When Marty Drapkin went to college in the 1960s, he originally planned to get a master’s degree in English education so he could work as a high school teacher.
However, the military draft at that time sidelined his plans as Marty completed two years of alternative service. When that time was up, he was no longer interested in teaching teens. So, he pursued other options.
Eventually, Marty wound up working for the Wisconsin Department of Justice coordinating training and certification courses for correctional officers and people working in juvenile detention facilities.
“I was mainly involved in developing curriculum or writing training guides and instructional materials,” he explained. “I did that for my entire career before retiring at age 65.”
Now 77, Marty and his wife, Erica, live in a small town about half an hour from Madison. It’s a picturesque part of the state that was passed over by massive glaciers a long time ago which literally leveled the rest of the Midwest.
Living in the rural area gives Marty plenty of opportunity to engage in photography as well as writing both fiction and non-fiction books.
“I am what’s called a street photographer who captures images of people in public places,” he explained. “I strictly shoot using black-and-white film as opposed to creating digital images.
“I’m an old fashioned photographer in some ways, but have really developed my passion for writing and photography since I retired,” said Marty. “Surprisingly, film is making a resurgence as more people create a higher demand for it.”
He can still acquire Ilford film through online suppliers in New York City, like B&H Photography or Adorama. He sends all his film to a processing lab in Georgia.
“I have developed my own film, but it’s time-consuming, so I prefer to send it away for processing,” he added.
Developing his love for writing
Marty was fortunate that he grew up with some creative genes on his mother’s side. He developed a love for writing as a young child, and worked to fine-tune that skill as an adult.
“One of my relatives worked as a comedy writer for some really big names, like Jack Parr. He also helped create two very famous sitcoms – ‘Sergeant Bilko’ and ‘Car 54’ – in the late 1950s and early 1960s,” said Marty. “Another cousin was a successful Broadway actor. I guess I received some of those creative genes, too.”
During his career, he published three books about issues facing county jails. However, after retiring, he has become an avid fiction writer.
“That’s something I always wanted to do, but didn’t start trying to write fiction stories until my early 50s. Since then, I have completed four fiction books and am working on a fifth,” said Marty.
“I enjoy writing fiction and non-fiction for different reasons,” he explained. “Fiction is very much a creative outlet for me. It enables me to employ the mechanics of English to tell stories.”
When completing his college education, Marty considered getting a degree in English, which would have focused more on studying literature. He opted to get a teaching degree instead.
“I still used my degree to teach adults, so it was very useful for me,” he explained. “I have zero regrets for going in that direction.”
Ten Nobodies
One of Marty’s favorite fiction books was titled “Ten Nobodies (and their somebodies).” He wrote it a while ago, but a new company recently republished it.
“It was the second of the four books I wrote, but I had a lot of fun writing it,” said Marty. “It consists of 10 first-person narratives about a very famous person as told by a ‘nobody’ who either worked for that individual or was in close proximity to him or her.”
For example, there is a chapter about William Shakespeare and another about 18th century pirate, Anne Bonny.
“Anne was a really interesting person. The nobody in her story was a former slave who worked as her masseur and bedtime reader,” said Marty. “In real life, she was an emotional wreck who was often furious with people.
“I have other chapters about Davy Crockett, General George Custer and Lewis Carroll, who wrote ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,’” he added. “In that chapter, the nobody was a 10-year-old girl named, Mimsy.
“Another main character was President William Howard Taft, who was America’s heaviest president. He didn’t want the job, but his wife nagged him into the position despite Taft’s desire to serve as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Marty.
He also wrote about Marilyn Monroe, legendary football coach Vince Lombardi, and former Jewish mobster Meyer Lanksy.
“It was a lot of fun to write because I had to create personas for the nobody characters as well as develop dialogue as they interacted with the somebodies,” said Marty.
“All the main characters were people I was interested in at some point in my life,” he added. “I enjoyed researching details about them and developing fictional stories around how the nobodies influenced the somebodies in ways that changed the direction of their lives, both good and bad.”
In Custer’s case, his nobody was a woman who became the general’s hair stylist. She was a Crow Indian for whom hair is very important. The woman was also Custer’s lover for eight years. Her grown daughter, Young Grass That Shoots in the Spring, was also the general’s lover and had a blond-haired son by him, which may or may not be historically accurate.
For Shakespeare, Marty created an older man who taught the famous writer creative ways to insult other people. Those insults became defining characteristics of Shakespeare’s plays.
“I’ve never really made a lot of money from my writing, but it sure is fun to do. It has become a real passion for me,” he explained.
“I can’t build a cabinet or drive a stock car, but creating things with words and photography comes naturally to me,” he added. “It’s important for me to have those creative outlets. I also like having a finished product at the end of the creative process.”
Falling in love with photography
Marty’s father had been a photographer before he died at the age of 54. But he never pursued it to the extent he wished he had. When Marty inherited the photo equipment, he discovered he was very good at photography.
“I was a wedding photographer for a while, and I have done a bit of commercial work,” he explained. “But the best thing for me has been street photography.
“During the warmer months in Wisconsin, I often attend street festivals, farmer’s markets, art fairs and public dances,” he added. “I have become very good at taking candid pictures in inconspicuous ways that don’t draw attention.
“I love capturing human moments as two people interact with each other,” said Marty. “When those moments are over, they are gone forever. But, I am able to memorialize it with my camera.”
He often creates black-and-white prints and then scans them to create digital images. Marty can also scan the negatives to create photos on his computer.
“It’s very satisfying in terms of the process of taking pictures, using software to perfect them, and then storing the images to enjoy forever,” he explained.
