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| October 5, 1998 : As you can tell by the sparse number of journal entries for the month of September, and the fact that I haven't written here since September 21st, life has been more than just busy. It has been a storm. But regardless of how things may be going right now, I will not let today pass without writing a journal entry. Today, it's special.
Oh, remember that Teletubbies VHS tape that I mentioned in the last journal, the one the 25-year-old graphic artists keep playing over and over at work? Well, Patti got the tape along with Teletubbie Laa-Laa for Bethany's birthday present. Now we can watch it at home! And on the same week that I move out of that department and into another part of the company, out of ear-shot of the Teletubbie's tape. Fortune, or fate?
Her entry in the world gave rise to one of the few markers that define the timeline of my life, among them these: my mother's death, my father's death, my wedding day, my daughter's birth. What draws these markers onto common ground is that they all happened in 1996: February 28th, May 4th, July 13th, October 5th. It was a hell of a year.
Some might remember the pictures and story of her birth here, in the incarnation of the journal that preceded this one. Maybe each year on her birthday I should temporarily re-post those photos and pages, just as a comparison. To see how she has changed. To see if I have changed. For the better, that is. Bethany is also partially responsible for my return to photography. There was never a better reason for breaking out the gear than her smiling face and amazing sense of humor and timing. It might be that my cameras would have remained untouched for a lot longer than they did without the excuse of photographing her. My real cameras, that is. Not the "happy snap" that we use all the time for everything else.
When that happens, nothing else matters. Nothing. Everything else washes away in that moment, and it's these moments that I tend to remember and pleasantly dwell upon, not the other times.
It's not just the location of my desk that is in transition, but there are a lot of other changes taking place, and a lot more that probably need to take place. I guess only the passing of time will reveal what is supposed to happen. I'm finished with the online version of my photographic portfolio, and very nearly finished with print version of the portfolio that will make up the laminated book. Maybe next weekend, while Chrisse is with her mother in New York, I can take a few hours and work on the QuarkXPress file that is the book, printing out page proofs and sending them to Paul in Phoenix for review, a few weeks in advance of the printing trip to his house. Maybe I should make an Acrobat .pdf file and eMail it to him? Use the available technology? Naw. I'll kill off a few more trees. It's a book, right? That's the spirit. I didn't photograph the 49er's versus Falcons game as planned. Instead, I've been scheduled to shoot the 49er's versus Colts game. That's okay. The day of the first game, it was overcast and cloudy and dark and the color would have been really poor. I'm holding out for a bright day, with diffused light, and maximum color saturation! Picky, picky, picky. Only nineteen days until the National Press Photographers' Association Flying Short Course stop in San Jose, when I get to see a whole handful of my old friends. I wish I had the book to pass around on that day, but that's not going to happen. There are just not enough hours in the day. Most of the recent ones seem to be pretty much like today: screwed up. But not as screwed up as they have been for Mark in Charlotte. I told him not to move there... October 5, 1998 Donald Winslow
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Donald
Winslow
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Contributor
since 1998
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Behind
the Viewfinder - A Year in the Life of Photojournalism |
