Vietnam Veteran with PTSD finds peace in Oregon's coast

Ron Cronin: A photographer with an obsession for the Oregon coast
Published: Saturday, June 25, 2011
By David Stabler, The Oregonian

Ron Cronin
You can look at Ron Cronin's photographs and not know humans exist. "What I want is comfort, being in the moment, something that goes directly into the soul of the viewer."

Ron Cronin hoists a 70-pound pack onto his surly back and scrambles over rocks the size of filing cabinets to a spot 25 feet from the heaving surf. One big one and he'd be sucked into the cold churn, but after decades of visits, he knows the waves here, as well as the tides, temperatures, wind and light.

This rock shelf at Boiler Bay is Cronin's favorite spot on the coast, where power and fury drown out his demons for a few hours.

Out of his backpack come his tools: a tripod, a large-format camera, a lens, glass slides, a light meter and a black cloth. Cronin assembles his gear and ducks under the cloth, waiting for the perfect wave.

Maybe this one. Or this one. He watches the waves like a surfer, looking for signs of chaos and harm.

"I'm a power junkie. I absolutely love storms," he says. "It's hypnotic and mesmerizing. It may be because I'm a Vietnam veteran."

After his Ecola days, he came back to Portland, married an opera singer, Maria Novak Cronin, had a son and found ways to cope. Years later, he was diagnosed as 50 percent disabled with PTSD, he says.

"I knew I could never work with people or in a corporate office. I was unemployable, so I created my own occupation.

read more here
A photographer with an obsession for the Oregon coast