garrison beau scott

You ever get asked this? I find it usually happens to me when I’m out taking snaps at night and the camera is on a tripod. Doubly if it’s pointed at anything but a tree.

So here I am in Vienna, walking around at night and I find this bus stop. There was a little over-hang that was made of brushed steel and the lights hit it in such a way as to make this cool pattern. I set my camera up on the tripod, very low to the ground, and I’m looking through the ground glass (Yashica-Mat, twin lens) when I hear a conversation behind me in German.

I look up and there’s a group of people talking to each other, rather excitedly. It sounds more like an argument, and each of them are pointing and disagreeing. When I turn around one of them asks the question, thankfully in English, “What are you taking a picture of?” I think it’s better to show him, then try to explain, so I invite him to have a look in the glass.

His response was similar to being told the solution to a riddle, and from what I was able to gather, he tried to get his friends to look as well, but they were having none of it. In fact if anything, they seemed rather upset that there was a discussion to begin with.

As they went off into the night, the one who had looked was doing his best to describe what he had seen, gesticulating with his hands trying to describe what the light was doing. Or at least that’s the way it looked to me, not being able to speak German and all.

When I go out photographing, especially in a new place, I tend to forget to write down the details of the things I photograph. Things like bridges, rivers, major landmarks are easy to look up in the guide books after the fact, but buildings such as these become a bit more difficult.

So I end up creating names that I then incorporate into the title of the picture. For better or for worse, that’s the way it is with me.

When I see one of my images for the first time, I think about what I’m going to title it. It might seem like a goofy thing to think about right off, as opposed to if I succeeded with the composition or the contrast, or if it works on one level or another. For me I guess it’s like naming a child. You can celebrate them all you want, but eventually someone’s going to ask you what they’re supposed to call it. I figure I’ll get the whole name thing out of the way first and then spend the rest of my time with the image celebrating it for what it’s given me.

Sometimes the title comes easily, sometimes I have to come up with something a little odd, and sometimes I turn to music. And by that I mean lyrics. Whenever I’m at a loss for a title, a common practice for me is to pop something in the stereo and meditate on the words, and more often than not, I’ll find it there. Like I did with this one that I’m posting today. I’ve got many reasons for doing it this way; one is that I just think it’s cool. The other is that it serves as a code of sorts, almost a password. If you know the lyrics I’m using, then you know the song, and chances are if you know the song we have a common ground.

And that’s what it’s about right?

This is an easy one for those of you wanting to guess the origin. So without further ado, may I present you with: “A Spring Clean for a May Queen, Vienna, 2001.”