His analog portraits captured everyday folks at their spiffiest

People featured in this column have been selected randomly from the telephone book and cellphone numbers contributed by readers.

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For more than half a century, Don Mathison framed the faces of women, men, teens and cute babies. Then he'd snap their portraits.

Today, at 84, he reflects on those thousands of photographs as if his memory is the film that captured them all.

"I went to work for Engstrom's Studio in 1946 and I've been in photography ever since, until I retired in the late 1990s," he said.

Asked to pose for his own portrait, Don, of Clarkston, assumed the posture of an artist still immersed in the magic of old-school photography, even though his smile was about to be captured by a newfangled camera.

"I got out of it just at the right time as far as I was concerned," he said of his career, "because I didn't want to get involved in that digital stuff."

Engstrom's Studio (now Ridinger's the Art of Photography) was already a business mainstay on Lewiston's Main Street when Don, born in Troy, moved with his family and attended high school in Clarkston during World War II.

"I took pictures for the school annual," he said. Don also recalled his introductory misadventure in the darkroom, fumbling with black and white film. "I put the paper backing into the development trays to develop it and threw the film on the floor."

He began his studio work in 1946, right out of high school.

"You might say I apprenticed at the studio," he said.

Then along came the Korean War and a stint in the National Guard.

"When I came back, they needed a photographer down there at the studio. And they asked if I'd take over," he recalled. "And I said, well, yes, with the provision that I could buy the studio when it became available."

A couple years later, he made the deal.

Don also remembered the day an attractive new employee was hired.

"And she went to work with me in the darkroom. But you know, nothing developed," he said, cracking a new smile for an old joke.

The woman, of course, was Frances, Don's eventual wife.

"He always said he was trying to get up enough nerve to ask me out and then I took off with this other person," Frances said.

She and Don (after earlier marriages) were wed 33 years ago. Frances, who brought four children to the new marriage, is a retired executive director of the Lewis-Clark Early Childhood Program.

"They all look at him as a father," Frances said of the relationship her children and grandchildren have with Don. Indeed, family photographs are stationed throughout the Mathison home in Clarkston. So are, no doubt, thousands of family and individual portraits displayed in homes throughout the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley - many, if not most, shot by Don.

"I went to a funeral recently," Don said, "and someone said, 'Hey, you took my baby picture.' "

As a studio photographer for more than 50 years, Don said he embraced the evolution of film photography and cameras, from his first days when he used 8-inch-by-10-inch negatives to more contemporary times and 120 mm professional portrait cameras. The thrill of seeing a face come alive in the darkroom development trays never got old, he said. But such anticipation is all but gone now - replaced by instantaneous digital images that can be transferred to computers and doctored with impunity.

"You know," Don said, "I can't tell ya what they teach in photography now."

Asked to name his most famous portrait subject, Don said, "The only one I can think of was Lenne Jo Hallgren, who was Junior Miss nationally, and I did her formal portrait."

Hallgren, of Clarkston, won the 1976 America's Junior Miss title in Mobile, Ala.

For the most part, Don said, his portraits were of everyday people who lived everyday lives and one day decided it was time to get dressed up and offer their best side.

By the way, Don jested, making babies smile was never a problem. They just seemed to take one look at him and break out laughing.

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Johnson may be contacted at djohnson@lmtribune.com.