In 1994 Sam and I drove around together. She just wanted to be with me and was willing to ride shotgun while I looked for stuff to shoot. It was totally entertaining just to be with her. I never knew what was going to come out of her mouth. The first time I kissed her she tipped her head to the side and said “So, do you like me?”  Being with her was a luxury in and of itself. Come to think of it, it still is.

Anyways, this photo was done back in 1994. I was a student at Utah State University and Sam and I were in Northern Utah driving around. Sometimes a photographic subject whispers my name so strongly that I have to stop and shoot. It’s natural and uncontrollable. We passed by this Cafe and it whispered to me “Come over here and take my picture!”

I stopped and walked straight in the place and looked around. I saw the 12 year old boy wearing an apron. He said “Can I take your order.” I said ” I want to photograph your family in front of your resturant.”  He said “OK.” A few minutes later they assembled themselves and I took the photograph. I promised the usual photographer’s promise, “I’ll send an 8×10”, and that was the end of it.

I showed it to Chris Dunker, a fellow student at USU. He laughed outloud and asked if the outcast brother was waving his deformed arm through the window for attention in the photograph. Creepy, but funny.

______________________________________________________________

Photo tips, philoshopical reasonings and technical notations

Camera used: Pentax 67. TMax 100 film. Exposure f 11.5 1/60th second

Photographing strangers is unnerving. It was for me in 1994 and still is in 2010. I have done a lot of it and it’s always a little uncomfortable.

I went to a presentation done by photographer Joel Meyerwitz in 1998. He is a fine art photographer who has published many books. One of them, A Summers Day,is one of the more popular photographic monographs ever published. I’ve got nearly every one of his publications and refer to them often.

He photographs strangers in a lot of his images. He said he’ll photograph a stranger and smile at them to acknowledge what had happened. He says that he’s never had a problem. I find myself pretending that I never took the photograph, a rouse that fools no one.

– Jon Ball is a photographer living in Boise, Idaho. Thank you for reading photo tips.