Ross Hall
"All Ahead, Slow"
By Sandy Compton of Sandpoint Magazine
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The late photographer Ross Hall was, or all my growing up years, a Sandpoint fact of life. I didn't know him well, but like the lake, like Pack River and Lightning Creek and the mountains, he was an integral part of the country. His pictures were everywhere.
Ross Hall died in 1990, but he left a legacy to Sandpoint larger than even his beautiful photographs. My first run-in with Mr. Hall came at the behest of my mother. In the studio on First Street, the "whole fam damily," as my father quipped, was arranged on a brocade fainting couch and somehow coaxed to look sensible and happy for 1/60 of a second at f-8 for family portrait.
He caught us at our best, proud young parents with three young boys dressed in cowboy shirts and clean dungarees rolled up at the cuff for "growing into." His patience must have been monumental, for the same sitting he captured us in twos and threes and fives, and we looked good in all of them.
Like many people eminent, Ross Hall was unassuming and gentle, a humble man. We brothers had no idea we were in the presence of greatness. Three or four clicks from his large-format camera, and we were free to resume being the three boy patrol,
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purveyors of mischief and mayhem. We rumbled out of the studio like a jet off a flight deck, leaving his smile in our wake.
When I grew older and would pass Mr. Hall on the street, I found he had a standard greeting, a simple phrase he used as easily as his camera. It was so corny and country I blushed to think of using it, but coming from him in his soft drawl, it was an element of life in Sandpoint. And he spread it as if he were sowing wildflowers: "Howdy, neighbor."
With that salute and the manner of delivery, he gave a clue to who he was. He said it slowly, as if to savor it, as he seemed to do with all of living. He walked a lot, the original "all ahead, slow" pace. He stopped to talk. He knew his neighbors. He knew the country. He understood the natural world, and loved it. Anyone who knew him or appreciated his art realized his character. It's not too much to say Ross Hall embodied Sandpoint's quality of life.
Quality of life. The phrase has become a noun, an object of pursuit and a slogan for real estate ads. It hints at the indescribable and lovely realities attached to being somewhere . . . or other. Sandpoint is touted for its quality of life and indeed life here is good. I like it best when it's "all ahead, slow," the cruising speed of Ross Hall, or a rowboat on Sand Creek, a ten-speed in fourth gear on the Long Bridge at sunset or a backcountry walker in open forest on a Cabinet ridgetop.
Yet even Sandpoint gets in a rush. We get to thinking there's no tomorrow, or maybe that yesterday is about to catch up with us. We rush hither and yon and forget to stop for our neighbors and visitors.
I do that. I get frantic around five o'clock. I cuss traffic on Fifth Avenue and (egad) pound on my steering wheel. I find myself loudly discussing the intelligence and ancestry of total strangers when they don't move fast enough to suit me. Particularly when I'm in pursuit of quality of life.
God help me remember Ross Hall, especially at times like five o'clock. Help me remember that pursuit of happiness is not a foot race, rat race or harness race, but a stroll by the lake at "all ahead, slow." Help me remember I can't pound on my steering wheel while saying, "Howdy, neighbor."
And help me remember quality of life has not so much to do with being some where as being someone. Ross Hall taught us that.