I had a luncheon downtown (American Marketing Association networking meeting), so I took the bus and my camera to it. I had a half hour to roam. The sun was playing hide and seek behind squall lines. It was reflecting grandly from our new Rem Koolhaus library, which I’d been wanting to photograph for months now.
Since I couldn’t hear the film advance anyway, I pretended I was shooting with an empty camera. It’s really fun to have no inhibitions about capturing momentary glimpses. It’s how I shoot ordinarily, but now it was truly without the little meter running in the back of my mind (click-25¢ click-25¢). And without the interruption every 36 frames.
I circumnavigated the origami box of a library, and admired how it contrasted with the Henry Moore sculpture across the street (Koolhaus must has seen that when imagining the building). The light flourished and wavered—brilliant contrast against black skyscraper, open shadow the next. I’d glance at the histogram occasionally to see where the exposure was falling, pretending I knew how to interpret the data. What if it’s bunched up on both ends—what then?
Apparently a big draw of digital is the ability to see what you’re shooting in the moment. I could not imagine a less desirable modality than to constantly switch from shoot to edit mode. Shooting is about responding to something deep in the experience that propels the next decision to reframe, and to do so in a way to bypass the editor inside that wants to rid the frame of complexity or serendipity. I know I’m in the zone when I truly don’t know what I’m capturing on the camera, except that I know that it’s good. I ignored the instant results I was getting, but the regular flash of the LCD against my cheek was irritating—I kept looking for someone about at my left kneecap who was firing a strobe at me.
When I left home, I thought—why would I possibly need my other memory card? It’s a 1 GB card—there’s over a hundred frames on it. Well, you can guess what happened.
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