I really don’t have anything for this week, so here’s a photo from way back in the archives … specifically, May 1976. That’s Lori-Lyn Hurley and Michelle Hawley, the lovely and talented tightrope walkers from our First Grade Circus.
This photo ties in with a blog entry on the subject of the circus that is scheduled to appear tomorrow, June 1, so consider this a sneak preview. Or maybe just consider that Lori-Lyn is departing the country this week for the next month and a half and if I ever wanted to get around to posting this, I had to do it now. Either one. Next week, something new, exciting, and from this month!
20 of the 21 shots taken on this roll were shot in the span of 24 hours, from the morning of Thursday, December 8 to Friday, December 9, 1983, and it was all for the sole purpose of printing one photo on the roll … one photo that would determine the direction of my photography for the next two years.
I had known Todd J. ever since nursery school. He was a casual buddy, although we did do battle during fourth and fifth grade when he co-founded a rival comic book company that went against the comic books that I was creating at the time.
On the last day of school in May of 1983, he was struck by a car as he attempted to cross the street on the way to lunch to celebrate the end of eighth grade. He was in a coma for weeks and then took up residency at Cardinal Hill Hospital in Lexington, KY for physical therapy and rehabilitation. He was still in the hospital in December, 1983, when I paid the institution for a visit to look into the slight curvature of my spine (another story entirely). I put in a request to see Todd and we met for a few minutes in the hallway. He looked fine and was in good spirits and was optimistic that he would return to school at the start of the next semester. He gave me a letter to take back to school for the newspaper. I happened to have my camera with me and so I quickly took a photo of him standing in the hallway.
My visit with Todd took place on the morning of December 8, 1983, and I returned to school for my afternoon classes (just couldn’t possibly miss band class). After school, I went to see Mrs. Combs, the sponsor of the newspaper. She and editor-in-chief Danny McB. were in the process of frenetically pasting together the newspaper when I delivered the letter, as it was due at the printing presses the very next day in order to be ready for distribution the following Friday, which was the last day of school before the Winter Break. They were very appreciative and began figuring out how to squeeze it into the upcoming issue. I mentioned that I had taken a photo of Todd as well and they wanted the photo to illustrate the piece, as I was one of the few people from school who had actually seen him since his accident (apparently he didn’t get many visitors other than family and in order to see him you had to somehow already be in the hospital, so I had the distinct advantage). However, the photo was the first photo on my roll (technically the second, but the first actual shot on the roll rarely came out) and I had only taken one other shot since then. Mrs. Combs told me to finish up the roll as fast as I could and to deliver the photo to her by lunchtime the next day. Or else.
Now, granted, I could have just as easily rewound the film in the roll and handed it off to them and exchanged it for a new roll of film, even if it meant wasting approximately 20 exposures. Or, for that matter, I could have started snapping photos of everything and anything (lockers, classrooms, doors, that bench outside the band room). But I was a very conservative photographer … every photo had to count, every shot was important, and I simply did not like wasting film (in spite of the fact that, on my first three rolls of film, there were plenty of shots of the backs of people’s heads). So, at the beginning of the day on Friday, December 9, 1983, I had only taken a total of four shots on the roll. Perhaps there would be interesting subjects in my morning classes …
By the time I made it to Mrs. Combs’ third period English class, I still had at least 12 or 13 shots left on the roll. There was a fifteen minute break between second and third period, so there was time to take some random shots in English class in an attempt to get rid of the remaining photos:
In a very surprising move, Mrs. Combs excused me from class in order to finish off the roll of film and get it developed. I find this rather odd — it is the week before the last day of school, I’m sure that final exams were coming up, there appears to be something going on in class … was it an “open study” day or was I just that far ahead that I didn’t need to study?
At any rate, I wandered around, took some other shots around the school, came back to the classroom, took some more shots, and eventually finished the roll and headed off to the darkroom.
