I’ll be travelling for the next several days so I’ll post some old images from the late ’60s and early ’70s in New York. In those days I headed out most weekends to Central Park carrying either my Voigtländer Vito C or, by 1970, my Minolta srT101 and headed for the Bethesda Fountain with my photographic partner and oldest friend, Woyman Ju.
In one corner of the fountain plaza a bunch of photographers used to hang out and we tried to pick up all kinds of lore from them. I bought my first enlarger from one of those guys and when I got my SLR he quickly got a woman in the area to pose for us (and pull up her skirt for the camera as well). At this period there were always crowds of kids with guitars, agitprop street theater, political demonstrations, and marijuana being passed around freely.
Unfortunately, my photographic skills were appalling. I rarely got focus on what I wanted, composed haphazardly and seldom aligned my metering needles for a decent exposure. Over the next few days I’ll share a handful of the images I was able to salvage from the wreckage of my photographic apprenticeship.
