One man’s views on what it takes to shoot a good photograph:

“Ninety percent of photography is good lighting. A good subject can look awful in bad lighting, and a bad subject can look terrific in good lighting. By lighting well, you can create the illusion of depth, just like Rembrandt did in his paintings….. You have to have a point of view on the subject. Make each photo a bullseye. Know where you want the eye to land….Technology has solved a lot of challenges in photography, but you still have to have imagination and creativity to tell a story in a few images….If you see something, get to the point….. Go deep. And then go deeper.”

That one man is not your run-of-the-mill photographer. He’s Bob Freson, a professional photographer who spent more than 50 years traveling around the world taking thousands of photos of famous people and fascinating places. Born in Belgium, he first came to the U.S. in 1948 with his wife Jeannette, determined to make a living shooting pictures. He was fortunate to start out as a studio assistant for internationally renowned photographer Irving Penn in New York, and he later went out on his own, spending most of his career living in New York City and France. His blue chip client list included Look, Esquire and the Sunday Times of London, among many others.

Bob photographed the funeral of Winston Churchill and the wedding of Princess Diana and Prince Charles. He photographed Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul, and he took the cover photograph for President Dwight Eisenhower’s biography in 1964. The former president gave Bob a personal tour of the battlefield in Gettysburg.

And here’s a small sampling of additional luminaries who’ve benefitted from Bob’s keen photographic eye: Sophia Loren, Lauren Bacall, Shelley Winters, Kim Novak, Alfred Hitchcock, Hugh Hefner, Norman Mailer, Omar Sharif, Bianca Jagger and Michael Douglas. Oh, and such artistic icons as Salvador Dali, Marc Chagall, Juan Miro and Milton Caniff. And on and on.

“I was a good photographer, not a great photographer,” says Bob with typical humility. “But I always came back with something publishable. I always got the job done.”

Bob won’t say it, but I will. He exudes warmth and charm, invaluable traits when you’re taking photos of people, especially famous ones. People warm up to him, especially, it must be said, women.

“I have for years practiced smiling at people all over the place,” he says. “I get some charming smiles back and sometimes conversations.”

Bob and Jeanette moved to Bailey Island in 1998. They bought a stunningly beautiful “cottage” perched high on a hill, offering magnificent views of the ocean to the east and a working harbor Mackerel Cove to the west.

“Photography was a great career,” he says, looking back. “Getting great pictures whatever the conditions always made for an interesting challenge. And I always got to meet new people and see new places.”

At age 88, Bob maintains his sense of humor, evident in his recounting of his time in the British Navy toward the end of World War II. “We were going to be shipped to the Pacific to help with the war over there. I was really looking forward to being on an island with pretty girls in hula skirts, but then Americans dropped the bomb and the war was over.”

He’s sufficiently up to-date to be on Facebook and to be comfortable using email to communicate. Earlier in the dead of winter, he’d written an email to me, noting that, “So, all I can do is stay warm inside our nice house with two cats for company, and I try to make them feel good by smiling at them a lot and petting them…which they do not reciprocate.”

He grows serious when talking about missing his “delicious” wife Jeanette, his life companion for 65 years, who died last year. “She was a great artist, very talented and bright. I really miss her.”

Bob and his daughter Babette took care of Jeanette during her last years, when her health was failing. “Babette was always the apple of our eye,” he notes. He knows that he can count on Babette to take care of him in the years ahead.

In the meantime, he enjoys meeting new people and staying in touch with old friends. He recently took a trip to France to visit the old water mill (built in the early 1400’s), where he and Jeanette lived for 20 years.

Not ready to sit back and let life pass by, Bob is an active and popular member of the Island Community Church and the Brethren, an informal men’s discussion group.

And he remains open to whatever joy life brings. “Babette is often surprised that I engage in short talks with people that I do not know. It is amazing the reactions that we get. I do that a lot with people of my generation, as I realize that they are more likely to be lonely.”

As to advice for young people, Bob says, “Find your passion and then go deep. And then deeper.” Good eye, Bob, good eye.

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David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary or suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns; he can be reached at dtreadw575@aol.com.