"Father and Son at Bar Mitzvah", Paris, France, 2008. Juliana Beasley
Here are a couple of mixed random shots that I took in 2008 with my beloved Contax T2. Each photo has a story. If I don't know the story, I can make it up. I have no other choice. Give me a picture, any picture and I will tell you there is a story to be told.
May 18th, 2011
Today, when I left my apartment, I shoved the my Contax T-2 into my knapsack and headed towards the Path train, making my way from Jersey City to the WTC stop in Manhattan. I'm not the sort of photographer that carries a camera with me at all times. I have special days when I plan to photograph something somewhere and then I have the other days. Sometimes on those other days, perfectly absurd and ironic and beautiful moments have appeared and happened before my eyes. There I am, empty handed and thrust into a storm of regrets, a world of ghostly photographs that never would be and never were.
"Flowers and Purse", Paris, France, 2008. Juliana Beasley
The excuses:
My make-up case and gel already weighed me down.
Did I have to choose between my personal journal, my agenda, my "project idea" notebook, my i-pod?
Oh, yes, my umbrella. It might rain later.
A hoodie. It might get chilly later if I stay out past sunset.
And I couldn't leave out my bottle of Diet Coke or Poland Springs or that extra large bottle of Ibuprofen. God only knows, I could get a headache at any given moment.
The camera was too bulky. I couldn't do it. I could easily convince myself that the chances of the lost photo op were much too slim. So, why bother? I could always take the camera with me tomorrow when I wasn't rushing out the door late on my way to an important appointment.
Out in the streets of Manhattan, I had already forgotten the small titanium bodied beauty at the bottom of my bag strapped over my shoulders. I went uptown to the upper east side to the podiatrist's office and then downtown to Chelsea to do some errands: the copy shop for laser prints, Staples to buy a stapler, Adorama to order some 4X6" prints for some of my subjects. I turned up the volume on my i-Pod and the Pet Shop Boys carried me effortlessly from one task to the next.
"New Jersey Businessman in Subway Station", NYC, NY, 2008. Juliana Beasley
By the time, I returned to my neighborhood in Jersey City and exited the Path Station, the sky was a surly gray. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and pulled out my umbrella, prepared for what looked like a downpour.
I walked up Mercer towards Jersey and half way down the block, I noticed an older man with dyed black hair and very high cheek bones eyeballing me. He was sitting in car in the driver's seat like a taxi driver waiting for a customer to come out of a building. His slender figure was accentuated under a loose blue satin jacket that matched the color of the interior of the car. I stared back, smiled and kept walking until several stoops later I set down my knapsack on one of the steps. I unzipped my bag and for a moment, I hoped my camera was in my bag. I worried that perhaps, I had only dreamt packing it away with me that morning before leaving the apartment.
I reached inside and felt the compact case and pulled it out. I got it!
"Abandoned Bungalow in the Rockaways", Queens, NYC, 2008. Juliana Beasley
