You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2013.
…I was four years old. My Uncle John was twelve.
That same month, my parents took the both of us to Disney World. It was my first time at a Disney park, and John’s second time.
Yesterday, John and I visited a Disney park together for the first time in 32 years. This time it wasn’t Disney World (not much is), but Disneyland. Regardless, we revisited some old memories.
In 1981, my dad took a photo of us together on Main Street.
Yesterday, our friend took a photo of us together on Main Street.
In 1981, my mom bought us ice cream bars in Tomorrowland.
Yesterday, I bought us ice cream bars in Tomorrowland.
John still carries a purse,
I recently came across some old photos I shot over the last twenty years or so.
Rather than let them sit on a CD for the rest of my life I figured I’d save them to my desktop, dust them off, and share them with you guys one image at a time.
Hope you enjoy them.
Jamie in the Closet
I shot this image of Jamie Coulson, my girlfriend at the time, standing in a large empty closet at a bed and breakfast we were staying at somewhere in the Amish country of northeastern Ohio. It was taken sometime in the fall of 2000.
Jamie and I started dating in 1996. When this shot was taken, our relationship was on the rocks, so Jamie planned a weekend-long retreat for us to reconnect. The weekend was a nice escape from Columbus and the bed and breakfast we stayed in was fantastic. I seriously had the best scrambled eggs there I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. Unfortunately, it did little to save our relationship. We broke up a couple months after this image was shot.
Before I continue you should know that it was for the best. Not only did Jamie end up finding the love of her life in a great and wonderful man named Dave (she is now Jamie Bowers), but once the usual end-of-relationship dust settled we were able to remain great friends. Jamie and Dave even came to our wedding in 2011.
I shot a few rolls of 120 color film with my Mamiya RB67 that weekend, and took a few frames of Jamie standing in our bedroom closet because it was such a bizarre space. In addition to it being enormous, it had no doors, hooks, or rods. Essentially, it was just a little room off the bedroom that went nowhere and served no purpose.
There was a lightbulb hanging in the closet just above Jamie’s head. She’s holding the string in her right hand in the shot.
I feel extremely fortunate that I’ve been able to stay close friends with Jamie, and am grateful that I have old images (and memories) like these to remind me of those great times.
You’ll probably be seeing more of her,
I recently came across some old photos I shot over the last twenty years or so.
Rather than let them sit on a CD for the rest of my life I figured I’d save them to my desktop, dust them off, and share them with you guys one image at a time.
Hope you enjoy them.
Kae’s Dirty Laundry
I shot this image of my old friend Kae Denino in a laundromat in German Village in Columbus, Ohio. It was taken in the summer of 1999.
Kae, who had been an English professor at my college the year before, was getting a book published, and she asked me to shoot some photos of her to possibly use as the “about the author” image.
I shot a bunch of rolls of Kae that summer in many different locations. We shot in a coffee shop on High Street, an abandoned warehouse just north of downtown, and finally in this laundromat.
I don’t remember much about this shoot other than the fact that it was unbearably hot that day, and that the laundromat didn’t have air conditioning. To cool down, Kae and I walked next door to a wine shop and bought a giant can of beer, which we tag-teamed and downed within minutes. One of the other images on the roll shows her chugging beer out of an enormous can.
This image was shot on 120 black-and-white film with my Mamiya RB67. Many of the washing machine doors were already open, but I had to open one or two and straighten the others to make them symmetrical.
You can see the top of Kae’s dress through the doors, but not her face, which is ironically blocked out by a partial reflection of me.
The month before this was shot, Kae and I started working together at the Columbus alt-weekly The Other Paper; she was a reporter, I was a graphic designer. We frequently carpooled to work together, becoming close in the process.
Kae’s book, Glow, came out in December 2000. None of the photos I shot of her appeared in it.
Within the next year, we both quit The Other Paper and our friendship fell apart, mostly because of my own immaturity and stubbornness.
She was one of four people at the very first Food Night,
…to which I always reply: “It’s not a medical bracelet.”
In the early eighties, in the aftermath of the Adam Walsh kidnapping, schools (or at least the public schools in Milwaukee) got proactive about identifying their students should anything horrible happen. Essentially, kids were issued medical bracelets that would serve as dog tags should their… I don’t know, lifeless bodies be found in a ditch somewhere.
The front of each bracelet contained the kid’s full name, address, phone number, and birthdate. Of course, in hindsight, this might not have been the brightest idea. It’s basically the equivalent of writing your kid’s name and address on the back of their jacket. But hey, it was the eighties. Reagan was president, for crying out loud!
On the back of the bracelet, kids were allowed to choose an illustration from a gallery of pre-drawn art. For whatever reason, the five-year-old me chose the creepiest illustration out of the batch.
I wore this bracelet all through elementary school (from kindergarten through fifth grade), but as soon as I started middle school it was no longer cool to wear a bracelet with a creepy clown on it. And so it sat in a dresser drawer until just a few years ago, when I happened upon it and decided to see if it would still fit.
It did. Just barely—it’s latched on the very last loop, which means I can’t gain any weight for fear of it popping off my wrist—but still, I find it pretty remarkable that I can still wear a bracelet I first put on my wrist 32 years ago.
Finally old enough for creepy clown bracelets to be cool again,
The Blarg 