the aperture settings I was using in that canyon shoot. Can you take a look?”
    The two photographers launched into a discussion of light and shadow, wrapped in the technical jargon of digital photography. Kate did all of her work in digital medium. She loved the freedom it gave her to manipulate images and experiment with different effects. In her opinion, it was also easier to process. Instead of spending hours in a darkroom peeling the skin off her hands with water and chemicals, she ruined her eyes with hours spent in front of a computer monitor. Art, she knew, would always take a toll, whether it was calluses or eye strain. Kate had picked eye strain.
    They argued and debated back and forth for forty-five minutes as they studied her proofs. By the end of their appointment, Kate and Chris were both drained, and it was nearing lunch time.
    Professor Bradley asked, “Want to join me? I packed leftovers from dinner last night.”
    Kate’s eyes lit up. “Did Dee cook?”
    “Of course. Why do you think I brought the leftovers? It’s chicken biryani.”
    “Yes, please!” Kate grabbed her binder from the desk, inadvertently knocking over a picture on her professor’s desk along with a half-empty coffee cup. “Oops, sorry. Let me help.”
    She quickly bent to her backpack to retrieve some napkins she’d stuffed there the day before. Turning back, she started to mop up the coffee as Chris did the same on his side. Luckily, he was a fairly organized teacher, so his desk wasn’t littered with anything other than lens caps and a few filters.
    Kate picked up the picture she’d knocked over, turning it to wipe off the front where it had fallen in the spill. It was a color snapshot of a group of young people sitting on the porch of an old log cabin she’d never really noticed before. Looking more closely, she realized she recognized some of the people in the picture.
    She grinned. “Is this you and Dee?”
    Chris glanced up to see her holding the frame. A small smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Yes, we were still in school. Maybe… seven or eight years ago? We must have been about your age when that was taken.”
    Kate smiled and looked over the young faces in the picture. There was Dee and Chris. A tall African-American woman who looked vaguely familiar and a laughing blonde with messy hair. Sitting beside her professor and his wife was one other couple with their arms wrapped around each other.
    “Is that—” Kate paused and squinted, unsure of who she thought she was seeing. “Is that Reed O’Connor with you?”
    O’Connor’s piercing blue gaze stared into the lens. Kate hadn’t known he had blue eyes. He was rarely photographed in public, and when he was, he always wore dark glasses.
    “Yes, that’s Reed. I thought you knew we went to school together. We graduated the same year, in fact.”
    Kate had never seen a picture of him from his past, even though she’d looked through old yearbooks in the library. The few pictures of the photographer she’d seen had all been taken in the last few years, since his photography had become nationally known. And he was always alone. Even in group pictures, he seemed to hold himself separate.
    She looked again.