Anyways, we had a photo booth set up and I came across this shot by one of the venue’s employees that helped set up the tent the booth was in.  What’s interesting to me is that there was a monitor to camera right, a little lower than camera level.  Almost every person who came through the unmanned booth is looking down towards the monitor, not at the camera.  But this guy is looking right into the lens.  There was just something about it that I like.

Here’s to that day and those answers.

I really miss printing and developing film in the darkroom.  Something very interesting has occurred after all these years of taking pictures.  Like so many people (I’m sure) I miss things being simple.  Whenever I’m around clients or colleagues these days, it seems all we talk about are the technological advancements of photography in the last several years.  “What camera do you shoot with?”  “How many Megapixels is that camera?”  “You using the Content Aware filter in Photoshop® CS5?”

I miss the good ol’ days I guess.  Take this image for example.  It’s one of my favorite images I’ve ever created.  I remember the process so vividly in my mind.  I was driving down Chukanut Drive outside Bellingham, Wa.  I jumped out of my barely running 1971 VW Bus, took off my shoes, rolled up my jeans and trudged knee deep in mud to get to this spot.  It was taken with a Holga.  No, not a filter on my cell-phone camera…a real, actual Holga camera with Tri-X 120 film.  Holga’s have no controls, no focus, no meter…none of that fluff.  You simply point it at something and flip the lever.  It leaks light, bends film, has a plastic lens that’s definitely not sharp.  The exposure was a little thin and I figured it would be so I cranked up the development temperature and shortened the development time.  It came out with some really awesome, chunky grain that resembles little maggots.  It actually reflects those shapes that are stuck in the mud.  It’s one of those really cool things that came about from experimentation and happy accident.  So simple.  So profound (at least for me).  I can spend so much time now-a-days worrying about the focus, the exposure, the light, the backup, the monitor calibration, the color balance, removing the imperfections, etc.  It becomes a technical thing instead of an emotional thing.

So here’s a message for myself (and anyone who might be reading).  DON’T TAKE IT ALL SO FUCKING SERIOUSLY.