9.18.2005
the past on the other end of a camera
I'm going to NYC next month to participate in a photo project that requires a photo of me at 15.
As unlikely as it might seem, I don't have photos of me at 15 lying around. After digging through my boxes in storage (easy to access, since 'storage' is currently a friend's basement), I located my old photo albums and high school yearbooks. Old albums yielded surprisingly few photos of me at 15; having acquired a real camera, I was occupied with taking photos of anything and everyone else. I have (comparatively) loads of photos of me at 16, 17, and 18, but only three that are definitely 15. While none of them is great, at least they are the right range.
It was much more interesting to browse the photos of other people, though, particularly from the yearbooks (which, while traumatizing at the time, are endlessly amusing now). The conclusions I (and my esteemed card-playing friends, who were suitably curious once I emerged from the basement with yearbooks in tow) came to were these: my friends and I all had too much hair, we all wore too much flannel, and berets appeared on our heads way too frequently. I must say that I laughed and laughed and laughed at the theater arts club photos, just out of sheer enjoyment.
Besides the general nostalgia for days spent eating pizza and watching scrawny boys with too much hair bail off of handrails, there were more specific things I remembered from the assortment of photos. Chief among them was Jonathan. I'm sure I saw him again over the next year, but that photo is the last clear memory I have of him, that evening with Jason and Tim, out on the wall by Garcia's, goofing off and taking photos before I went off to college. They both signed my yearbook that night, which I know because I just, well, brought it out of the basement this evening.
Rest in peace, little buddy.
As unlikely as it might seem, I don't have photos of me at 15 lying around. After digging through my boxes in storage (easy to access, since 'storage' is currently a friend's basement), I located my old photo albums and high school yearbooks. Old albums yielded surprisingly few photos of me at 15; having acquired a real camera, I was occupied with taking photos of anything and everyone else. I have (comparatively) loads of photos of me at 16, 17, and 18, but only three that are definitely 15. While none of them is great, at least they are the right range.
It was much more interesting to browse the photos of other people, though, particularly from the yearbooks (which, while traumatizing at the time, are endlessly amusing now). The conclusions I (and my esteemed card-playing friends, who were suitably curious once I emerged from the basement with yearbooks in tow) came to were these: my friends and I all had too much hair, we all wore too much flannel, and berets appeared on our heads way too frequently. I must say that I laughed and laughed and laughed at the theater arts club photos, just out of sheer enjoyment.
Besides the general nostalgia for days spent eating pizza and watching scrawny boys with too much hair bail off of handrails, there were more specific things I remembered from the assortment of photos. Chief among them was Jonathan. I'm sure I saw him again over the next year, but that photo is the last clear memory I have of him, that evening with Jason and Tim, out on the wall by Garcia's, goofing off and taking photos before I went off to college. They both signed my yearbook that night, which I know because I just, well, brought it out of the basement this evening.
Rest in peace, little buddy.
