A Pretty Good Day...

It is not from the meeting at 59 Diner, just more Table for One

Had a great afternoon with Michael Young yesterday. We met at our usual 59 Diner and spent two hours discussing the ridiculousness of the world, the macabre, Eric Fromm, Edgar Allen Poe and even the reason for our meeting, my Table for One portfolio.

I greatly appreciate Michael’s help. Of the hundred or so photographs I first narrowed it down to twenty-nine which I used on the placard. From those I had nineteen printed and those needed to be narrowed down to between eight and twelve. I was hoping for ten. I was not only pleased but impressed with the attention Michael gave to each of the photographs. The first run through he came up with exactly ten.

When the project first started I limited the subject matter to simply what was on the table. Then I realized that to really say what I wanted each one to say I needed to include an empty chair or booth bench. As it progressed I began to include more of the environment and it was from these later photographs that Michael selected. Even though I did lose a couple of my favorites that left to my own devices I would have included it was easy to see that Michael’s selection was a much more cohesive group—a greatly improved portfolio. We did discuss the photographs as he sorted through them but it did not really require any persuasion to go with the ten he selected.

A great chocolate milk shake, a couple of hours of interesting conversation but very importantly a much, much stronger portfolio for the challenge. How could you beat a deal like that. Thank you Michael.

As you might have surmised, I am addicted to this project. I have probably added a dozen or more photographs since I had the prints made. It will probably continue for a very long time—well as long as I feel that I am not totally replicating what I have already done. The insertion of the Samsung is taking the project in a new direction—it’s almost like starting again. Susan Sontag said that all photographs are surreal and IMO the Samsung photographs are considerably more surreal than the Nikon photographs.

Then to top the day off it was camera club. Jerry put together a model shoot but I got so busy talking I didn’t take any photographs of the models. Les didn’t show up so I tried to fill in with a few overall shots of the meeting and shot mostly photographers.

Invocation? Please have Jim stop talking so we can take photographs?