The Mann behind the camera

Tales from the Ball & Chain...

What can I tell you about Will?  So much actually, but we’ll keep it photo-focused for now.  

I’ve known Will for more than half of my life.  I knew him when he didn’t own a camera.  When he took pictures, it was with my old Advantix camera (remember those?) or a disposable.

Fast forward a few years.  That old Advantix camera is now more Will’s than mine and buying disposables is a such a waste, so what does Will find under the Christmas tree?  A real camera.  With buttons and a detachable lens and settings galore... his first Nikon, an N65, a gift from yours truly.  

It’s so fancy.  

Of course, two minutes later, the world goes digital so he adds a Nikon Coolpix E5700 to his arsenal.  All that film and developing was getting expensive anyway, at least that’s the excuse.  The digital camera fast-tracks Will’s journey to … photographer.  For the first time, he can see the shot he's just taken and can adjust immediately.  It’s a magnificent honing tool.  But tools wear out (one day the optics on the Coolpix finally went dark), so we invested in more equipment.  An F100 (a bit of a recluse now who hides in the basement and come out for long-exposure work), a D70 (now living with my jewelry-making, photo-taking, art-student little sister) and finally the D300 (or as I call it: his girlfriend).

So what else caused this need to acquire bigger and better?  I mean, Will’s not a hoarder, collector or flashy spender.  Actually, photography came to Will primarily through travel.  He started noticing all the details that create an environment.  Our vacation photos still showed us smiling and waving at the camera next to Mickey Mouse, or hanging with the resort pet cat, but more and more were of  dilapidated statues settled on thick moss being hit just so by a late afternoon sun or the Empire State Building reflected in a puddle on a sidewalk somewhere on the lower east side.

An unconscious objective emerged: showing places we’d traveled to in a somehow different way.  With his shots, Will wants to take you to where he was, show you why it is a special place and make you want to go there and see it for yourself.

So that was the starting point.  During those years, Will focused mainly on landscapes, cityscapes, architecture and exterior sculpture.  We traveled a lot to Florida, NYC, Mexico, Hawaii and, of course, in and around Boston.

And then came man... I can’t remember when it happened first, but this one sticks out most for me. While visiting friends in LA, we drove to Malibu and sat on the beach and Will caught an incredible moment.  A little boy, maybe three or four years old, found a traffic cone on the beach and, with his dad, was playing with it.  It was beautiful.  Will pointed, clicked the shutter and that was that.  A fraction of a minute of our lives.  A fraction of a minute of that boy and his dad’s lives.  Here we are six years later and I still remember that day, that moment.  It’s one of my favorites of Will’s pieces.  It is certainly a mile marker.  People were getting in the way of the landscapes Will was trying to shoot, but rather than being roadblocks, they presented themselves as a new subject to explore and capture.

For me, this was the start of Will being on the cusp of something special.  That Christmas, instead of another sweater or book or a new Bad Religion album there was a lens (I’m sure you’ve guessed from whom).  And it’s been that way since.  Fish-eye, sure; tripod, the taller the better; a monster bag to keep all this stuff safe, ok; a mortgage payment of a new camera, let’s do it.

Fly little bird, fly.

Until next time...

J