I took this photo 22 years ago. Maybe 23. I don’t remember the specific date, but I do remember the shoot like it was yesterday. I loaded up a roll of Delta 400 (the good stuff) into my Minolta XG-M and then hung up a bedsheet as a backdrop. A little clip-on lamp with a single lightbulb in it was all I had for a key light. I summoned all the skills I had learned from my high school photography class, which is a nice way of saying I had no idea what I was doing. But I knew I Ioved my gorgeous and encouraging girlfriend, who thankfully tolerated getting in front of my lens to support my occasional forays into photography. For an hour or so, we worked together to create a series of images that have stood the test of time. Like us.
I eventually married the girlfriend, and she, thankfully, is still gorgeous and still tolerates my forays into photography. When I recently got my film scanning setup, I went into the family archives (a box in the basement labeled “memories”) and dug out the negatives from this shoot. They, of course, had to be the first ones I scanned because it represented going back to the beginning. Full circle.
Those 36 images are a time capsule of two people who both are and are not the same as they were half a lifetime ago. It’s been a beautiful journey.