Window of Opportunity

Posted: July 29, 2009 
Filed under: Portraits
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This photograph is of my oldest friend with whom I have since had to part ways.  I have known him since I was two and half, or three years old, and he is essentially a third brother to me.  In all the nearly 20 years we have known each other, this is the only photograph I have personally taken of him.  But, while at a cottage with him and his family, and while cleaning my equipment with a dust brush, I could not resist taking this shot, much in the same impulsive way as with Arias.

He has always been and always will be an inquisitive soul.  He is never satiated by what he knows of the world, and constantly seeks new information to stimulate his mind.  We used to find so much trouble when we were kids.  And yet, if you leave him be, if you let him live as if nobody is expecting anything from him or watching his movements, he will explore the world around him.  Give him light, he reads a book.  However, we know not what he reads, what he’s learning; it is a secret, locked away, like whatever is behind the reflective glass cabinet doors, which echo the nostalgic scene outside, much like the smile on his face is a reflection of the pleasure of discovery.

I used a 28mm Nikon lens, hence the angling of the lines yet the correct center of gravity on him, and a sepia filter mounted on my cokin filter system.  The sepia filter creates the feeling of older times, and he very much lives his life according to an old code.  The kind of code you will find in Steinbeck, Hemingway, Orwell and other authors’ work.  The kind of code that defined men before there were suits to put them in.  Thus, the sepia filter was a another crucial choice in capturing the essence of him.

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