So, yesterday, when I finished scanning these and started looking at them, I got so excited about them I started texting them to everybody in them. Sort of forgot about the whole Instagram thing and just sent them out. Sorry, Edgar and Annie, for blowing up your phones. Then I remembered, and dutifully posted the top one.
I’m not sure why I’m so jazzed about these; it may be shooting with a real rangefinder is working for me, or it may be that shooting film agrees with me for some reason, but I suspect it’s neither of those, and mostly that I’m shooting candid portraits again. With the landscapes, with the street pictures, there’s no urgency; they’re pure exercises in form (the objectification and the problems therein are not lost on me; I have read books and written essays on the subject, but I digress). I suppose I shot those kinds of pictures because they were available to me, but I’m not sure it was actually a good direction. Portraits of people, that’s the ticket.
So, I’m gonna try to do that more. I spent a long time (the first 10 or so years I was taking pictures) hating on landscapes because I thought they were too easy, that exercises of form were beneath me. I don’t really think that any more; not because they’re harder than I thought, but because I’ve taken enough of them now and found it a good learning experience. A meditation, if you will. But portraiture feels really good, and so I’m gonna do some more. (of course the next set I have in the queue is all landscapes from Point Reyes, but there’s at least a good shot of my dad in it).
These photos are of the dinner club where we went to lake merrit and had I don’t even remember what, because I didn’t have any other camera, and I didn’t want to take a picture of my food with the film camera.
