Love in the Museum

It’s not often that I take people’s portraits outside of my series projects, but when Haley asked me to photograph her and fiancé Colter’s recent engagement, it was a emphatic yes. I’ve worked with Haley a few times over the years, photographing each other, and I was honored to be asked to capture this moment for the young couple.

Haley and Colter got engaged at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts about a month before our shoot, and we agreed the museum was the perfect backdrop for the photos. Shooting in the museum proved to be a little trickier than we expected—I’d done a photoshoot with my cousin there a few years ago with no issues, but it seems their policies have gotten a bit stricter since. Our plan had been to shoot mostly along the perimeters of the museum, near sunny windows and away from the main galleries, and especially wanted to capture a few shots in the space featuring the tall stained glass panels above, where Haley and Colter had taken their first engagement photos on their smartphones the month before. But as we entered the space and began setting our things down, a museum guard informed us that photoshoots were limited to the museum’s downstairs atrium and the Marble Hall. He was friendly about it and almost apologetic, a wink in his voice as he said he was obligated to tell us the policy before he left the corridor, giving us a few minutes alone to quickly snap the first-of-the-roll shot above.

We had a little better luck in an alcove on the east face of the building where the original museum entrance is located. The first guard had told us that the photoshoot policy had to do with something related to copyrights, so I asked the guard manning the east entrance if we could grab a few photos as long as we didn’t feature any of the art in them, and he shrugged and said sure.

We moved to the Marble Hall and atrium for a few more indoor shots before heading out to the grounds. The day was a mix of “act now, apologize later” and asking permission, grabbing what we could in restricted areas and making the most of the approved ones.

More from this day to come. The color film stock used is CineStill 800T and the black and white is Ilford Delta 3200, both shot on Minolta SLRs.

Thank you for reading, you’re beautiful.

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.