Rangefinder Magazine
Features - June 2001

Former Photography Students Pay Tribute to Warren King
Photographic 'Mr. Holland' of California High School

From the Warren King tribute web site. Photo by Jeff Sedlik

FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS Warren King has given some 16,000 photography students a new way of seeing and a new sense of self. On March 31, hundreds of those former students, in turn, gave King their thanks at a tribute in Studio City, CA. Originally conceived as a simple appreciation dinner by two of King’s many successful former students, the tribute mushroomed into an event drawing more than 600 participants from 33 states and led to the establishment of the Warren King Foundation to support arts education.

Now in his 70s, King taught at Reseda High School in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley from 1955 to 1987. He transformed the school—perhaps the first to have a classroom specially built for photography—into a photo education leader. Reseda High photo students consistently won top prizes and scholarships and many of its alumni are eminent professional photographers. Others have gone on to different careers, but few, it seems, were untouched by King and their experiences in his class.

“Mr. King’s influence in my life and career has been profound,” says Bobby Anderson, a filmmaker and novelist. “He taught me how to think with my eyes and see with my brain. He taught me how to see designs in unexpected places and how to tell stories with simple designs. Most of all, he invested in me as a person; I think he made each of his students feel like they were the most important people in his life.”

“What I learned about photography still enters my classroom practices when I teach language and literature courses, which are a way of seeing metaphorically,” says Philip Luther, a professor of English and department head at the University of Cincinnati.

These comments are a small sample of the sentiments that have accumulated on a special web site dedicated to King and the tribute event. Reading the comments, it’s hard not to see King as the photographic equivalent of the music teacher in “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” Comment after comment recalls his classes as life-changing events.

Today, King continues to teach photography at Reseda Community Adult School. And, if the remarks in the on-line guest book are any indication, he continues to have a great impact on his students. Reseda High School, however, no longer teaches photography. The color darkroom, a relative rarity in high school programs, is now a coat closet.

Advertising photographers Gil Smith and Jeff Sedlik are among King’s most dedicated fans. The two had no idea what they were getting into in 1999 when they decided to invite their high school photography teacher to dinner. Before they could set a date, they encountered Dan Steinhardt, then a marketing executive for Eastman Kodak Company, and Jay Silverman, another successful photographer. Realizing that their experience with King was mirrored in thousands of other students and disappointed by the cutbacks in the Reseda High photo program, the foursome set out to hold a tribute to their beloved mentor. The event would also call attention to what they saw as an important education issue: the near disappearance of vocational training in the Los Angeles school system.

But the organizers faced some huge obstacles. King’s Reseda High photo program had drawn students from 14 different high schools for about 30 years. Faced with that complexity, one professional reunion organizer refused to take on the job, saying the enormous task was “insane.” Undeterred, the four alumni, now officially a committee, collected names from fellow former students. Sedlik built a web site (learning web design in the process), and the committee created an online system for volunteers to use to scour the Internet for alumni.

“The responses were incredible,” says Sedlik. “One alum from the ‘50s burst into tears when we said we were calling about Mr. King.”

As the response grew, so did the plans for the event. Somehow a dinner or even a banquet was no longer enough. The organizers formed a foundation and transformed the dinner into a fundraising event for the Warren King Foundation Scholarship Fund, which will use an endowment to perpetually fund scholarships for young photography students. Brooks Institute of Photography, a leading photography school in Santa Barbara, pledged to provide matching funds.