Wednesday, May 02, 2012

The more restrictions I give myself when taking photographs the more I can concentrate on expression and whatever transpires between this photographer and my subject. Sometimes it is a direct connection between my subject’s eyes through the lens of my Mamiya, up the mirror into the pentaprism, that makes the upside down and the right is left picture into its correct configuration and straight through my left eye (the one I look into) ending somewhere in my brain that some would call my soul.

In these situations, even when I tell myself I will take only five (but I was able to snap one more as I had only used up four exposures, a ten exposure roll, on my previous subject, a gentleman with his black cat, the best shot is the first one and rarely the last. The middle ones seem to be photographic cannon fodder. With Stefanie Denz I knew I had my shot with the first exposure. It was that exposure, tight and showing both her magnificent and strong hands which I chose to illustrate her essay on this Me&My Project, a project in which the restrictions are to use my mother’s red Mexican shawl, a gray background, one light, the same 140mm lens in my Mamiya RB-67 Pro SD loaded with Kodak Ektachrome 100G. There is one more constant and this is my insistence in showing hands.

To those that might be interested I am showing here the picture that I almost used. It was the fifth exposure of the total six. What won out for me was the showing of both hands as seen here. I like Denz’s muscular arms. I was tempted by that fifth exposure hint of her blue jeans.

After years of looking at pictures I have come to trust my first impression. Sometimes I feel like a most Vulcan Spock with a built-in scanner in my brain.