A Long Two Minutes

I hadn't planned to make a self-portrait when I started out that day, but after two minutes of standing still, I had one.

My real reason for heading out was that I needed to get the darkroom moving again. I've been stalled since spring with too much else going on, and the pinhole camera was the easiest way to get rolling again. No focus, no viewfinder, just loading the holders and guessing at the framing.

I love traveling south through the communities on Dixie Highway or Governors Highway. I get to explore the towns, and the roads follow the rails. Manteno caught my eye this time; I stopped to take a few images, and then I stepped in front of the camera myself. f/250. Two minutes.

It's hard to know what standing still is like until you’re on a timer for two minutes. No ticking, no beeping, just standing still and staring in one direction. Cars went by. People looked. I had to stay exactly where I was, looking at exactly one spot, while fighting the restlessness that comes with feeling ridiculous. It wasn't ridiculous. It was just long.

This is the part I don't usually get to offer my clients. I'm the one behind the camera, watching someone else sit still long enough to be seen. It's easy to forget, sometimes, what it costs to be on the other side of it. Two minutes of paper negative reminded me.

The image came back overexposed. I may have missed the exposure, or the chemistry wasn't quite where it needed to be. I'll fix that next time. But the exposed negative isn't really what I came home with. What I came home with is this: every portrait I make asks someone to stop moving for a length of time that feels, to them, much longer than it is. That stillness is not incidental to the portrait. It is the portrait. The print is just what's left over once the stillness is done.

Someone in your family is feeling time move right now, whether or not they've said so out loud. A portrait won't stop it. But it will ask you to stand still inside it, for a minute or two, long enough actually to be there.

What would you notice if you had to stand still that long?

A few more from the day.

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