Bill Wunsch gave me my start in photojournalism. The day I started at The Denver Post, I was the 24th shooter on staff. The other 23 were some of the best in the business. The Post had a full-page picture story every day, photo essays and three magazines on Sunday where the layout and design people made all of us look as if we were Gene Smith and Margaret Bourke-White.
There were many times I went on assignment by myself, making photographs for a story that was written the previous day, or week, or month. Most times the assignment sheet would give me a clue about the story and what to look for, and on rare occasions there would not be any description of the story’s content.
One assignment sheet that was thumb-tacked to my darkroom door had only when the photographs were due. Nothing about where the assignment was, who the subject was… just that the photos were due in Features in two days. I went to Bill Wunsch and asked him if he knew anything about the assignment. He did not. But he suspected who put the assignment on my door. He headed off to the Features Department.
When he returned, he typed a new assignment sheet with all the information. I asked him why that reporter would leave me an assignment with no information on it and expect me to know the who, what, when, where, why, how and because of the subject.
“That’s because you are a Mushroom, Bisio,” Wunsch said.
I had no idea what he meant so he explained, “All photojournalists are Mushrooms because editors keep us in the dark and throw shit on us.” Such eloquence.
Though I retired from the university I worked for in 2020, the same year I retired from photojournalism, I allowed my inner Mushroom to escape today in Orvieto when I saw this moment.
I might not be a photojournalist but I sure am a Mushroom.
