Writing Wednesday: Acknowledgements

Writing acknowledgements is always gratifying if a bit bitter-sweet. For me, at least, it marks the end of a project and I get more joy from the doing than the having. Yesterday morning, I wrote the acknowledgements for my book on oil, photography, and archaeology in the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and submitted the revised draft to the press. I was happy to acknowledge to all the people who contributed in various, often subtle ways to this project. Acknowledgements I wrote most of this book as my dad became ill. He got me interested in photography when I was a younger. He took me to buy my first camera, my first digital camera, and mentored me as much as I was willing to listen. At some moment in my life and with the help of my colleagues, I became an adequate technical photographer and the photographs in this volume are a testimony to that adequacy. As my dad’s health failed I started to take more photographs on my daily walks in a local park and around the house. While the…