The Observer, published on Friday, December 16, 1983, featured the following article and photo on page 2:
This was my first photo submission to The Observer and it opened a very wide door that I eagerly jumped through. I had been published, and the invitation had been extended that if I happened to take any more photos around the school, and if the newspaper needed them they would accept my submission, in spite of the fact that I wasn’t an actual member of the staff, and I had believed up until this point that they only used photos taken by “official” staffers. Of course, one must consider that staff photographers used film and supplies provided by the newspaper, while contributors had to use their own film and supplies and there was no guarantee that their photos would be accepted. Why would anyone be so out of their mind that they would spend their own money and bring their camera to school every day and shoot photos of stuff happening with no guarantee of something coming out of it? Obviously, I was out of my mind, because that’s exactly what I started doing. And so began my stint as a contributing newspaper photographer … I was the “Peter Parker” of The Observer (the radioactive spider would come later).
When I first sorted these negatives, this batch of photos were originally identified as being taken during the last week of November, because I had always assumed that the date of Todd’s letter (Monday, November 28, 1983) was the same date that I took the photo and that all of the photos taken on the roll were from Tuesday, November 28, 1983, since the “next” roll contained shots from the December 1, 1983 MHS Band concert (as featured in Tri-X Files #3). However, as I started scanning the negatives and looking at some of these photos for the first time ever, I noticed something rather odd in the background of a couple of them — the side blackboard in Mrs. Combs’ room, which featured a message scribbled on it. No, not the incredibly bad grammar error (for that matter, in English class), but the birthday wishes to twins Karen and Kathy A., whose birthday fell on December 10th (a Saturday). The discovery of this message begged the question, “Why would someone write birthday greetings to Karen and Kathy almost two weeks in advance?” Suddenly, it all made sense: The visit with Todd must have taken place on that Thursday, and I had to finish the roll of photos on that Friday, the same day someone wrote that message on the blackboard to Karen and Kathy, whose birthday was the next day! Thanks to whomever originally wrote that message on the blackboard, because without it, this proper chronology of this roll of film would have never been realized.
IN THE NEXT EPISODE (June 4th): I got my photo in the paper. What’s next? Also: The Band Fashion Statement of the Year!
There were 20 photos on this roll. You can see all of them at the
Flickr set for the roll, which contains a lot more information about every single photo than what was described in this entry. Plus, all of the sets so far can now be found in
one collection.
NOTE: You can click on any of the images above to get a larger view.
Facebook readers: Click on “View Original Post” to see the images formatted the way they were meant to be.
I knew I had a big mouth, but …
My third roll of film is one of the few from this time period in which I am sure of the dates that the photos were taken: December 1-3, 1983, and a few days after that. This roll contains scenes from the Model Lab School Bands’ Winter Concert (Thursday, December 1) and the Model Lab Band appearance in the Richmond Holiday Parade (Saturday, December 3). These dates are confirmed by a letter that band director Mr. Stephens sent out at the beginning of the school year listing various band activities.
The question that presents itself is “Why did I want photos from the band concert and parade in the first place?” Having photos taken at performances such as those is usually done by the parents, who want to have some sort of keepsake of their child’s artistic demonstration (or to prove that they were actually there). And yet, I was the one who wanted to make sure that there were photos of the event. It’s not as if I was going to contribute these photos to the school newspaper (that thought had not yet entered my thinking). I just wanted to have them. Somewhere, in the back of my frenetic brain, was the first germ of an idea to document the activities of the band and ultimately produce a “yearbook” of sorts summarizing the events of the year. That idea had not yet fully developed, and it would be a few more weeks and a few more rolls before that happened, but at least I would have the photos on file for when I decided to begin the project.
I had my mother take the photos during the concert, and she did quite well with the manual settings (it was, after all, her camera), considering that the auditorium was dark except for the spotlights onstage.
The Middle School Band joined forces with the High School Band for the last four songs of the evening.
For the parade, I enlisted Mr. Stephens to take the photos, as he would walk the parade route on the sidewalk (and occasionally shout out directions as we had no drum major at this time). He captured four shots of the band as they plodded down Lancaster Avenue, the portion of the parade with the fewest spectators.
In between the band concert and the parade, I also took a few shots on Friday, December 2, 1983, which was the annual “Christmas Decorating Day” at Model High School. The last two periods of the afternoon were given to the high schoolers to paint the windows (juniors and seniors), decorate doors and hallways (sophomores and freshmen) and put up the Christmas tree in the lobby. The freshman class was also given the task of preparing treats and snacks for consumption by the hungry workers. I recall that I avoided doing any actual decorating work by taking on the heavy responsibility of being the “official photographer” for the snack committee:
Also from December 2: This capture of Anne W., Peggy L. and Tracy G. listening, uhm, attentively to Dr. Birdd’s fascinating Biology lecture.
