DAN ELDON

In 2000, I completed a book about Dan Eldon, a photojournalist who was killed while on assignment in Somalia in 1993, Dan Eldon: The Art of Life. Dan was a huge personality. People I interviewed—people who hadn’t seen him in at least seven years, or sometimes much longer, repeatedly said, “I think about him every day,” or “My life changed because of him.”

Though his legacy is complex, Dan is most remembered for his journals, collage-style volumes that he began early in high school. As I familiarized myself with his life, I saw that the 17 fraying volumes are incredibly subjective. They shined the high beams on Dan’s disappointments and shortcomings, while giving short shrift to happier moments. Break-ups with girlfriends consumed pages, as did his adolescent pondering over good and evil. But other important factors in his development could only be identified by reading between the lines—if at all.

When it came to piecing together the skeleton and muscle of such a complex, albeit short life (he was in more than 40 countries in 22 years), Dan proved to be a most unreliable narrator. And yet I returned to the journals again and again. They held the breath, the spirit.

I’ve never given much thought to life after death, but looking through Dan’s journals made me tingle with wonder. His presence crackles in their pages. Through them, it seemed that I spent a year with a living person and made a new friend. He still sits on my shoulder and informs my actions, editorializing on how I lead my life with his typical humor.

Learn more about Dan Eldon www.daneldon.org

Samples from the journals: www.daneldon.org/journals

Purchase Dan Eldon: The Art of Life