This morning Jon took a black and white photo of the wind blowing the bathroom curtains. I found it intimate, personal and universal all at the same time. And I think as a photo, it’s just gorgeous.
Because Jon takes pictures all the time and because he’s so good at it, he often sees and thinks like one of his camera’s or lenses.
He doesn’t have a Polaroid camera, but from looking at the pictures I’ve taken already with mine he has his own sense of what would make a good Polaroid. And he often tells me, making suggestions.
Sometimes I’m open to his suggestions and sometimes I reflexively balk at what seems to me, him telling me what to take a picture of.
I now have a pretty good feel for the camera. I know from experience, what it can do and what it can’t.
One of the first Polaroids I took was an interior of the bathroom. But there wasn’t enough light and it came out very dark. When Jon suggested I take a picture of the same window with the wind blowing the curtain that he just took in Black&White, I didn’t think it would come out.
But he had the idea that the morning light coming in the window would make a difference.
So I tried it.
I love the idea of us both taking a photo of the same thing and seeing how different they are.
I think my photo captures the intimacy, but not the drama that Jon’s does. It doesn’t have that kind of classic beauty that Jon’s photo had either.
But the wind lifting the curtain brings a certain life to the photo, that my first attempt at an interior of the bathroom didn’t have.
I stood the Polaroid on the rusty baseboard just below the bathroom window to take this picture of it with my iphone.
You can see Jon’s photo of the bathroom curtain here.