This roll also features one of the most reprinted shots of Tanya and Sarah. As mentioned in the last episode, Tanya didn’t mind that I was taking all of these photos of her. She probably did mind, though, that I positioned the camera and then Keith yelled “Hey, Tanya!” in order to get her to swing around for this shot:
When I made prints of this photo, most people requested that I crop out Rusty W. (to the left of Tanya) for some reason.
The last two shots on the roll were not included in the proof sheet (at the top of this post), in spite of the fact that there is clearly room on the sheet for two more strips of negatives. I do not recall why I did not print those photos, other than the fact that they were not very memorable (Biology class held in the library and a random scene from lunch in The Grill) and the only reason I took them was because I was trying to finish out the roll.
I was in a hurry to finish this roll because I wanted to have a fresh roll in the camera for a very important visit that I was going to make on Thursday, December 8th to a very special person which would lead to a photo that would change the course of my photography pursuits for the next few years.
NEXT FRIDAY (May 28th): We answer the burning question “What do you do when you need to finish a roll of film as fast as possible?” Hint: The answer involves a lot more Third Period English Class shots.
There were 22 photos on this roll. You can see all of them at the Flickr set for the roll, which contains a lot more information about every single photo than what was described in this entry.
NOTE: You can click on any of the images above to get a larger view.
Facebook readers: Click on “View Original Post” to see the images formatted the way they were meant to be.
This was my contribution to the New York Times’ Lens blog’s A Moment in Time interactive gallery, wherein a bunch of people around the world all took a photo at 15:00 U.T.C. on Sunday, May 2, 2010. I’ve already posted my original photo that I was going to submit, but I decided to go with this one instead. There’s an interesting story that goes with it, which you will find with my entry in the gallery.
Feel free to browse through every single image, or just click here for my entry as it appears in the gallery.
Having tasted the wonder and excitement of shooting, developing and printing one’s own film (see the previous episode for all those exciting details), what would I do for my second roll? Since I wasn’t being driven by the anticipation of learning how to process film and therefore was taking pictures of everything and anything, perhaps for the second roll I would slow down and take photos of people, places and things that I thought would be interesting or worth capturing.
You would think that. It’s a good idea, in theory.
As evidenced by the proof sheet, this roll contained shots from a number of settings, both indoors and out, at varying levels of exposure and lighting … so varied, in fact, that it is impossible to find one proper setting in order to get all of the shots to come out on the proof sheet. Consequently, for the longest time, I had no idea what shots were in those blank areas … it wasn’t until I began digitally scanning these negatives that I discovered what exactly I had shot.
This roll of film also contains the first batch of images that would be representative of the photos that I would shoot for the next several months, until the end of my freshman year. There are three fellow freshmen that would appear on this roll and appear at least once on every other roll from this point onward.
Peggy L. and Keith H. were pretty much my only friends in my otherwise lonely freshman year (the majority of my friends were one grade below me). Peggy had been a friend since sixth grade, and I had known Keith since first grade, but our friendships intensified this particular year, probably because I had all of my classes with at least one of them. Third period English was the one class that I shared with both of them, and we bonded and formed quite possibly the most ridiculous “two guys and girl” trio that you ever saw. The three of us sat in the back rows in Mrs. Combs’ English class and, if you believe all of the photos (the ones in this set as well as ones coming up), we did our share of not paying attention in class.
Without checking to be absolutely sure, I believe that there is at least one Peggy photo on every roll that I took in the fall of 1983 and spring of 1984. As we shall see in later installments of this series, I do believe that I took at least one photo of her every week in fifth period Health class. Was there a point to my Peggy Photography? Well, she did purchase some of my better photos, so maybe I was trying to maximize my profits and get as many shots as possible. Was I being a little obsessive? Oh, probably. Was I stalking Peggy? Uhm, we’ll get to that.
