Getting my picture taken
3:00-3:30 pm today was the best half hour of my week. I met a photographer over at Green library to have my picture taken for the financial aid website (they're putting up profiles of some students who receive aid in order to convince people that Stanford is worth giving money to. I'm gonna be a poster child!) The photographer's name was Steve, and he rocked my world.
First off, he's really cool. He's very friendly, asked me my name, about what I study; and he has honest crinkly eyes that say that stuff is important to him. And we had a great chat while he took shots: we talked about how technology has changed the photography business, what kinds of jobs he does (portraits and events, mostly), his past in newspaper photography. We talked about the role of pictures in shaping how we understand events. We talked about the time when he was a low-on-the-totem-pole photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle, when the 1989 earthquake struck, and all the big shot photographers were at the World Series, so he was sent to Santa Cruz to shoot at the epicenter. And I asked him, so after doing the news, do portraits and events seem less momentous?
And he lowered his camera and paused a moment, and he said to me: I am making a record of something that is very important to someone. Last week I took pictures for a professor receiving an endowed chair--and that is a huge thing in some person's, some family's history. These things may not make headlines, but they're momentous for people, and I get to be a part of that.
I want to be like Steve.
First off, he's really cool. He's very friendly, asked me my name, about what I study; and he has honest crinkly eyes that say that stuff is important to him. And we had a great chat while he took shots: we talked about how technology has changed the photography business, what kinds of jobs he does (portraits and events, mostly), his past in newspaper photography. We talked about the role of pictures in shaping how we understand events. We talked about the time when he was a low-on-the-totem-pole photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle, when the 1989 earthquake struck, and all the big shot photographers were at the World Series, so he was sent to Santa Cruz to shoot at the epicenter. And I asked him, so after doing the news, do portraits and events seem less momentous?
And he lowered his camera and paused a moment, and he said to me: I am making a record of something that is very important to someone. Last week I took pictures for a professor receiving an endowed chair--and that is a huge thing in some person's, some family's history. These things may not make headlines, but they're momentous for people, and I get to be a part of that.
I want to be like Steve.
Posted by Jeff on Friday, June 10, 2005
1 Comments:
very cool.
it was neat to see how Daniel interacted with the kids in Mexico when the camera was out. i like the whole photographer/subject realationship. especially with a cool photographer :-)
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