NY_Dan
Well-known
Last Saturday I turned 21,075 days old -- the same age as my father when he died of a heart attack while riding a bus to the VA Hospital in Los Angeles. It was around 10:30 in the morning when he had the heart attack, which was severe, and he slumped over. His fellow passengers thought he was asleep or drunk, and waited a about 1/2 hour before alerting the driver. Later that day, I received a phone call from the hospital that he was dead. This was back in 1987.
Since then I've been somewhat haunted by the pictures in my head of my father's fatal bus trip. Father - son relationships, in fact any family relationship is full of stuff.
As a way of dealing with all this, and as a photographer, I had considered riding the same bus my father did, at the same age he was, and of photographing what he may have seen. However, since the bus he took was in Los Angeles, and I'm in NY, this idea was too costly.
So instead, I decided to take a bus trip and photograph myself going through what I imagined he may have gone through -- visually -- and then pair these photos with photos from one roll of black and white film of my father I had shot a few years before his death -- and then make a Blurb book.
Anyway, here's the result of my efforts:
http://www.blurb.com/books/5627245-death-bus-21075
The shots of my father were with a Nikon F2 I think, and the ones of me are from a D800. I "enhanced" the photos with Silver Efex Pro 2. I did this because I thought it helped the photo pairings.
I don't know how I feel about the results -- clearly I'm too close to the photos -- to put it mildly.
Therefore, I've included a poll -- if you have the time, please view the book and vote YES/NO/MAYBE -- YES meaning keep the book, NO meaning delete it (bad idea), and MAYBE meaning - not sure or it's too weird...
Not every idea or execution can be successful, but at least it can be a learning experience.
Since then I've been somewhat haunted by the pictures in my head of my father's fatal bus trip. Father - son relationships, in fact any family relationship is full of stuff.
As a way of dealing with all this, and as a photographer, I had considered riding the same bus my father did, at the same age he was, and of photographing what he may have seen. However, since the bus he took was in Los Angeles, and I'm in NY, this idea was too costly.
So instead, I decided to take a bus trip and photograph myself going through what I imagined he may have gone through -- visually -- and then pair these photos with photos from one roll of black and white film of my father I had shot a few years before his death -- and then make a Blurb book.
Anyway, here's the result of my efforts:
http://www.blurb.com/books/5627245-death-bus-21075
The shots of my father were with a Nikon F2 I think, and the ones of me are from a D800. I "enhanced" the photos with Silver Efex Pro 2. I did this because I thought it helped the photo pairings.
I don't know how I feel about the results -- clearly I'm too close to the photos -- to put it mildly.
Therefore, I've included a poll -- if you have the time, please view the book and vote YES/NO/MAYBE -- YES meaning keep the book, NO meaning delete it (bad idea), and MAYBE meaning - not sure or it's too weird...
Not every idea or execution can be successful, but at least it can be a learning experience.
