Audio slide show: Pullman porter and family patriarch - latimes.com
This is an audio slideshow dedicated to the life of 100-year-old Lee Wesley Gibson, the oldest surviving Pullman porter. Pullman porters were train attendants that were hired after the end of the Civil War. As the slideshow's description says, Gibson was one of thousands of African American men whose lives were transformed for working for the Union Pacific Railroad.
What I love about this slideshow:
- In 2 minutes and 52 seconds, the show tells the story of Lee Wesley Gibson by giving us the essence of the man, even though we don't know many of the details. In that relatively short period of time, we learn that Gibson is a really hard worker (he looks really good for a hundred, huh?) and a dedicated family man. We learn that his life probably was fairly average of Pullman porters, yet Mel Melcon (the guy behind the slideshow) is able to eloquently show the beauty and complexity of this man's seemingly average life.
- Instead of Melcon narrating this guy's story, he lets him tell it himself. After watching this, you know that there would be no better way to tell this story.
- The pictures: The minor details Melcon utilizes make this a striking collection of shots. One of the first shots is of the living room in Gibson's house-- you can tell by the way his living room looks both bare and used that he is an older man who lives alone. The teddy bear sitting on a coach in a tidy, if not somewhat threadbare, living room seems indicative of this. The close-up shot reveals the spirit of Gibson in his eyes-- old, wise, and content.
No comments:
Post a Comment