This was back in the halcyon days, when there was no Delta in the US, and in fact it was months away in any case. Everybody I knew was getting jabbed and so we could safely hang out again. The first priority was to get out to Oklahoma and see my family. On that same trip, I got to see a bunch of my OKC friends; this is one of those nights. I’m working through the backlog, and since I’ve published a lot of landscape-y shots lately, I figured I could break it up with some portraits.
On impulse, I pulled down my copy of The Decisive Moment to page through and re-read the essay at the beginning. “Twenty-five years have passed since I started to look through my viewfinder. But I regard myself as an amateur, though I am no longer a dilettante.” The photos inside, still teaching me things. I’m 100% a ‘decisive moment’ photographer, which really means I was born about 50 years too late. I guess as long as I’m applying it within the context of now, and not trying to replicate Bresson’s or Winogrand’s photographs, then it should all come out fine, yeah?
Something I’ve been thinking about lately, that I got from a guy on youtube: the reward is the pictures. Most of this stuff, it’s going to be here on the blog for a while, and the very best, the ones that are part of a project, will make it into a print-on-demand book that then is printed tens of times, if that (there are, to my knowledge, three copies of my last book in existence). So, making the pictures better be enough.
I shot these, I’m pretty sure, with the Mitakon Speedmaster, a 50mm 0.95 lens. Definitely some softness and veiling flare to several of them. It’s also possible that I switched back to my Summilux when we got back to the house for the after party, just looking at these. Also possible, givent they allow smoking inside, that the veiling flare and loss of detail is just what the conditions allowed in that club that night. I need to play with that lens some more, is what I’m saying. I also have a version of it in 35mm X mount, for my fuji. I also really like that lens? They’re both interesting to use in daylight, wide open with ND filters.
Anyway: next post will probably be landscapes from oklahoma, from this same trip, since the last trip I didn’t get out at all.
