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A Soldier Says Good-bye RICH ABRAHAMSON
February 23, 2019 - March 23, 2019
LOCATED IN THE SMALL WALL GALLERY (Third Floor)
Artist Statement
Camera’s freeze moments in split seconds while life passes in days, weeks and years.
Some lives are mixed with both quality and quantity of time. Those individuals celebrate memories while unaware that the final chapters of their lives are being written.
Photographs help us punctuate their journeys, empowering us to tell important stories. Photojournalists are called upon to document these events. This is our legacy.
In “A Soldier Says Good-bye” we follow a World War II veteran through the twilight of life. A time when moments resonate with love, vulnerability and tears.
The soldier, a 96 year-old Swede from Boxholm, Iowa, farmed with horses and picked corn by hand before joining the first group of Boone County Iowa men drafted into service in 1942. He joined the Army Air Corps and was assigned to crew on a B-24 heavy bomber.
Instead of harnessing a team of horses and working the fields, he was completing pre flight inspections on his plane. He’d push the aircraft’s throttles full forward, bringing four thundering 1200 horse power Pratt and Whitney engines to life.
The serene view over an Iowa corn field was replaced with the sensation of flying over the white caps of the Adriatic Sea, skimming above the water to avoid radar detection.
Some soldiers never came home. Others returned to Central Iowa and into the arms of their families. Many returned to the farm and their jobs. They got married. Started families.
A few lived to be old men One of them was my dad, Staff Sergeant Richard L. Abrahamson.
This is his story. A tribute told through the eyes of his son, the photojournalist.
Biography
Rich Abrahamson of Ames, Iowa is a career photojournalist and writer. His appreciation for photography and stories began as a kid while watching slide shows his dad created with photos shot around the family farm and during summer vacations.
In high school and college, he was part of the newspaper and yearbook staffs. The experience laid the groundwork for his career choice and showed him that work could be fun.
At 21, he bought his first 35 mm film camera while taking a photography course taught by Bob Person at the Des Moines Area Community College. Person’s style of instruction impacted students, including Abrahamson, with thoughtful advice and passionate critiques of student work.
In 1987 Abrahamson earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from Northwest Missouri State University. A few months later he was hired as the lone photographer on the staff of the Fort Morgan Times, a small family-owned newspaper on Colorado’s northeast plains.
In 1991 he joined the staff of the Fort Collins Coloradan where he worked for the next 22 years.
Abrahamson has completed news, sports and documentary assignments throughout Colorado and the United States. He’s built a portfolio of images from 46 states and nine Canadian provinces.
For 26 years he covered professional and college sports including the Denver Broncos, Colorado Avalanche, Colorado Rockies and Colorado State University Rams.
His subjects have included Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama, Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, hall of fame quarterback John Elway, musicians Ray Charles, David Bowie, Carlos Santana, Buddy Rich and the Grateful Dead.
In 2013 Abrahamson returned to central Iowa and began freelancing as a photographer, writer and columnist for central Iowa newspapers. He also serves as a writer and photographer for Iowa State University’s Department of Residence newsletter.
