Roger Franklin, Ukiah music and entertainment photographer, dies at 75 – The Ukiah Daily Journal

By Bob Calhoun

Roger Franklin had a long career with the Ukiah Unified School District, but became known throughout Mendocino County for his photos of concerts, auto shows, and other events. He died at his home on Friday January 27. He was 75 years old.

Roger called Rog by his close friends and family was not in a band, but he was nonetheless a mainstay in the local music and arts scene. Instead of a guitar or drums, his instrument of choice was his camera, which he used to gain admission to hundreds of concerts, beer parties and other events. To return the favor, Franklin has provided musicians, promoters and performers with professional quality footage, always free of charge.

If you go to an event and say you’re a photographer, they’ll still let you in to take pictures, Franklin told the Ukiah Daily Journal in February 2019.

He (Franklin) was very good, excellent in his photography and he has thousands of photos to prove it, says landscape photographer Ukiah Robert B. Taylor, a close friend and frequent traveling companion of Franklins.

He was known to many, many people and he was always very generous in sharing his photos with people, Taylor adds.

“He was always very friendly, and everyone in town knew him and everyone loved him,” confirms his brother Ken Franklin. “And they all remember him taking pictures everywhere.”

Roger Lee Franklin was born on April 2, 1947 in Culver City, California, the Los Angeles suburb known for being home to MGM studios. His parents, George Washington Franklin and Martha Niswander Franklin, soon moved to Burbank where George established a successful carpet cleaning business. Once in Burbank, Roger was joined by two brothers Kenneth (Ken) and Gregory and a sister, Bonnie, all born three years apart.

Franklin graduated from Burbank High School in 1965. A year earlier, he met his future wife, Rebecca “Becky” Norris, in Burbank at a Wee-Winders automobile club meeting. “It was love at first sight,” recalls Rebecca. The couple dated for four years before finally marrying on May 10, 1968 in an intimate ceremony in the chapel of a Methodist church.

To avoid the draft and the chance to serve in Vietnam, Franklin joined the Air National Guard and served six years in Van Nuys where he learned to be a teleprinter operator, a skill that landed him a job at Warner Studios. Bros. in Burbank in the early 1970s.

“There were no computers then, so all messages were sent from his office,” Rebecca recalls. Franklin worked closely with many directors and producers and the young couple was able to attend many screenings with movie stars. Frank Sinatra even gave them a wool blanket that the family still owns.

“It was a fun gig,” adds Rebecca.

On April 10, 1972, the Franklins had their first son, Greg, named after Rogs’ brother, Gregory, who was hit by a car and killed on his way to school in 1960 when he was n was only 6 years old. Soon after, the growing family left behind the glamor of the movie industry and bought a home in Boron, California, on the edge of the Mojave Desert, to be near Rebecca’s parents.

In Boron, Franklin worked as a millwright at US Borax and began to dabble in photography. He set up a darkroom in their home back when digital cameras did not free photographers from using basic chemistry in their art. Franklin’s primary motivation for taking the camera was to take pictures of Greg and the couple’s second son, Daniel, who was born in 1977.

After Rebecca’s mother died in 1986, the Franklins moved north to Ukiah, California, where Roger and Rebecca began long careers with the Ukiah Unified School District. Roger served all the schools in the district as a technology and systems specialist while Rebecca taught third grade at Nokomis School. Rogers’ brother, Ken, and his wife, Susie, also taught elementary school there. Roger retired from the district in 2009 and Rebecca joined him in retirement a year later.

Anything mechanical, he was the go-to person to fix in the school district, including computers, and pretty much everything else too,” Taylor says.

But it was in the cooler climate of Ukiah that Franklin flourished as a photographer and became part of the local music scene. He amassed countless concert footage ranging from Willie and the Nighthawks at the breweries that were steps from his home to BB King in Konocti Harbor in Lake County and even punk wrestling shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco. .

Franklin has Daily Journal photo credits dating back to 1996 and many of his images from the 1990s punk wrestling show Incredibly Strange Wrestling were published in Bob Calhouns’ memoir “Beer, Blood & Cornmeal” (2008, ECW Press).

In March 2019, Franklin joined his friend Robert B. Taylor and photographer Amy Melious for a public exhibition of their work titled Gathering Light at the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah.

“His photographs are a tribute to the creative force, focus, vitality and raw emotion of musicians on stage,” Daily Journal reporter Carole Brodsky wrote of Franklin’s work. “Franklin’s photos expose these vulnerable pieces of a performer’s soul during those intimate moments when the lines between audience and performer blur and disappear.”

It was the high point, Taylor says, of working with his old friend.

I really want everyone to know how generous he was, Taylor continues. He reorganized the ventilation system in my darkroom and spent many hours helping me with Photoshop to prepare my photography book for publication.

“He was always ready to help people,” says Ken Franklin. “A few days before he died, he was fixing circuit breakers here at home.”

He was a nice, patient, calm guy, Taylor thought. He was a nice guy to be around.

Roger Franklin is survived by his wife, Rebecca (Becky); his brother Ken and sister Bonnie; his two sons, Greg and Daniel; and three grandchildren.

A memorial will be held for Roger Franklin on March 25, 2023 at 2 p.m. at the Near & Arnold School of Performing Arts Theater, 508 W. Perkins St. Ukiah, CA.