Did you ever see Antonioni’s “Blow-Up”? If you haven’t, you should — it’s a classic. It’s also wonderfully goofy after all these years to see the ’60s notion of a hip young professional photographer in swingin’ mod London. See him drive around in his convertible sports car while talking on his extremely cumbersome car phone! Oooohhh. (David Hemmings’ character was one of the influences on Mike Myers in his creation of Austin Powers.)
Anyway, to summarize the plot (spoiler alert!), basically it’s about a photographer who takes some perfectly innocent pictures in the park, but when he processes the film and makes a print, he notices something odd in the background, in the bushes about 50 years behind his subject. So he blows it up. Then he shoots the print, processes that film, then blows it up again. And again. (Thereby severely straining the capabilities of 35 mm film, but hey, he’s a professional.) I won’t tell you what he saw, because I don’t want to spoil the plot entirely.
To my point: I often have that experience of finding unexpected things going on in my photos. It happened when I
used film because film is a big mystery until it’s processed. Shoot a crowd or action when there’s too little time for your brain to take it all in, and the film will reveal secrets to you after it’s processed. For instance, take a look at the photo at right, which I shot on film at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. (This was a time of technological transition. I was shooting rolls of film at the convention, then taking the rolls to a Duane Reade to be processed and put on a CD for me.) I had just asked Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog to pose for a portrait (there I go name-dropping again), but only later did I notice Larry King in the background. At least, I think it’s Larry King. The grain and focus are such that I can’t be entirely sure, just as the character in “Blow-Up” had trouble being certain about what he was seeing.
Today, this happens with digital photography for a different reason. Sure, you can immediately look at what you just shot. But you can’t see detail unless you zoom in, and besides, who has time to stop and look at individual exposures? I certainly don’t, because I am shooting so many. I used to go through a roll of film in minutes, but that’s nothing to the number I shoot now. Film at least imposed some fire discipline; there was always a sense that your film was finite. But with an 8-gig card in my camera, discipline is gone entirely.
So it could be hours, days, or longer before I go through the images on my laptop and see what I have. And I find little surprises.
For instance, at the Gamecocks’ victory parade Friday, I happened to turn and take a picture of the two ADCO interns standing behind me in the crowd. I needed a picture of them to post on ADCO’s site, and this was an opportunity.
Only later did I spot our erstwhile candidate for attorney general, Leighton Lord, behind them. At right you can see what the picture would have looked like when Hemmings’ got through blowing it up (and yes, I created the blur, grain, and b/w effect in PhotoShop — the original was much sharper, even blown up).
And when I saw him, the irony struck me: Alan Wilson was much in evidence at the center of attention. He and his Dad had a regular convoy of vehicles in the parade — at least three, with kids passing out campaign stickers left and right. (I didn’t get a picture of Alan — I was too busy shooting the cars, especially the beautiful red T-bird — but here’s one of him from another parade over the weekend. Those Wilsons love a parade.)
But there is Leighton Lord, standing alone, looking away. Ironic. Poignant, one might say. Except that the camera doesn’t tell all. Actually, he was talking to his father-in-law Gayle Averyt, whom I spotted next to him in yet another exposure.
I’ve got so many thousands of exposures like this of crowds, sometimes with famous people here and there in them. Maybe I should do a “children’s” book for grownups, only instead of “Where’s Waldo?” it would be “Where’s Rudy Giuliani? Where’s George Bush? Where’s Bill Clinton?” and so forth. Think it would sell?
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Amazing–Leighton Lord standing outside his office building!
Bet that’s a Vineyard Vines tie.
Let’s hope he runs for something else soon!
Ah, Blow Up–with the very young, beautiful Vanessa Redgrave….
I hear if you look closely at the photo on the cover of this week’s Newsweek magazine you’ll see Nikki Haley.