NATCHITOCHES – Robert Crew started photography as a way to help his students, but over the next 40 years photography grew into an enjoyable avocation.

     Crew will display two exhibits in the Orville J. Hanchey Gallery at Northwestern State University beginning Monday, Nov. 30. “Here Comes the Bride: Four Decades of Bridal Fashion and Portraiture” will be in Gallery 2 and “Places and Faces: Photographs of Louisiana Architecture and Characters” will be in the Main Gallery. The exhibits will run through Dec. 31. The Galleries are open weekdays from 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. while the university is in session.

     “These exhibits include a lot of my favorite photographs,” said Crew, who is the executive assistant to the president at NSU. “They include wedding photos, characters and shots that I needed to shoot such as still shots and statues.”

     The characters include Natchitoches attorney Tom Murchison and a Clarence man known as “Slim,” who walked from Clarence to Natchitoches daily always declining rides because he said, “I am in a hurry.” The exhibit will also feature wedding photographs he has taken through the years to illustrate the evolution of bridal fashion.

     Crew has been executive assistant to the president since 1997. He earned his bachelor’s degree at NSU in 1965 and his Master’s of Education at Northwestern in 1968. A classroom teacher in Caddo and St. Mary’s Parish from 1965 until 1970, Crew worked in the Louisiana State Department of Education from 1970 until 1997.

     Crew began taking photographs when he was teaching at Oak Terrace Junior High in Shreveport. Students at the school wanted to have a yearbook, and principal Stan Powell said he would buy a camera if someone would learn to use it. Crew volunteered.

     “As my photography got better, our yearbook improved,” said Crew. “I realized I had a lot to learn about taking pictures.”

     The following summer, he worked at Urbach Photography Studio in Shreveport and took a class in yearbook photography at the University of New Mexico.

     “The rest I’ve learned through experimentation, trial and error and practice,” said Crew. “I think you have to have an eye to see the shot before you take it.”

     Initially, Crew stuck to taking photographs of “things that didn’t move.” He started taking wedding photographs as a favor to a fellow teacher then agreed to continue doing it.

     “Shooting wedding was very stressful. You only got one shot in most instances because this was before digital photography and Photoshop,” said Crew. “For some reason I was fortunate and my photos always came out.”

     But he admits things didn’t always go smoothly.

     “One time, I was loading and reloading in the dark thinking I was using color film. After about six shots, I realized I had the wrong film,” said Crew. “I turned the cake around, turned the bride and groom around and never missed a beat.

     “At another wedding, the groom and the uncle of the bride got into a fight. I didn’t know whether to keep shooting or help break up the fight. The bride asked me to help break up the fight, so I did.”

     As Crew got more experience, he gained more opportunities to do professional work. He was the official photographer at two inaugurations of former Gov. Edwin Edwards and was photographer for the Louisiana Teachers Association.