Did this gentleman survive the war? Or was this his last photo? Was it sent to a wife waiting at home? To his mother? What did the letter have to say that accompanied the photograph?
As far as I can tell he was an unlisted infantryman in either the Army or Marines. Just another foot soldier, yet…
It was something like 4:20 in the morning, I had just climbed into bed and our 6 month old son Jacob was in full terror mode. One look at Heather and I could tell Jacob had been at it for some time. Like most infants, Jacob seems to fall asleep immediately upon getting strapped into the car seat and taken for a drive. So I offered to take him for a spin.
True to form he was asleep before I was out of the driveway, but having grabbed my Holga and a few rolls of film, I decided to keep to the plan and take my boy for a mini road trip. We eventually made it to a park down by the Charles River and I saw this. The headlights were a bit of the voodoo that makes photography the medium it is.
Once in Prague, I knew that I never wanted to leave. The city and its aesthetic had an immediate impact on my soul, and photography. Knowing that a permanent stay would in all likelihood be impossible, I decided to not lose a single second of time, save for that which was a physiological necessity. So unless I was sleeping, eating or drinking a few litres of Budvar, I was taking pictures.
This one occurred as I took a different route back to the hotel after a nocturnal visit to the castle.
Today was the first day we could get the kids out of the house on a weekend in sometime, so Heather and I rounded up the trike, the stroller, said kids and headed down to the Charles River Park and took full advantage of the killer day.
I took along the DSLR for snaps of the kids as well as my Holga in case I saw something interesting I wanted to commit to film. I found this on the way back from a trip to the car to deposit Emmy’s trike after she tired of riding it.
I initially took it digitally just to see if I liked the way it looked and then seeing the results, ran back to Heather and the kids to get the Holga which I’d left behind. By the time I got back to the scene, the sun shifted enough so that the shadow wasn’t running straight down the trunk, but I shot it anyway feeling the loss of symmetry might be just as cool. I’ve posted the digital version and will follow up with the Holga version when I get the film back.
Decrepit by Steph Goralnick at JPG.com
I was introduced to jpgmag.com by my friend Jeffrey Engel and have become quite hooked with this amazing photo site. For any photographer looking for a community I can’t suggest anything better than JPG. With limitations on how many images one can post in a 24 hour period, quality of the photographs is stressed. And there’s an abundance of amazing images.
The element that allows JPG to rise above is that it’s not just a website, but a member driven publication as well. For each new issue, they offer three themes and each photographer is allowed to submit one image per theme. One of the currently open themes is “Entropy” and that’s where I found Steph Goralnick’s work.
She has a few different themes within her portfolio, but the images of hers that really blow me away are entropy defined. Her take on the ravages of time, the textures that emerge and the mixture of tones are all so friggin’ spot on, things that would otherwise be deemed ugly become so beautiful it’s hard to stop looking.
In addition to being a fantastic photographer, she’s also a talented writer with a wit and sense of humor. I highly suggest spending some time with her efforts.
