Meet William, the very first subject I sent a copy of my photo too. He was walking around Washington Square Park with a beautiful Pentax 67 (complete with wooden grip!) and it was the first time that I had ever seen the camera in person. At this point I wasn’t as comfortable taking portraits of strangers, but I had it in my head that I would take photos of people with cool cameras (the theory being that they were photographers, so they would be less inclined to say no). So I circled the park a couple times, gathering up the nerve to ask. He couldn’t have been nicer, and later I realized HE also walked around the city taking portraits. In fact his Flickr account, especially his older stuff, turned out to be a big reason why I started taking the Hasselblad out onto the streets. I hadn’t seen that “look” before, and I fell in love. Anyway, he was also the first person to respond to my image, and the resulting conversation is worth the read.

More CONTACT after the break…

Hi William,

We met a few months ago in Washington Square Park. I saw you taking portraits of people with your beautiful Pentax, and strangely enough I wanted to take a portrait of you! Since then I have gone to your website/flickr and have been inspired to break out the medium format gear again. I was really enjoying browsing your work, and then I it hit me, you are probably alot like me, lots of pictures of people you meet and none of yourself. Well, hopefully this changes that, and for selfish reasons I hope that you like portrait. Anyway, here is to bumping into eachother again, keep up the outstanding work.

Thanks,
Graham

Re: NYC Street Portrait

Ha! Thanks for doing that. I’ve lost a lot of weight since then so it’s funny to see me so fat, but hey, it happens.

Also, your site is pretty neat. Wish I got a gig with Glamour Magazine.

Thanks again!

Re: Re: NYC Street Portrait

No problem, and congrats on loosing the weight! And thanks for the kind words about the site, but the Glamour Magazine thing was soley a function of my girlfriend working there.

Re: Re: Re: NYC Street Portrait

Still pretty cool. And thanks for taking the time to develop and scan that. You do good work! Post some medium format stuff, I’ll be looking out for it!