i have a dream .. and it involves a hasselblad.
i know i’ve got this great job, and blah ditty blah. but i’ll tell you a secret. it’s a secret fantasy of mine. one of those middle-of-the-work-day, what-else-could-i-be-doing-with-my-life fantasies. one day, maybe i’ll open a portrait studio in my parents’ basement, in rhode island.
sound like a stupid fantasy? i’ll tell you why it’s not. well, first, because it’s my fantasy, not yours. so, nyah nyah nyah. secondly, well, goddamn but i do take some rockin’ good portraits of people. thirdly, because providence [at least where my parents live, the chi-chi east side] is a pretty wealthy town, with a lot of banking young new england families with blond children and volvos, and they love having those classy, black-and-white portraits of them, all laughing in some cheery park, littered around the house.
think about it. my parents have an enormous basement – it spans the whole bottom of the house. i could easily have a black-and-white darkroom down there as well as a portrait studio and a small gallery. with a digital SLR, the new epson color printer [which is ahhhmazing, by the way] a good computer, i could put out some beautiful color photographs. and with a medium format and a black-and-white darkroom, i could make some amazing b&w portraits.
and i’d have my own business, and run my own life, and my own hours, and still have time to raise a family and be that soccer mom you all know i’m going to become.
and you know the scary thing? as much as i love my life, and i’m excited about my career path, there’s that moment in the middle of the day, when i think about how many years of clawing my way through the corporate world it’ll take for me to be the journalist i know myself to be capable of becoming, and i think….
what’s wrong with a thriving little portrait studio in my beautiful house, being around photography equiptment all day, and having time to write, read, take pictures, and love my friends and family?
all i need now is about twenty thousand dollars, a husband, and some patience.