The third person who will be making many appearances in my negatives is Tanya W. She, along with her best friend Sarah W., were recent new additions to our class, and everyone had noticed these two. Including Keith, who requested that I take photos of Tanya for him to purchase. Now, before everyone screams “Ewwww, that’s creepy!” (and I will agree with you on that point), I do wish to state, for the record, that I approached Tanya (having already befriended her as we were both clarinet players in band) and asked her if it was okay if I took photos of her, and she said sure, she didn’t mind, and could she see them as well because she might want to buy them … so these photos were taken with her implied permission, so I don’t want to hear any more disgusted groans from the audience.
It is important to note that this marked my first unofficial paid gig as a photographer, which became a bit of a necessity because I was paying my art teacher, Mrs. Isaacs, for the film and photo paper that I was consuming, and that money had to come from somewhere … and so this was the first of many end results of my decision to start taking photos on a regular basis in my freshman year in high school.
Other than the appearances of Keith, Peggy, Tanya, and the members of the third period English class, there’s only a few more significant moments on this roll:
Here we have a shot of Tracy G. and Peggy (as well as Mark R.) in fourth period Biology. Tracy, Peggy and I were the sole freshmen in this particular section of the class, which was primarily a sophomore level course. We had been selected to skip the freshman level Earth Science class due to our apparent skills in science. Peggy performed tremendously well, as expected, and continued up the ladder of science courses. Tracy and I, on the other hand, did not perform very well, and we had to suffer the indignity of taking Earth Science as sophomores. I had never printed this photo off of the original negatives until now, and it has so many elements to it — the assortment of stuff scattered around Dr. Birdd’s classroom, the relief map on the wall, the textbooks stacked on the floor, Tracy’s perturbed expression …
There are a couple of very good shots of my dog, Rocky, on this roll. He was with us from 1982 to 1986 and loved to chase cars, and one day he caught one. But that’s another story entirely. This is one of the few photos in which I got the exposure, and contrast, and lighting, and focus JUST RIGHT.
I don’t know why I have this photo taken in The Grill during lunch, especially since none of the people in this shot are even remotely looking at the camera. But I do like it because it serves a reference shot for what The Grill looked like back in 1983, with the ancient tables and chairs (which were old back then) and coat rack on the wall containing all matter of stuff that never seemed to go away. It is always interesting when we can compare something from back then with how they look today:
This roll of film also introduced me to the concept that the developing process is not entirely infallible — there are any number of things that could go wrong when developing the film, and one’s images could easily be damaged or destroyed by these calamities. Chemicals could be bad. Chemicals could not be completely washed off and could result in spotting. Dust, dirt, or other small foreign objects could slip into the developing tank and scratch the negative. And this is what happened with one portion of the negative, some shots that I took at the EKU track:
As we shall see later on, bad chemicals will be responsible for ruining or significantly altering a number of rolls of film.
When I first started shooting and processing my own film, I started to store the negatives in homemade envelopes that I made by folding a piece of paper around and using masking tape to seal the edges. When my negative collection started to get unwieldy, I upgraded to plastic negative storage sheets. However, two sets of negatives, in envelopes labeled “#2″ and “#6″ (which, coincidentally enough, turn out to be the second and sixth rolls in this series), never made it into sheets, and have remained in these homemade envelopes for almost 27 years (even more amazing is the fact that I managed to keep ahold of these two envelopes even though they had been stored separately from the spiral binder containing all of the negative sheets). Unfortunately, envelope #2 sustained some water damage at some point in time (as evidenced by the image to the left) and one of the strips, the second one from the top as seen in the proof sheet at the beginning of this post, became stuck to the paper of the envelope. Fortunately, the paper was stuck to the underside the negative, not the image side. I peeled the negative off of the paper and some residue remained, which I managed to clean off using some photographic emulsion cleaner. As a result, the negatives sustained some damage but fortunately the affected images were not ones that were too terribly essential or were damaged in a way that destroyed the image:
While the photos of the second roll are interesting in showing a slice-of-high-school-life from 1983, overall, it’s kind of disappointing, in that I had not yet quite found inspiring shots to take and was more excited by the prospect of going through the developing and printing process that I was just taking photos of anything. But bigger opportunities were just another roll away …
NEXT FRIDAY (May 21st): Relive the exciting holiday spirit of 1983 with the Model High School Band in concert and marching down Lancaster Avenue. Oh, and another Peggy photo. Or two. Or three.
