Perrysburg Pulse Magazine Perrysburg Pulse October | Page 7

town had gone to college; many had not even completed school.
“Right then and there I decided I was going to go to
college. I didn’t even know what college was, and if it was
a good thing, but I was going to go. So I went and got an
undergraduate degree in sociology and Spanish, which
prepared me for basically nothing,” Norman quips.
M
Upon graduation, Norman began teaching. He took a job in
Cleveland teaching fourth graders. There were 39 kids in a room,
all from poor backgrounds. In addition to teaching, Norman
had to be a male role model, a father figure so to speak.
y introduction to Norman Fairman came
through his photos, which he shares in an
online group. I used to wait for his photos,
sometimes even performing an internet search
on the group just so I could admire what I
came to call Norman’s “photo of the day.” Through his
posts, Norman comes across as a kind gentleman who has a
unique perspective on nature, one which he loves to share.
When Norman and his wife, Jeanette, graciously invited
me to their home, I realized how right I was! Yet, as any
photography fan knows, there is a story behind the imagery.
“Out of all these work years, and there have been many, that
first job teaching was the most rewarding,” says Norman.
“There is a lovely story correlating to this. About four
Christmases ago, I got a message online from a gentleman
who was in my fourth-grade class back in ’71. That exchange
of messages went on to be a mini-class-reunion of kids I
knew 54 years ago. I even got an award from them, really
cocky to say, but the best one I’ve got. They all got personal
photos from me, framed and all,” Norman recalls proudly.
The home boasts a gallery that serves as a
living archive of Norman’s life’s work.
The teaching role had a lasting impact on the lives of the students as
well as Norman’s. The Cleveland school is where he met Jeanette.
“So the story is I’m an amateur photographer,” says Norman,
“and friends would love to come over and see what new photos
I had taken. Eventually we thought of having something
open to the public and came across this space in the old
garage that is fit for a little gallery. It just seemed like the
perfect thing to do. The day we got this completed was the
day I got my first symptoms. Of course, I haven’t had the
energy to do a lot more with the gallery since the illness,
but we did a few big shows and sold a lot of photos [on
grassycreekphotography.com] and the response has been nice.”
“She was that cute third-grade teacher down
the hall,” Norman remembers.
Jeanette adds, “My first year teaching was near where I grew
up in Cleveland, and I was invited to go to the inner city
to teach. Norman was a teacher in another school in the
inner city and he got transferred to mine. I saw him the day
before the kids came and I said, ‘Oh my God, look what
they sent this year!’ At the time, Norman had long hair
and wore contacts! We got married the following year.”
Norman suffers from Parkinson’s disease. His illness makes
it difficult to go out and shoot, but it doesn’t stop him.
It was Jeanette’s brother who helped spark
Norman’s interest in photography.
Norman loves nature in all its forms and has an eye for
finding beauty in the places least expected. On a wall in
the hallway hangs a rather simple, yet stunning, photo of
a path covered in lush foliage that conjures the feeling of
being somewhere exotic, like the Irish countryside.
“Jeanette’s brother was in the Vietnam War,” recalls
Norman, “and he came back with a Pentax camera with a
great lens on it, which I got from him. It was a black-and-
white film camera and a friend and I built a dark room
and printed our own photos. That was my initiation into
photography; however, the Master’s degree and career
took over, and so I put the camera away for 35 years.”
“That was taken in Put-in-Bay,” Norman
casually remarks, much to my surprise.
Norman shares a delightful example of how he comes across
photo opportunities by chance: “We have friends over at a farm
and I took a picture of their barn, which I posted to the online
group. Someone recognized the barn, and now our friends have
the photo displayed on their wall proudly. When we presented
this photo to them, we got an opportunity to witness thousands
of Monarch butterflies on their annual migration. Many of
my favorite photos are from there, and it happened by chance!
I love capturing photos here in the United States itself—it’s so
diverse in every possible way. I mean I get plenty of shots here
in Perrysburg and always have people asking me in awe, ‘Where
did you get this one?’, to which I joke—down the street!”
The aforementioned master’s degree (in Education) gave
Norman the prestige to secure a job lecturing at a university
in Mexico. While there, he completed a doctoral program.
After two years in Mexico, Norman received a call from his
old college roommate, who was living in Toledo. He needed
someone to join his manufacturing company and asked
Norman if he was up for the task. Norman was and made
the move back to the United States and his career shifted
into manufacturing, working first in Human Resources and
then transitioning into Sales and General Administration.
Manufacturing was not the last stop on Norman’s industry-
spanning career trajectory. He eventually landed in insurance.
Norman comes from humble beginnings in rural western
Pennsylvania. His hometown had only 12 houses and he
attended school in a rustic one-room shed. His father worked in
the coal mines and money was hard to come by. No one in the
It is safe to say that during his 35-year break from photography,
Norman was productive in other ways. In addition to living
and working abroad and climbing the corporate ladder in
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