I'm so used to counting on that sense of urgency when I'm shooting. Photographing Marie was at the other end of the spectrum for me. It wasn't easier, or more difficult, or better or worse. It was just different. I guess that's pretty obvious (Hello! Yes, shooting a wedding is different than shooting a 91-year-old's portrait. I know.) :)
I don't know that I really have a point to make. I'm just observing, as a photographer, that it's important to step outside our comfort zones, and it's interesting to observe how we feel and act in different scenarios.
By photographing Marie, I remembered that I have a very true interest in people's stories and lives. I want to go out and photograph everyone's grandparents and record their stories so the family has something tangible to look back on and touch and read in 30, 50 years.
ANYway, Marie and I sat there for a while and talked about her early days in Colorado. There were stories about kids and rattle snakes in the backyard and hound dogs jumping over the hood of her car in pursuit of a mountain lion. There were stories about mountains and family and losing a child and moving from Chicago to Denver in its cow-town days. When you get to be 91 ... I mean, dang. It's pretty neat to think of all the things a person can experience and remember and all of it is packed into one tiny frame.
I'm going to post two photos of Marie. This was a more intimate photography setting than I'm used to—I wasn't just observing, as I do in weddings; I was part of the discussion—so I didn't take a lot of photos. Just a couple. I'll tell Marie's favorite story here, and then I'll post the pictures.
When she moved from Chicago to Colorado in 1950, Marie had a husband and two babies. They moved here for her husband's job, and Marie felt out of place in her new neighborhood just outside of Denver. The neighbor ladies invited her to tea, and she wanted to make friends. In an effort to fit in in her new fancy neighborhood, Marie, who describes herself as "uneducated and plain," dressed as one dresses for tea in Chicago: a dress, a hat, and white gloves. When she showed up at the tea, all the other women were dressed in blue jeans and boots. Poor Marie was mortified, but one of the ladies took her under her wing and they became good friends.
Here are a couple of Marie at 91 years old. I shot these a few days ago with an old Nikon 50 1.2—wide open—mounted on my Canon 1ds2.
