I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy
I did a photography stint while studding at my University, I suppose everyone has to do one at least to try it out; to see what happens...It was the hardest thing I've ever done at school. Not just technically. Its a lot of preparation, chemistry, and material cost. You have to really know the media; how light reacts in situations, how fast things move. But technical part of photography is actually almost incidental in the end, you could learn to develop film as easily as frying an egg becomes.
Its the reality of photography that scares me off. The medium is so naked, frozen, and a single instant in time is utterly exposed. Its so sad to me. You can hold that half second of time in your hand in a photo, but the time in the picture is always already gone. But I wanted to share a few images of this art experiment that I did in the naïvete time of life.
I found these photographs in a blue plastic folder buried in my studio today. A thin time capsule. I named this portrait series "I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, 2007" -- its about the instances in life when you can briefly feel that human connection to someone, and understand that you both just want the same thing out of life. To be happy.
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If you let a kid stick their head out the car window, chances are they will have a good time...just lets not tell your folks I said you could do it.
I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 1 Feel That Wind Through Your Hair" 2007 / RADOCAJ
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I think I took this one on Easter Day, it was after lunch was over. Mom was in a good mood so I asked her if I could take her photo, and why not choose a picture from off of the wall to take with her. I knew at the instant I said that, out of all the family photos she was going to choose the portrait of her dad. I never knew him, but everyone said he was a hoot and liked to put Heinz Ketchup on everything he ate.
I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 3 Mom and Her Pop" 2007 / RADOCAJ
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One of the most rewarding things I have ever done in my life was when I was granted the opportunity to teach art at Saint Lucy's Elementary School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Art was all of the students favorite class to have. Its amazing to see a blind person paint, or draw, or sculpt; they navigate the world so differently from most people. But they can create almost anything just like any artist could with their hands.
I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 6 Hannah While Making a Sculpture" 2007 / RADOCAJ
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My Dad brings so much joy to the people around him, I wish he'd know it too.
I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 7 Dad" 2007 / RADOCAJ
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I used to volunteer at lots of schools art programs come to think of it. Ayisha was apart of an after-school program I used to work at, we submitted some of her work to our University children's art exhibit. She won a Young Artists Merit Award and a free scholarship to our University Young Artists Studio Saturday Arts Program. I don't remember what school she went to and I never saw her again after I took her picture this last photo of her. She'd be around fifteen years old now, and I hope shes doing well.
I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 10 Ayisha Comes to Tell Me Some Good News" 2007 / RADOCAJ
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Rachael was the real inspiration and the driving force behind this series, and naming it as well. When I took this photo she was making a wish on a dandelion saying that she just wanted to stay here with her family all together and that we would be happy forever. I'd rather have been more present with her when she said this; in this fraction of a moment in time. Instead of peering through shutter at her. And remember her just as we were in this instant standing together talking in reality, in splendid live colors.
I Think Everyone Just Wants to be Happy, a Series of Portraits / Fuji ISO 400, 35mm, Cannon, "No. 12 Rachael Makes A Wish" 2007 / RADOCAJ
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