Some of Marty’s images have won awards and appeared in major magazines. He also published one book titled “Mothers and Daughters.”
“Photographing mothers and their daughters has been one of the main things I have been devoted to over the years,” he explained. “They are mostly candid photos of people I knew.”
Other than one man who objected to having his picture taken because he was convinced Marty was stealing his soul, nobody has really had an issue with him working as a street photographer.
“Maybe I’ve been lucky, but there have been very few instances where anyone has objected, or even noticed I was taking their picture,” he explained. “Photographing children has become more touchy in recent years because some people have been posting images online in ways that aren’t very nice.
“So, I am much more cautious about photographing kids, especially by themselves,” he added. “When I do take their pictures, it is often with their parents. If the children are alone, I’ll get a parent’s permission to do so.”
Combining photography with writing
Marty also worked as a wedding photographer for a while, and taking pictures at receptions was his favorite part of the event.
“Everything is more loose and people are more relaxed,” he explained. “For me, the real thrill was looking at the day from a bride’s point of view.
“Taking a bunch of pictures of the bride on her special day so she could have a lot of photos to look at for sentimental reasons just appealed to me,” he added.
He also combined photography with writing by creating a character in his book, “Poor Tom,” who was an assistant wedding photographer. He incorporated real stories of weddings he had photographed into the story line of that book.
“Some weddings were close to disasters, and that’s what made ‘Poor Tom’ a fun book to write,” said Marty.
Marketing his own books is a disadvantage of working with a hybrid book publisher.
“It’s not something I am very good at doing, which probably explains why I have inconsistent results in selling books,” he explained.
Still, Marty has become creative with his marketing. For example, after writing “The Cat Tender,” he delivered postcards to local veterinary offices and pet stores which featured a picture of the book cover and information about his story.
When he completed “Poor Tom,” which was based on a man who wanted to play King Lear in a Shakespeare play, Marty put ads in magazines which appealed to people who enjoyed attending theater performances.
Marty took one writing class in college, and that’s all the formal training he had to craft his skill.
“I’ve studied books about writing, but I feel confident enough in my skills that I never felt I needed a lot of special training in writing or photography. It’s all self-taught,” he explained.
When he was ready to publish his book, he researched several companies and settled on Dog Ear Press in Indianapolis.
“I had read a book that ranked all the self-publishing companies in the country, and Dog Ear Press was one of the highest-rated,” Marty explained. “Eventually, I switched to my current publisher, HenschelHaus Publishing, which is in Milwaukee.
“I have a personal relationship with the owner of that company, and that’s something I did not have with my first publisher,” he added.
Starting over
If Marty could start over again, there is nothing he would do differently, as far as his career was concerned.
“I slipped into my career through the backdoor despite not having any experience in corrections or law enforcement. But, I did have connections and that got me the job,” he explained. “Fortunately, I was very adept at doing what needed to be done, and that was being a good writer who could produce training manuals and run meetings.
“I really enjoyed what I did for my career. I got to work with a lot of people in law enforcement and corrections. I loved them and they liked and respected me as well,” he added. “I was fortunate to have been able to do what I did for a living.”
Yet, when it comes to pursuing his passion as a photographer, Marty said he wishes he had started down that path when he was much younger. Most of his best work focused on three categories:
- General street photographs
- Pictures of women
- Photographing mothers and daughters
“I think I’ve done some very good work. But, I wish I had been doing posed portraits of mothers and their daughters at different intervals of their lives,” said Marty. “For example, when the girl was an infant, toddler, in elementary school and every couple of years after that. It would have been fun to photograph them in basically the same poses and in the same spots, if possible.
“I didn’t realize I would live as long as I have. It would have been nice to create a collection like that involving 50 mothers and their daughters,” he added. “It could have been a mother with one daughter, then several daughters and, eventually, multiple generations over the years. That would have been a meaningful collection to have developed.”
Advice for people over 50
Marty encourages people over 50 to do what he has had so much success at doing – finding one or two things they really like to do, and then being vigilant in pursuing them.
“Once people identify something they really feel passionate about and enjoy doing, as long as it’s legal, they should do it despite what anyone else may say about whether it is a good idea or not,” said Marty.
“I have known several people who have really wanted to do something, but were discouraged from doing so,” he explained. “They were either told they weren’t good enough to do it, or they’d never make a living at it.
“If I were to give anyone advice, it would be to ignore anybody who says anything negative or discouraging about what you want to do,” he added. “You only live once. So, you want to avoid looking back on your life and saying, ‘I wish I would have done this,’ or ‘This really interested me, but, for whatever reason, I never pursued it.’
“We all have obligations in life to other people, whether they are family members or employers,” said Marty. “Life requires us to spend a lot of time out of duty to those people.
“But, it’s sad when people don’t take time from their duties and obligations to do things that make them come alive,” he explained. “It may be a creative endeavor, like writing or photography, or volunteering for a cause they believe in and would find fulfilling.
“It is way too easy to push what you want to do, and what you like to do, to the bottom of the pile of things competing for your time and energy,” said Marty.
For more information
People can connect with Marty in several ways:
- Writing website = www.drapkinbooks.com
- Photography website = www.drapkinphotography.com
- Email = gwgjails.chorus.net
If you order one of Marty’s books from a link above, Forward From 50 may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.
After closing his business and enduring several painful years of uncertainty regarding what to do with his life, Greg founded Forward From 50 to help men and women over 50 to live more purposeful lives by pursuing things they are passionate about. A Wisconsin native, Greg currently lives in Arizona.