One photographer. One image. The story behind the shot.
It’s hard to remember what it was like to do photography in 1999. That was the year some work friends encouraged me to get a “real” camera and to start taking “real” pictures. Hardly anyone outside of my fellow photographers at work and my family ever saw what I captured, and that didn’t take anything away from the pleasure of it. The act of creation was the reward itself.
Twenty seven years later I am attempting to come full circle. I’m not going to add to the litany of the evils of social media here, except to say that its pull is very real and one I find almost impossible to resist. I shoot in the moment on pure instinct, but I frequently ask myself afterwards how a shot is going to be received on the various platforms. Rather than take the drastic step of deleting all my accounts, I have simply decided to give myself permission to post the photos I like. I mean, really, that’s all any of us can do.
This brings me to a photograph I took this summer titled “Luba,” one that strongly appeals to me for reasons I’m not quite sure about. The title comes from the restaurant we have been going to since the week it opened. My wife and I arrived early one visit, before the crowd, and after being seated I remarked how strange it was to be there when it wasn’t crowded. That’s when I noticed the empty tables across the room.
My Leica M6 was with me and I had some Kodak Ektapan 400 already loaded. The scene screamed for a black and white photograph, with the texture of the wall and the emptiness of the tables and the sunlight fighting to get in around the drawn shades. I’m sure the other patrons wondered what the heck I was taking a picture of, but I had a certain photograph in my head and I wanted to get as close to it as possible, others be damned. I snapped it and sat back down and acted as if nothing strange had just happened.
Days later, after developing the negatives, I held up the sleeve to check on this one, as it was the photo I was most excited about. After shooting the negative with my digital camera and macro lens, I imported the file into Lightroom and sat back and marveled at it. But why? It’s just a couple of empty tables in a nondescript restaurant.
Looking at it gives me a thrill, and I still haven’t answered the question why. The truth is, I’m not exactly sure. I see light and I shoot it. And when it’s illuminating a subject, any subject, I get excited. Without the light, it would just be another boring photograph of restaurant tables. But the edges of sunlight around the blinds spilling onto parts of the tables make it more of a painting, something to be interpreted, not just observed.
Would I have gotten as excited if it was in a restaurant that didn’t mean so much to our family? I think so. After all, I marveled at this photograph before anyone else had even seen it.
You can follow David’s work on foto @stillnessinfocus, on Instagram @still.ness.in.focus or at davidmullin.com