Irwin

Many of my first photo projects included family members as the subject matter. This specific collection focuses on my grandfather, Irwin. A true Brooklyn feller.

My grandfather was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. You can simply imagine his accent. Intense, but he’s surely a sweetheart.

He told me plenty of stories about the city, being sure to repeat the ones where he meets a celebrity in the elevator somewhere. Typical New York happenings.

Two months after I developed these photos, we found out that he had brain cancer. It was able to be removed but along with the cancer went his memories and cognitive skills.

I’m forever grateful to have started my photography journey with these photos of him. Sometimes I think of a film negative as a memory trapped in crystal, and I’ll never forget when he was well especially with memories to keep like these. F*ck cancer.

As the technical photographer that I am, I want to use this blog post to speak on contrast. There’s nothing like deep contrast in a black and white photo. It can present more detail or even create abstractions out of a photo.

The deep contrast in these photos was created during post-editing, after scanning the negatives into digital files. I hope to experiment one day with pushing film during development rather than adding filters in the darkroom or editing digitally.

That’s all for now. Enjoy this collection of photos followed by a few thoughts.