The Photograph I Took For Myself
It’s hard to remember what it was like to do photography in 1999. That was the year some work friends encouraged me to get a “real” camera and to start taking “real” pictures. The circle of people who saw my photos was quite small. Really, no one outside of my fellow photographers at work and my family ever saw what I had captured. But as I recall, that didn’t take anything away from the pleasure of photography. The act of creation was the reward itself.
Twenty-seven years later I am attempting to come full circle. I’m not going to add to the litany of the evils of social media here, except to say that its pull is very real and one I find almost impossible to resist. I shoot primarily in the moment on pure instinct, but I frequently ask myself after the fact how a particular shot is going to be received on the various platforms.
Rather than to take the drastic steps of deleting all my accounts, I have simply decided to give myself permission to post the photos I like and attempt not to worry how they are received by the masses. I mean, really, that’s all any of us can do.
This brings me to a photograph I took this summer titled “Luba,” one that strongly appeals to me for reasons I’m not quite sure about. The title stems from the name of the restaurant we have been frequenting since the first week it opened. The owner was a chef at another popular local restaurant and on the weekends he and his wife would tow a pizza oven to various gatherings and events. When he told us he was opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant, we vowed to be there when it opened.
Years later, its popularity has steadily increased but the quality of the food and service has remained exceptionally high. When one or both of our daughters are away, we make sure and send them pics of the pizzas when they come out for a little jealousy-inducing fun.
On one such visit, my wife and I arrived early, before the crowd. After being seated I remarked to my wife how strange it was to be there when it wasn’t crowded and that’s when I noticed the empty tables across the room.
My Leica M6 was with me and I had some Kodak Ektapan 400 film already loaded. The scene screamed for a black-and-white photograph with the texture of the wall and the emptiness of the tables with the sunlight fighting to get in around the drawn shades.
I dug out my camera and positioned myself to get the proper angle of the empty tables and brightly outlined window shades. I’m sure the other patrons and employees wondered what the heck I was taking a picture of, but I had a certain photograph in my head and I wanted to get as close to it as possible, others be damned. I snapped the photo and sat back down and acted as if nothing strange just happened.
Days later, after finishing the roll and developing the negatives, I held up the sleeve to check on this particular photo as it was the one I was most excited about. It looked properly exposed and in focus on the negative, but the real test would come after scanning.
Sure enough, after shooting the negative with my digital camera and macro lens, I imported the file into Lightroom and sat back and marveled at the photograph. But why? It’s just a couple of empty tables in a nondescript restaurant.
But looking at the photograph actually gives me a thrill. And I know I still haven’t answered the question why, and the truth is, I’m not exactly sure. I see light and I shoot it. And when it’s illuminating a subject, any subject, I get excited.
Without the light, it would just be another boring photograph of restaurant tables. But when you add the edges of sunlight around the blinds spilling onto parts of the tables, that makes it more of a painting, something to be interpreted, not just observed.
Would I have gotten as excited if it was in a restaurant that didn’t mean so much to our family? I think so. After all, I marveled at this photograph before anyone else had even seen it.
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