I’m going through some old files in preparation for meeting another Schlachet tomorrow. I found this picture of my father, taken at Tan Son Nhat AFB, Viet Nam.

I have a large cache of memories from his files, including some of his report cards, postcards he sent to his parents, papers from his marriage to my future mother.

I think this meeting tomorrow is going to inspire me to scan some of these items.

(1637×2048)

I met Chris at a going-away party for my friend Jonathan, who was moving to Australia. These types of get-togethers are interesting because you get to meet friends of your friend that you haven’t met. I had the Canon AE-1 with me, and Chris and I drummed up a conversation about shooting film. I asked if he’d be up for doing a portrait some time. He’s a former film student, now getting an MFA in cinema, so he’s no stranger to this.

We met up this past Friday in front of the Castro Theatre. It was drizzly, but the light was pretty nice right at the ticket booth. We did two exposures, the one above and another. The other shows more of the theatre, but frankly I like the close-up head/shoulders shots more.

Taking two shots seems to be around right. In every case so far (knock on wood), one of them has been just what I wanted. This seems to be the case for my 4×5 portraits as well.

The image is a scan of a contact print done on Ilford Glossy RC.