By: Stephen McCollum; Photos by Don L. Rogers

Don Rogers has a camera, well, a bunch of cameras because he’s a professional photographer, and he is increasingly about the business of pointing it at people and places in a way that brings to mind some words of the late Fred Rogers, he of the TV “Neighborhood” fame.

“The thing I remember best about successful people I’ve met all through the years is their obvious delight in what they’re doing…They just love what they’re doing, and they love it in front of others.”

Like a lot of little girls, Don and Linda’s daughter, Jamie, did ballet. Unlike many girls, Jamie’s dad always had a camera at hand, and often a way to manipulate light indoors, and one day as she was studiously trying to tie her ballet slippers, Don captured the moment. 

“Kids are fascinated by shoes, especially learning to tie, and one time before a recital I had her in the studio, all dressed in her tutu with her hair done up, so I used a purple gel and took some photos,” he said. 

The result was satisfactory enough to this self-professed perfectionist’s eye that he had a 16-by-20 inch print made and entered it in the Indiana State Fair professional photographers’ competition. After the fair opened, father and daughter went to see the exhibition.

“Daddy, Daddy, is a purple ribbon good?” Jamie gasped after running ahead to see her picture as her dad stopped to greet another person. Don had participated in 4-H and knew that purple designated Best of Show. 

Don Rogers has been training his camera on people—from family to weddings to university students—for several decades. His portrait skills are obvious to a visitor to the Don L. Rogers Photography page on Facebook or at rogers.photoreflect.com. 

Rogers doubled up his private studio business with almost three decades on the Photo Services staff at Ball State University. Since he retired earlier this year, his Facebook pages have been lighting up with a spectacular array of images, mostly shot in and around Blackford County.

The light in the sky can send Rogers scampering out of the house at all hours. Recently, a particularly spectacular sunrise sent him looking for just the right context.

“It was a very unusual sky—the clouds were very low but the sunlight was intense behind them,” he explained. “I knew I needed something to put up against the clouds and light and I thought of St. John’s Catholic Church because of its location and it’s a majestic object. I got about two blocks from the church, realized the angle was good, so I parked, took some shots, made an adjustment and shot some more. I decided it looked good, so I came home.”

That image has garnered more likes, loves, and shares on Facebook than almost anything Rogers has posted to date. All that love sparked the perfectionist impulse in the pro.

“As I began to look at the photo later, I asked myself why I didn’t take the time to get out the tripod, lower the ISO setting, more carefully frame it, you know, make a real project out of it,” he said.

“My mom loved photography and I remember her jumping out of the car and running to take pictures,” he said. “We went to the World’s Fair in New York City in 1964 and she let me take a few pictures on the city streets. When we got the pictures back, I was thrilled. Then a few people asked me, ‘What’s this picture of?’ and I realized that it was a picture of some pigeons but they were too far away for the average person to see. That was my first experience with other people not knowing what I was seeing!”

A few years later Rogers entered high school. His older siblings, sister Diana and brother Dave, both had participated in journalism and they encouraged him to try it. They knew that under Ed Henderson’s leadership he would have a positive experience. Rogers credits Henderson with steering him down the all-seeing path that became his career.

“Ed Henderson was as good as it got when it came to high school journalism,” said Rogers. “He gave me a two-and-a-quarter-square and I started taking pictures. He also believed in getting students involved outside the school, and that’s how I got started taking pictures for the News-Times, which I continued to do all through high school, college, up until just a few years ago.”

With a nod to the times, Rogers admits that he often uses the sophisticated iPhone in his pocket. His advice for non-professionals to move from a simple two-dimensional snapshot to something a little more artful? 

“Try to think in three dimensions,” he said. “Find your foreground subject, but try to frame it with a background that gives it a three-dimensional look. One of my mentors at Ball State, Ed Self, used to say that the best camera for a photo is the one you have with you, and that is never more true than in the age of the smart phone.”

Linda has cultivated the virtue of patience when it comes to her husband’s art of framing his world in images that he can share with others. 

“We were on the Outer Banks once and I knew about a lighthouse in the area and while we were visiting it I realized that in about an hour the sunset was likely to frame the lighthouse just right,” he recalled. “We were about to leave and I asked her if I could have that much time and she said yes. It took all of that time and the annoyance of some huge mosquitoes but the resulting image was recognized by the University Photographers’ Association of America and the annual Roberts Camera show in Indianapolis.”

So, as you travel around this Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, stay in touch with his Facebook and Internet archives for a little inspiration.

With a bow to Don’s mother, who put that camera in his boyhood hands and to Ed Henderson who did likewise, we turn again to more words from THE Mr. Rogers: “Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go.” Don Rogers’ bright patterns are showing now. Take a look.