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fifty years have ridden off into the sunset
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I'm sorry but I'm just thinking of
the right words to say
I know they don't sound the way
I planned them to be
But if you wait around a while
I'll make you fall for me
I promise, I promise you I will
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While there are times I enjoy shooting landscapes or other inanimate objects, a lot of the fun in photography for me is capturing the essence of a moment between people. This picture, to me, illustrates exactly why photography holds such a large piece of my interest.
The ability to take a moment that several people are sharing and set it down on film or disk is a powerful thing. You can look back at it and wonder exactly what was going on, or smile as you remember the way he was looking at her, or the conversation those friends were having ...
Here, you get to think about things like the reason for him holding two jackets, or just why he's standing in such an awkward way, or the reason for the little smile on his face. Which are all probably related, to tell the truth.
I wish I had some of my film pictures to upload here from years ago. Some of those are ones I'm truly proud of, and it's moments like these that illustrate why.
-David
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(Image opens into a larger window.)
Earlier this year, I was walking through Harvard Yard, and I walked by this series of chess games. It seemed to be a fairly regular occurrence, with at least some of the participants knowing each other. I think the part that most appealed to me about this series of photographs is the insight into the character of the players.
The man on the left (Black) is a teacher at a school in Boston. The one on the right (White) I'm not sure about, but from the interplay it was evident that they were fairly good friends, perhaps only from their chess games, but the beauty of a setting like this is that it allows people who might never have met to come together.
The two observers are students. If memory serves, the one watching over the teacher's shoulder was a political science student at Harvard, something to do with Russia I think. Don't remember offhand what the other was.
I think it's the expression on the teacher's face that really makes this picture.
-David
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It'd look like this at the resolution it's "intended" for.
-David
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Years ago, when I was much younger and visiting a couple of friends in New York, we saw a musical called "Ragtime". It has some truly amazing songs, but it's one of the less than stellar songs that inspires this. It's from a song called "Gliding", and it's about an immigrant and his daughter running from a riot which turned ugly when the police showed up and started shooting. He's trying to calm her down, and he starts singing to her about ice skating while showing her a flipbook that he made. At one point he sings, "Are you happy yet .. are you happy yet?" and that line always made me laugh. It's meant to be a completely serious question, but it always struck me as an exasperated parent asking his child if she's finally satisfied.
So.
Are you happy yet?
I don't know exactly what direction this is going to take. I do know I'm going to put up some of my photography here -- in fact I've already started, look at that! Unfortunately CSS2 doesn't allow for dynamic resizing of background images; it's something that's planned for CSS3. So if you're running on anything other than exactly 1280x854, it's going to look weird. People at higher resolutions (like me!) will see the photograph in the center, surrounded by partial repetitions of it on all sides. People at lower resolutions will see... well, in theory you should see the center of the photograph branching out to whatever resolution you're running at. Let me know if that's not the case.
-David
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