I've always been fascinated by old photographs. Besides being a transport back in time—Brando is skinny, Steve Jobs is wearing a suit, Bill Gates looks like a nerd, well, a young nerd—I find the oldness of the black and white photos intriguing. Men wore hats, kids' clothes weren't smattered with logos, apricot orchards blanketed the valley, and those black and white prints had a timeless quality that insta-matics couldn't touch.

I've been shooting pictures in and around the office here at Plaxo since I started three months ago. The office has a few partitions, but mostly it's a big open floor with islands of desks and computers. Without the protection of walls, people are easy to shoot. Sort of. The monitors get in the way, but if people have an impromptu meeting on the other side of my desk I'll shoot them. I have a silent trigger and I can swivel the back of the camera so I shoot looking down, like on a Hasselblad. This let me get the odd shot of Rikk making faces.

He thought I was just setting up. He doesn't like that picture, so figured I had to find a way to work it into this blog. I like candids—catching people when they forget they're being photographed and let their 'IS' be taken. The people here at Plaxo are a friendly, animated, likable lot. For a company of 40 plus people, I've heard, we're perceived as a much larger entity—a behemoth, a faceless corporation even. Not even. Take a look for yourself.

My Dad always had a 'You're On' face. He put it on just as anyone squinched one eye and with the other took aim through a viewfinder. Every shot of him? Cocked head, toothy grin, and a look in his eye that seemed to say, 'What's it going to take for you to drive home in this car today?'

Four years ago I got my Cybershot and I took snapshots: on vacation, smile-it's-your-birthday kinds of snaps. I was visiting my Dad and was looking down, seeing him on the glass my new digital camera and my son said something that made 'Grandpa' laugh. And I pulled the trigger. This time it wasn't a snap. It was THE shot of my Dad. 'My eyes are closed and I need a haircut,' he'd say. He didn't like it. Everyone else did. My Mom liked it. She had a print made to set on the altar at his memorial service last year. I love the shot because it IS my Dad. And it's my Dad in THE shot that marked the moment I went from taking snaps to aiming for photographs.

-Michael Rowley, Visual Designer & Resident Photographer

(My Dad: Don Rowley)

Comments

Post a comment