When it came time for Class of 1977 members Bob Kniskern, Bob Snodgrass, and Mark Van Buskirk to submit theirs, the gentlemen were hoping for something out of the ordinary. Inspired by equal parts Butch Cassidy and Salvador Dali, the guys, and photographer Ben Thomas \u201975 came up with the photo below, shot on location in Waynetown near a mobile home Kniskern and Van Buskirk lived in as seniors.<\/p>\n And the photo remains memorable to that group 40 years later.<\/p>\n \u201cWe ran together toward the road from the farm field across the road from our trailer and jumped into the air together over the ditch to get some good air underneath us,\u201d Kniskern explained via e-mail. \u201cIt took a lot of takes before our photographer buddy Ben was satisfied he got one that would be cool.\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas was inspired by \u201cDali Atomicus,\u201d the 1948 Philippe Halsman portrait of Salvador Dali that appeared in Life<\/em> magazine. It\u2019s the one where Dali, three cats, an easel, a chair, a painting, Dali, and some water are all suspended in the frame.<\/p>\n \u201c’Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ was not far from memory at the time, and they happy attitude of the gang\u2019s successful migration is well reflected in our charging brothers\u2019 faces,\u201d Thomas recalled.<\/p>\n The nearly full-frame print was done in Thomas\u2019 darkroom in the wiring closet on the second floor of the Phi Psi house on H&W Control film. He used a Leitz Tiltall tripod and a 300mm f5.6 Canon FD lens on his F1 camera. He was at least a hundred feet away from his subjects to get them<\/p>\n framed that way.<\/p>\n \u201cIn retrospect, it would have been better on a more contrasty film, even if it would have been grainy,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cIf I ever see the negative again \u2013 I have no idea where it is, but I may still have it \u2013 I may have a go at it. That film I used, while very, very fine-grained, was notoriously lacking in contrast.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s still one of my favorite photos, regardless.\u201d<\/p>\n While the whereabouts of the negatives are in question, the final print still survives. \u201cI have the only print from the original negative for that photo,\u201d Van Buskirk said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was fun and we wanted to be different,\u201d Kniskern said, \u201cand I think we succeeded.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every yearbook publishes senior photos. It\u2019s a rite of passage. In the 1970\u2019s, The Wabash took the practice to new heights, publishing photos taken in different campus locations often with a prop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/07\/Dali.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3059"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3065,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3059\/revisions\/3065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/07\/77_seniors.jpg\")
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