There were 22 photos on this roll. You can see all of them at the Flickr set for the roll, which contains a lot more information about every single photo than what was described in this entry.
NOTE: You can click on any of the images above to get a larger view.
Facebook readers: Click on “View Original Post” to see the images formatted the way they were meant to be.
Or, A Tribute to My Old Buddy Shay Q. on the Occasion of His 40th Birthday.
Last year, upon turning 40 years of age, I became all reflective on the past four decades and proceeded to write a month-long blog entry all about it (partly inspired by another fellow blogger who did a much better job at it). I had hoped that other writers with far greater talent than I might attempt to do something similar as they approached the same milestone, but alas, no one rose to the challenge. I am, of course, vaguely referring to Mr. Shay Q. — so I suppose I’ll have to do it for him. And besides, I’ve got all the photographs.
On the other hand, I’ve already talked at great length about what a swell guy he is, and that was a little over a month ago, so it’s not like anything has changed since then. And there’s an upcoming series in this blog in which he is the primary subject, resulting in plenty of Chez Love in these electronic pages, so do we really need another long-winded tribute to Mr. Q, even though 40 is a big significant year in one’s life?
Ah, let’s just get to the embarrassing photos … that’s the only reason you’ve read this far anyway.
(with Dawn Q., early 1976)
Photo credits: All photos were taken either by me or by my camera except for the one of Shay and Dawn B. which was from the 1988 yearbook, the one from the cover photo of the Brandon String Trio album (I cannot recall the photographer’s name at this point but I’m sure it will come to me after I post this), and the professional portrait from the San Jose Mercury News which didn’t have a copyright on it and so I swiped it and I didn’t have to give them credit here but I did anyway so there.
Some multi-directional signage at the Louisiana Welcome Center off of I-20 at the Texas border.
(A lot of things seem funnier after many hours in a hot vehicle.)
One day in late October or early November (the exact date eludes me), Mrs. Isaacs, my art teacher at Model Lab School, introduced me to the world of black & white photography and Tri-X film and film developing and making my own prints (through the tray method of dipping the photo paper into developer, stop bath and fixer). Mrs. Isaacs gave me my first roll of film and told me to bring it back once I finished shooting it. For the next 24 hours, I carefully picked out an assortment of target shots to fill up my 24 exposures on that roll; this was actually harder than you might imagine, because I had to make sure that these would be photos that I would want to print. At least half of the photos ended up being taken after the last period of class the following day, as I desperately attempted to use up the film so I could get to developing and printing.
To the right is the original proof sheet that we made from the negatives. The order of the negatives is also wrong, an aspect of this sheet that has caused me great confusion for almost 30 years — the bottom two rows on that sheet should be switched. Adding to the confusion is that the frame numbers on each roll start somewhere in the middle of the numbering sequence; in this case, the first shot is frame 29. Once the film hits frame 44a, it starts over at frame 1. This is probably due to Mrs. Isaacs purchasing the film in bulk and rolling them herself. Many of my early negatives were mis-sorted due to the numbers running in this incorrect sequence.
As mentioned earlier, I am not entirely certain as to when these photos were taken, and can only estimate based on the fact that I took very few photos in the fall of 1983, implying that I was just getting started. I would guess that these photos were taken in late October or early November based on people wearing sweaters and light jackets and sweatshirts (although Shay wearing short sleeves in one of the shots and the unidentified person in a t-shirt and shorts in the photo in front of the school does break that trend, but those instances can also be easily explained).
Initially, I printed out every photo from this roll with the exception of three shots (which will be explained later). I do not have all of those original first prints; some were given away, some were sold, some were lost, and some were utilized in other projects.
I seem to have lost the first strip of negatives containing the first four shots that I too, pictured to the left (scanned from the original proof sheet). This batch of negatives were not with the others in my archives and I fear that they no longer exist. The very first photo is a portrait of Mrs. Isaacs, which I never printed because it was right at the beginning of the roll and was not a complete photograph.
