Bill Lucas was born in 1944, the youngest (by two minutes) of a pair of identical twins. He grew up in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts and attended Tufts University, where he majored in economics while also thoroughly enjoying fraternity life. The party ended abruptly; the day after his college graduation in 1966, he was on a bus to basic training, having been drafted into the Army. He attended infantry training and Officer Candidate School and began his tour as a second lieutenant.
He was deployed overseas, first spending about a year in Germany. The PX sold cameras and Bill used his Army paycheck to acquire his first serious camera, a Pentax SLR. During that time, he began photographing what he was seeing in Germany and on other short trips within Europe. In 1968, he boarded a plane to Vietnam, where he served as a signal officer and an intelligence officer, and was promoted to first lieutenant. He was wounded in action twice. In the spring of 1969, his tour was complete, but he was in no rush to go home; he had no particular job or sweetheart to come home to, had some money saved up, and had no desire to return to the States yet. He received permission to be discharged from the Army “in country” and opted to take the long way home, traveling overland through Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent, and the Middle East, and then back to Europe. Along the way, he photographed as much as he could. He primarily used the Pentax SLR for black and white film, and a Minolta SLR for color. When he eventually returned to the States, he developed much of the film himself. He took a job at a small bank in Massachusetts, where he met his wife, Judy; they married in 1976 and had two children, Chris and Liz. Over the ensuing decades, his photography hobby was mostly limited to family pictures, but Judy, Chris, and Liz always knew Bill had a collection of photos, slides, and negatives from his time in and after the Army. As young adults, his children began cautiously asking questions about them, and eventually displaying a few of their favorites in their homes. But they always knew these photographs were something special that deserved a wider audience. Bill and Judy have retired to Cape Cod, where they are avid gardeners, volunteer at a local library, dote on their three grandchildren, and look forward to their next cruise. Bill still likes his solo expeditions, but these days they mostly consist of local hikes, kayaking, and shellfishing. But during the pandemic, Bill’s kids decided that it was time to bring Bill’s photos out of retirement. Thank you for joining us.