Subject: Ben. Our in-house teenager. Camera: Hasselblad 501 C/M. Lens: 80mm Zeiss Planar. Film: Kodak Tri-X, ISO 400. Light: Indirect daylight coming in through a set of double glass doors. Tripod? Yes.
I'm one of those people whose parents had very little interest in photography. They started, with due diligence, on a baby book but you could see that the late 1950's was a bit overwhelming and production quickly fell off. My collection of my own visual history contains a flurry of blurry baby shots, a mix of yearly professional portraits of me with my siblings, some "cute kid in cowboy hat with six shooters" photos as little, grainy 3 by 3 inch, deckled edged prints, a few shots from high school and random other stuff.
By contrast, Ben has been photographed at nearly every step of the way. Swim meets, track meets, band concerts, Halloween costumes, first day of school, last day of school, linear yards of prints albums, lots and lots of workboxes full of all manner of negatives and chromes. Disk after disk of digital images and so much more. He's used to it. Blase' about the process and probably, as a result of his total immersion in photography (as a subject) he has absolutely no interest in taking up a camera and learning the craft.
I promise not to show future girlfriends embarrassing shots from an earlier age. I know being followed around by a parent with a camera can be..........annoying but.....It's more fun for me to try new techniques on Ben than on the dog. And he doesn't move as fast as the dog.