The next two shots are of the front of Model Lab School. I had just placed the roll of film into my camera and wanted to shoot something, which is probably why I decided to take a picture of the front of the Donovan Building. The first shot was bad and I knew it was at the time (wrong camera setting) and so I knew to take a second shot. I never attempted to print the first shot. Here’s the second shot, scanned and enlarged from the original proof sheet:
After wandering around the school and not being inspired at all, I returned to the art room and took another photo of Mrs. Isaacs because I wasn’t sure that the first one was going to come out. That is the last shot on the “lost” strip of negatives. Peggy happened to be hanging out in the art room at the time and I snagged a quick photo of her as well, hiding behind the chairs on the art room tables (cropped out image to the right). This was my first Peggy L. shot and it most certainly would not be the last. There’s a lot more Peggy photos to come, and there is a convoluted reason for that which we will get to later on.
I stopped taking photos that day for whatever reason and decided to try again the next day, and hopefully find something more inspiring. The first photo of the second day was that of the Model Lab School Cafeteria, during Elementary lunch:
This would be a lot more interesting if I had the slightest idea who any of these kids were. I recognize Peggy’s younger brother near the righthand side of the frame, and I’m pretty sure that my brother is in there somewhere, but that’s about it. Later on that afternoon, I took a shot of an Elementary gym class that was being held in the Shirley Kearns Gymnasium as I was leaving the boy’s locker room after my fourth period gym class:
The only print that I had ever made of this shot was an enlargement of the group, because my brother is in this class and I was trying to get a photo of him. I had not noticed the reflection of the lights coming in through the windows on that buffed hardwood floor until I had scanned the entire frame. That’s actually not a bad shot.
The next batch of photos came from band class. Taking photos of the band rehearsal were the first steps towards eventually deciding to do the band yearbook, and I guess you could say these photos were the inspiration.
This was the first photo that I ever took of Tanya W., fellow freshman and first chair clarinet. This would not be the last photo I took of her. There’s a lot more, and there’s also a convoluted story about that. I also never really noticed until I was processing this image that the clarinet is in perfect focus while she is somewhat blurry, an interesting artistic touch (it’s more obvious in the larger image, which you can get to if you click on the image itself).
These are a couple more shots from this exciting day in band class. The band appears to be quite small because, well, it was, after the mass exodus of students from band class in Mr. Stephens’ second year. Things would improve in the following years, but for now, the trombones sat in the same row as the flutes (rather than two rows in the back) and there was only one active percussionist.
This shot of Mr. Stephens directing is probably my quintessential shot of Mr. Stephens from the time; not only is it the first but it is probably the best shot out of all the ones I have taken. You will also note that his trademark podium is not yet under his feet.
At this point, school is over for the day, and I have yet to use half the roll of film. I am extremely anxious to develop this roll, and so I literally run around the school looking for things to shoot (hmm, that did not sound right at all). Upstairs to Mrs. Carr’s room and my first Shay Q. shot:
Also not the last Shay Q. shot by any means.
Further down the hall, we find Peggy sitting in front of her locker (where she could usually be found for the first 30 minutes after school), along with Sarah W. retrieving her belongings from the adjacent locker:
And next to it is same shot, cropped, enlarged, converted to grayscale and seriously brightened with the contrast adjusted. The shot on the right is one of my favorites, capturing a moment in the life of two high schoolers, after a day of school, one with her arms full of books and trying to get out, while the other is still somewhat stuck in her day. Or something like that. I included the original shot as a representative image of my photography style — the perspective shot, the blurry elements, the horrible lighting, toe non-use of a flash — all the things that one will find in my photos.
Speaking of perspective shots, here’s another one, of Mrs. Combs’ room:
I could probably go through my photo archives and pull together a series of images that I call “Taken from the Point of View of an Ant,” in which I would lie down on the ground, point the camera up and have an accomplice stand above me with their foot right above the lens. Like this one. The image to the right, in which I am aided by my pal Danny B., did not come out at all on the original proof sheet, primarily due to the fact that I was aiming the camera directly into the afternoon sky and this had the adverse affect of backlighting everything (which I did not compensate with my exposure controls). As a result, I had no idea what was in that frame when I looked at the negative, and never printed the photo. It wasn’t until I scanned the negatives and re-discovered this image, 27 years later. And so, this image gets seen for the very first time.
By this time, I was extremely anxious to develop the film, so I took a few more quick shots, then raced to the art room where Mrs. Isaacs brought out the black bag and the film canister, and I proceeded to develop my first roll of film. We hung it out to dry and, the next day, I began the process of learning how to print photos, starting with the proof sheet that preceded this post. We were on our way.
