It took a couple of weeks, but I finally managed to take my first portrait. This is Ruben, I met him in Sunset Park last Sunday.

Honestly, this photograph was all Ruben’s idea. I was taking a picture of a storefront on 4th Avenue and he was sitting nearby—he actually came up and introduced himself to me. He asked if I would take a picture with him and his lottery tickets. I was completely floored and just went along with it.

I had unsuccessfully approached a couple of other people that week and was starting to wonder if I needed to rethink things. In the end, the opportunity just presented itself, and it worked out perfectly. I think I just need to be receptive and make myself available for these kinds of moments rather than trying to seek them out too aggressively.

When I bought my SX-70 for $20 on eBay, I really had no idea that I would be so smitten with the camera and the pictures that I am taking with it. I have found over the last few weeks that I have gotten better at predicting what the “polaroid effect” will do to an image and actively seeking out subjects that will benefit from that touch. I have been so happy with the results that I have created a new gallery in the “Current Work” section of the website. I have also set a goal for myself to take enough of these by the end of the summer to compile a small book, which I will probably make available through Blurb.com or another print-on-demand service.

It is fun to let go from time to time and improvise a bit with the camera. I had gotten so used to the razor sharp, perfectly composed photographs I tend to make with my Hasselblad that I had kind of forgotten that photography can be much more loose, where perfectly straight lines and tight compositions take a backseat to the overall “feel” of the image. It is freeing, and I also think it is giving me a much needed break so I can recharge before jumping into black and white when I go to Sicily next week.

I was a bit surprised when I showed this photograph to my wife this morning and she said that she had seen it already. After all, I just took it yesterday afternoon, and developed and scanned it last night after she had already gone to bed. But she is convinced that I have taken this picture before.

Now, I know that I haven’t taken this exact photograph before, but she brings up a good point. I spend an awful lot of time walking the streets of Brooklyn looking for interesting sidewalk scenes. This one caught my eye, like many of the scenes I photograph, because of some interesting geometric details: the vertical line of the window and the door on the left, the twin satellite dishes, the checkmark made by the sign and its shadow and the door that floats just above it. This is one of the reasons I love the view camera—it forces you to take your time and allows you to be very precise in arranging the scene. It’s not just about the lines and shapes and tones that make up the picture; there is something a bit melancholy here in the sagging roof and drooping wires and dirty stucco that says something about this neighborhood and its place in the world.

One of the things I often do in my pictures is empathize with inanimate objects. It has to do with how I see the landscape, and how I put together a picture. I won’t take a picture unless I can find some kind of connection, some kind of personality in the objects I am photographing. To me, this is a photograph full of possibilities, and I could take a hundred more like this and find something new in each one. To most people, though, it’s probably just a picture of the side of a building. One of many I have taken, which probably isn’t all that different than the work of a lot of other photographers.

I guess I am trying to bridge the gap between how I see my own work and what the rest of the world sees. When one of my professors tells me that I am printing too dark, I bristle. It’s one thing if that were a technical issue, but as an artistic decision I feel that it’s necessary to stand by my work, even if it isn’t a decision that makes everyone happy.

Which brings me to my final question: how much of your art is driven by personal, creative goals, and how much do you let the others influence what you do?

Can you tell that I can’t get enough of this place?

I was looking at this photograph yesterday when I made a connection between the photographs I am currently taking and an experience I had growing up. When I was young, I spent summers living with my great-grandmother in rural New Jersey. My grandma was a gloomy woman, and her house had suffered from years of neglect. I spent my days there practically alone, reading dusty books that hadn’t been off the shelf in ages, exploring the contents of her musty basement, and playing in the wildly overgrown back yard. Her house was literally being swallowed up by the earth.

I think these memories have been lurking in my subconscious since I was a kid, and are now coming out in the photographs I take. I kind of like the idea, anyway.

Everyone knows that the Colonel puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly.

Photograph by Dalton Rooney

Photograph by Dalton Rooney

I have a new crush, and it’s name is Polaroid SX-70.