Someone's Job Only Part of the Story

Breaking Stereotypes

I t was 1981; I was teaching photography three nights a week, and in the daytime making someone else rich by managing their apartments and their problems. I was going nowhere fast.

I had started teaching a new class; one of the students, not much older than me, stayed after and started a conversation. "You don't remember me, do you?" he asked. I didn't, but he looked vaguely familiar.

He went on, "I'm the cop who collected the fingerprints from the window at your apartment when you had that burglary about six months back."

A cop? A Denver cop? In my photo class on Portraits and Nudes? I was suddenly nervous and suspicious. This was after all, Denver, and in 1981 I was the ONLY photographer foolish enough in the entire state to teach a workshop on nude art photography. This was Denver; the town Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy kept trying to escape from in On The Road. Heck, nobody had signed up for the class to take portraits. I had only added "Portraits..." to my course title to appease the school, and after all, the lighting for both subjects is similar.

So why was he here, taking this class? Was the Vice Detail making sure I was on the up and up? It was one of those bitter cold, late fall nights, I had a lot of equipment to carry six blocks to my apartment, and this policeman named "Marty" is offering me a ride home. Should I take it? Being lazy, tired and reluctant to half-freeze to death, I said yes. That ride home was the start of a 15 year friendship.

"A Denver Cop in my Portraits and Nude Class? What was he doing here?"

Later, when I first saw Marty's photographs from the class, I thought privately to myself, "Not a chance!" There wasn't anything wrong with his exposure, of course. He had that down pat. The problem was his images all looked like evidence; his nudes looked like crime scenes. Of course, there was a reason for this: Detective Martin Golden was and is a forensic photographer and had spent seven years in homicide. He's been a cop for 28 years. Like some people collect bowling trophies, he has a wall of certificates at home from "vacationing" at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

Until meeting Marty Golden, I saw policemen the way many of us do: one-dimensional. You know that old saw? Policemen are always around when no one wants them and can never be found when they are truly needed. Well, it's just not true. Living alone as I do, more than a thousand miles from family, Marty has been there for me. Once when having surgery, he brought me to the hospital, waited the several hours before, during and after the operation, and when I was ready to be released he was there to give me a ride home. More than once when my life was in a rut, he has been willing to sit down over a cup of coffee and listen.

I learned Marty was genuinely interested in art and photography; an armchair psychiatrist's view would be that he was trying to provide some balance in his life, something to compensate against the darker aspects of the job he performs daily.

"I was the ONLY
photographer foolish
enough in the entire
state to teach a
workshop on nude art
photography."

Rocky Mountain National Park, 1984 photograph by Marty Goldman, hung in theDenver Museum of Art

He joined the small but growing group of students who came back for different courses; I was attracting a "following." And over a period of time, Marty's work improved. He was developing a sense of line and shape and form. He began making pictures instead of just taking them.

One day Marty brought me a difficult negative; it was a black and white scene of a forest glade, and he wanted to get the best possible print. There was an unprecedented opportunity in 1984; the Denver Art Museum was seeking photographic submissions from the public. There was this impressive traveling exhibit opening at the Museum in honor of the Centennial of our National Parks system. The public submissions would be juried, and a select few would be allowed to join the exhibit and hang alongside Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eliot Porter and other master prints.

I thought Marty's chances were slim, but we worked several hours, printing and manipulating the image. He mounted the best enlargement, and sent it in for consideration.

You've already guessed it; Marty's photograph was accepted. When the show opened, we put on our art museum attire and went to see his photograph, hanging there among the masters. Marty had arrived as an artist. And of course, I was both secretly proud and jealous at the same time.

Marty learned everything he could from me then joined Denver's Art Students League (an offshoot of the Art Students League in New York). There he took classes in oil painting and now works on landscapes at home. He also experiments with polaroid image transfer materials, palladium, gum bichromate and bromoil printing.

Marty remarked, "Picasso said during the last years of his life, 'It has taken me a lifetime to learn how to paint like a child.' With me it has taken years to learn how to make photographs like they did a hundred years ago."

And no, he hasn't given up his day job. In October he starts his 29th year on the force.

"One day Marty brought me a difficult negative.."

"Evidence as Art" Fingerprint taken on knife.

Information about the photographs that appear in this article, from top to bottom. 1. A gum bichromate print on watercolor paper. 2. Self-portrait by Marty Golden. 2. Silver gelatin B/W print. 3. Palladium print on watercolor paper. 4. Polaroid print. All photographs copyrighted by Martin James Golden, Jr. All Rights Reserved.