Rain on My Parade

It was a cold, rainy Saturday. It didn’t start off too bad—when I set out that morning, stopping at my neighborhood coffee shop for an Americano and a breakfast sandwich, the weather was mild and a little misty. I met up with the Glossed Over photo club crew and walked over to Broad Street to catch the annual Dominion Energy Christmas Parade, and by the time we staked out a little square of sidewalk, the temperature had dropped and the mist fattened into full-on rain.

The parade marchers and float-riders wore clear plastic ponchos and held umbrellas as they streamed by, grinning and waving despite the growing cold. Cheerleaders smiled and kicked, their made-up faces shining wet, the fur of mascot uniforms matted with rainwater. Over and over, the paraders thanked us for coming out in the dreary weather.

I quickly learned that my own raincoat, a recent purchase that hadn’t been properly tested out yet, was more water-resistant than waterproof, the long sleeves of my shirt underneath gradually soaking through to the skin. My hands were cold and wet, and my lens perpetually fogged and dappled with rain, making it hard to focus on the subjects in my viewfinder. I had no idea what to expect when I sent the film off to the lab for processing, each shot a gamble. Most of the color film from that day turned out to be underexposed, but this black and white roll of Kentmere 400 perfectly captured the feel of the day, grim, grey, and hazy. The above shot is one of my favorites from the roll—I love how the color guard members in their shining headbands resemble the Amazon women of Wonder Woman comic books.

One of my favorite things to capture in photography is movement, especially when the conditions are challenging; this is why I love photographing sports like skateboarding, surfing, and rodeo. It’s gratifying to point a manual-focus camera at a moving subject, knowing you only have an instant or two to grab the shot, and later find that you nailed it. It’s hard enough to manually focus your camera quickly when something is moving in and out of frame—throw in slippery, cold fingers and the challenge gets a little tougher. I stayed until the very end of the parade. By the time I hobbled home that day, I was soaked through from my head to the wet socks on my feet. My body was sore and tense from bracing against the damp chill. It was worth it when I saw the developed images and had gotten what I went out there for. It felt like an exercise in that sort of quick-draw action photography that I gravitate towards, like working a muscle I want to be strong.

Thank you for reading, you’re beautiful.

Double Take

I have never attempted double exposure photography.

I’ve always been interested in it, but have never experimented with it, mostly because I just don’t remember to. So much of what I photograph is documentary—my goals are to capture what’s in front of me in a way that embodies the spirit of what I feel when I look at the subject and to find composition that feels dynamic to the viewer. I make very few conceptual photographs and don’t really experiment with creative effects or techniques very often. So while I love other photographer’s double exposure work, it’s not usually top of mind for me.

I recently got back a roll of film containing about a dozen sort of on purpose/sort of accidental double exposures. I’d loaded a roll of Kentmere 400 into my Pentax K1000 and shot about a third of the roll, but had been having problems with the shutter sticking on that camera. A good portion of the frames I’d shot were going to be photos of nothing, as I continuously fired the shutter trying to get it to unstick. I didn’t load the film planning to make double exposures, but after it became clear my camera wasn’t going to cooperate, I decided to rewind the roll and reshoot it, knowing that a portion of the frames would come out double exposed.

I sat on the roll for a while before reloading it into a Minolta and taking it to the Dominion Energy Christmas Parade. I couldn’t remember what I’d shot on those first dozen frames or how many of them would be discernable images. Behind some of the closeup shots of parade floats, I could see a wall of picture frames from my living room, and remembered having the shutter issue while trying to photograph someone for my tattoo stories series.

The above images shows Courtney, the subject of my tattoo series shoot, as serene as a saint, centered and framed by the umbrellas of parade float riders, one of them waving to the crowd. The effect of the composition feels almost religious to me.

Some of the first round of images were taken on a hike at Crabtree Falls, Virginia. I only know this for sure from the “Danger” sign splashed across the belly of the parade dancer in the first photo of this post, warning hikers to avoid climbing on the waterfall rocks because of a clear algae that makes the rocks extremely slippery. Other shots dapple paraders in black and white foliage from the forest surrounding the falls.

I like that most of the first round of exposures aren’t super discernable images and add a haunting, supernatural feel to the parade photos. I want to shoot another roll of doubles and wait long enough between rounds to forget what I shot on the first, so that the end result feels unplanned. I don’t want the first image in mind when choosing its overlapping partner.

Thank you for reading, you’re beautiful.

Coming Soon

Hello readers!

Like many photographers and other artists, I have found myself disillusioned with Instagram and other social media platforms for sharing work. The constant scrolling, the influx of ads and sponsored posts, the censorship, the algorithm that works against creators. I want to provide a place where people can view my work without the distraction, maybe even on a screen larger than their smartphones, and have more space to talk about what I’m doing and share what I want on my terms.

I’ve had this website for a few years now, and have updated it in spurts. I’m currently working on a full update, moving some stuff around and adding more recent work. Once I get everything in order, I will start using this blog as the main platform for my photography, and use Instagram mostly to direct traffic here. So stay tuned, and thank you for reading, you’re beautiful.