There were a lot of “firsts” in this roll, and there were certainly not a whole lot of “lasts,” as we shall see as this series develops.
NEXT FRIDAY (May 14th): Mrs. Combs’ Third Period Freshman English Class! Why the hell would anyone take photos during that class? And yet, someone did …
Flickr set with a lot more information about all of the photos.
NOTE: You can click on any of the images above to get a larger view.
Facebook readers: Click on “View Original Post” to see the images formatted the way they were meant to be.
As mentioned in the previous entry, the majority of my high school photography was shot with black & white Tri-X 400 speed 35mm film using a manual Walz Wide and an automatic Minolta. It all started one day after school in the fall of 1983, when Mrs. Isaacs told me that one of the projects her Art II class did was to develop their own film and print their own photos, and would I be interested in trying this out as an after-school project? Having an interest in photography for many years prior to this, there was no doubt as to what my answer would be. And so began a four-year process of buying the film from her (which she rolled herself into re-usable cartridges), developing the film, and printing photos in the art room’s darkroom.
Now armed with a fully loaded camera and roaming the halls of the school, what would be my targets? Band class had always been one of my favorites, and I hit upon the idea of taking photos of various band activities and, at the end of the school year, compiling a band “yearbook” (this was mainly inspired by the fact that our school yearbook gave the band so little space, not that we really deserved a whole lot more, but I figured, why not). This would not be an official school activity, nor would I actually receive any compensation for it, but it was something that I was willing to do and Mr. Stephens, band director, said, why not. I would proceed to compile band yearbooks for my freshman and sophomore years of high school. Strangely enough, I never joined the staff of or took photos for the actual school yearbook.
In my sophomore year, somehow I found myself on the staff of the school’s newspaper, in spite of the fact that I was not in the class itself nor did I attend any of their after-school meetings. I had contributed some photos the previous year of some events that their regular staff photographer could not attend, and I submitted a monthly article as the “band correspondent,” but then, somehow, I ended up in the yearbook photo — I was walking down the hallway and some of the staffers ran up to me and said that they were looking for me so that they could take the staff photo and I protested “But I’m not on the staff; I’m not in the class” and they said “But your name is in the staff listing” and so they dragged me into the classroom and plopped me in the chair and took the photo. I guess I was the “Peter Parker” to The Observer; the freelancer who happened to get all of the shots of Spider-Man but never was officially on the payroll since I still had to buy and print my own film. It was through The Observer that I expanded my subject field and shot photos other than ones for the band yearbook.
Being the obsessive collector and historian that I am, I still have the majority of all of my original negatives from this time period. The Tri-X Files project will be my attempt to inventory, catalog and present almost every one of these images that I shot on Tri-X film from 1983 to 1987. This project will also involve a three-way presentation between this blog, Flickr, and Facebook. The images will be posted and stored on Flickr, with details for every image. Highlights from each set of images will be posted onto the blog, which will be cross-posted to Facebook (as there are some readers who seem to be allergic to reading my posts anywhere else) and tagged for appropriate levels of embarrassment and hilarity. Selected images may also show up on FB as well. As with my FAD Project, last names will not be used on anything that is posted for public viewing (the blog, Flickr) in the interest of personal privacy.
In the process of assembling these original sets of negatives (which were not necessarily filed in the most organized manner), I will attempt to present them in the proper chronological order, starting with the fall of 1983. New entries in this series will be posted to this blog once a week on Friday. As there were a lot of rolls that were shot in that time, I expect this series will run for a number of weeks — unless I get bored and/or frustrated and just give up on it.
Each entry will have a link back to the appropriate set on Flickr, and as more sets are added, there will be collections as well. This has the potential to be really, really big, as well as really, really messy. All images in the Flickr set will be presented uncut and unedited in its original frame. In some cases, however, I will present a second version of the image, cropped and enlarged the way that I had originally intended to do with that particular image. Many of these images have never been printed or published, as funds and resources restricted which photos could be printed.
Big thanks to Jeffrey Scott Holland for suggesting the title of this series.
Join us as we attempt to define, or, in some cases, destroy history!
It’s all about the negatives.
