It’s no secret that my status as a father figure to three girls (that aren’t all that much younger than myself) is weird to a lot of people, compounded even more when they find out that I’m also a 36 year old grandpa. But i’ve never really given it much thought to how “weird” it is. Probably because I also never gave much thought to becoming a father figure, mostly because I didn’t think or know that I’d be needed as one. Hell in reality and in the eyes of the public, all but one of my daughters were “adults” by the time I came into the picture. Looking back on how little I thought about it then, and how my daughters view me currently, I feel honored to be such a big part of their lives and help them with whatever they need help with, as if they were my true blue own children.
For a good portion of my life, I’d dare even say my entire life, I’ve loved helping people. Whether it be physically helping in some way, being someone to come to when you need help emotionally, or as a person to not only learn from but learn with as well. I know there’s a word or title for the type of person I am, but I’ve never been able to remember what they’re called.
At this point I’ve being studying and practicing photography for a little over 2 years, marking my “anniversary date” as September 2021. I’ve gone on countless photo adventures, linked myself up with an amazing magazine that loves the work I produce, shot events for friends and family to keep moments in their lives forever remembered, and even created books/zines/calendars and prints. Doing this all in the corse of two years is still crazy to me. So when my daughter Chandra called one day and told me that she’d be coming into Seattle for a weekend business trip, and was wondering if I’d pick her up from the airport, then tour downtown and do some photography before dropping her off at the hotel she’d be staying in. I of course said “hell yeah, that sounds fun”. I knew we could have a ton of fun walking around and snapping photos along the way.
A little while back, during a different visit, Chandra had asked me if I could show her how to use a camera more than setting it in auto and hitting the button. At that time I only had one camera, but I was still more than happy to share in my love for learning photography. So when she came up for this trip I was ready, I brought both my camera’s with me, a few prime lenses to keep it simple, and while we walked from the hotel to Pike Place Market I started my “On Location Photography Course”. Not going too in depth, but instead setting her up on Aperture Priority and explaining what it was she was adjusting to create her photos, and why the other numbers changed when the Aperture changed. She took to it like a fish to water, looking through a 50mm f1.2 lens, making adjustments until she liked what she saw, and even adjusting where she was standing if she wanted a different composition (something that was apparently instinctual, since I forgot to mention anything about composition). Hell she even gave Manual Focus a try a few times, when the Auto-Focus wasn’t doing what she wanted it to do.
As we walked and shot, I tossed out random “tid-bits” about why the camera/lens was doing a certain thing, or how to get a certain “style” of shot, but most memorably I talked about how I love to look for different/abnormal light pockets. One of the cool things about Seattle, and most cities that have skyscrapers, is that all throughout the day the light changes and bounces off the glass, metal, and other building surfaces to create “light pockets”. Reflections, back lighting, haloing, and super softened lighting are EVERYWHERE when you’re deep in the heart of tall buildings, and playing with those sources of light is fun as shit.
The longer we walked and shot, I was becoming aware of something else as well. I’d gotten rusty, or maybe better described as “to clinical” when it came to the Street Photography style. It’d been awhile since I’d done any of my “Midnight Photography Sessions” or “Lunch Break Photo Adventures”, where I would just look for things that caught my eye to take photos of, and had been doing more “posed/modeled/planned” photography instead, that I was having trouble breaking free from my own mind. It wasn’t until I saw Chandra take an off axis look up shot in an alleyway, that I realized “oh yeah! I totally forgot that I’m perfectly free to just shoot. Stop over thinking it”. Ultimately turning Chandra (unknowingly) from “student” to “teacher”, and most likely helping me get shots I’d love a whole hell of a lot more at the end of the day.
After I got home, I browsed thought the photos both Chandra and I took, quickly realizing that I wanted to show Chandra just how great her photos turned out (as she had continued to say “these probably won’t turn out that great” throughout our entire walk). So as not to diminish the “true” photos that Chandra took, I put a very light edit on all of them (adjusting the color saturation and vibrancy slightly, and bringing the exposure up or down to be more neutral), and left it at that. For my own photos, I actually used the same settings for a majority of them, only tossing a B&W in there for fun when I thought it’d look better.
Wrapping up, I absolutely love being a teacher, a father figure, a grandpa, a friend, and a student. I hope I get to have even more adventures and events like this with all my kids, my grandkids, any of my family members, and my friends as time goes on.
Below are two collections of photos, one from Chandra and one from myself. I hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed capturing them. I also hope you have fantastic days ahead, and that you enjoyed this weeks blog.
Until next time, I’ll catch y’all later.
Photos shot by Chandra
Photos shot by myself
