Sharing with the Past...

Music | Naima by John Coltrane

The other day, I got to spend some time with my past... I'd say close to 25 years ago was when I may have last hung out with Tamara Staples in her old loft space in Bucktown. I remember doing a portrait of her while she was making these extraordinary hats. As she is now, she has a spirit that is free and carries on much in the same way from what I remember. More responsibilities, a different life, sadness for me of the lost southern drawl, she is a woman of Brooklyn, NY. It was refreshing to me that I was able to hang out with her for a few hours, take her portrait again and talk of the past, talk of now and of art.


circa maybe 1987. The Hat Maker



2013. Tamara Staples

Au Revoir, Mon Amour

Music |

I should never say never, but it appears I have shot my last sheet of Polaroid Type 55 the other day. My good friend Tom Moratto recently found a partial box of the gold. He sold his 4x5 gear years ago, so offered me what he had left. Polaroid Type 55 was a very interesting film in that with one exposure, it gave both a positive print and a negative film at the same time. For optimum results, you usually had to expose for one or the other, but still, a fabulous combo within a product. I really believe it is one of the reasons I love Wet Plates so much. The immediacy, the imperfections and especially the borders, which I always left on for my prints.

There really is no reason not to shoot it as over time, it will go bad. My first few images I shot months ago were interesting, but for whatever reason, I only shot one or 2 exposures per sitting. The other day, I pulled out type 55 out of the drawer to shoot Aimée. It is harder this time to stop shooting, especially when the first exposure is nailed and you know it 30 seconds later. One after the other, seeing the print moments later fed us with excitement and 6 sheets later, it was gone...