the first 100 days of digital

As we approach the end of President Obama’s historic first one hundred days in office, I thought I’d take some time to reflect on twenty significant moments during my first hundred days as an amateur photographer. Prepare to be dazzled.

With just one hour to spare before commencement, I emerged from The Wiz electronics store in Holmdel, New Jersey with an item that would eventually change my life completely: a Sony Cybershot DSC-P100 digital camera. At 1.3 megapixels, the P100 Cybershot was a middle-of-the-road model for 2001, but had a “great lens” and included a “plenty good” 4 megabyte Sony Memory Stick. (It would later be revealed 4 megs, even at a paltry 1.3 megapixels, I could only store a handful of images at “high” resolution. Hence, the first several months of images were shot in 640×480.)

I would say I chose that camera because it hit my price point, but back in those days, despite my healthy New York salary, everything was above my price point. The night before, however, I told Nikko I was heading back down to Jersey to go with Ian on his Tutor Time(R) Halloween Hay Ride and All Around Great Time Party. Always one to look out for my well-being, she asked if I had a camera for the event. Ian had been in day care for only a short time, and this was his very first field trip.

“Nope,” I said. “But I’ll get one first thing tomorrow morning!” And I did.

Box in hand, I sat in the driver’s seat of my Dark Cranberry 1998 Dodge Stratus and began unpacking. With utter disregard for proper electronic procedure, I did not first charge the battery for “four to six hours,” but instead threw the model directly into operation. Without taking my eyes off the LCD or even bothering to move any muscle but my shutter finger, I snapped the first shot.

Man I loved those shoes.

It has definitely taken the better part of the decade for me to really find my style as a photographer, and certainly just as long to grasp the technical concepts involved, but back in ‘01, art wasn’t my goal–documentation was.

So here we have it, the first documentative picture of little Ian’s very first Pre-preschool field trip. Spiderman: Holmdel, NJ, circa Halloween, 2001 (with SuperFriend Lucas).

Enjoying the novelty of having a digital camera, I carried it with me everywhere. Indeed, living in New Jersey and commuting to New York City every day practically required it.

Studio and posed photographs have never been of much interest to me. I like covert, candid, unexpected shots, which I suppose is what ultimately drew me into the journalism world. As such, and when I had the nerve, I would sneak shots of people on the subway (ten years ago and still a relative newcomer to Manhattan, I was actually intimidated by most people on the subway). (The astute observer may notice this is not actually the New York MTA, but the New Jersey PATH train. Quite a commute I had back then.)

The realization that documentation could masquerade as art occurred to me one day at Holmdel Park, where Ian, Nikko and I were spending a cool Sunday morning in November. Ian was breaking the rules and climbing up the slide, but we were the only ones at the park, but if you break the rules and nobody’s around to catch you, is it still a crime? (OK I promise I won’t do that again, OK?)

Later, when we were looking through pictures from that day and I explained to Ian why we don’t climb up the slides, he responded just as one might expect a New Jersey native to:

Self-portraiture is something I’ve never really been very creative with. Here’s my head, here’s part of my arm, here’s me sitting on a public toilet in the airport–that’s about the extent of my creativity as far as turning the lens on myself goes. Even so, sometimes it’s not about who we are, but where we are.

Here I can be seen standing between cars on a very crowded New Jersey Transit train. (If, perchance, you feel the desire to inform me it’s against the rules to stand between cars, please see the above picture.)

While neither a food stylist nor critic, sometimes when your food comes out and it looks this good, you just have to capture that memory. This was my Country Breakfast from a diner in Oceanside, CA whose name eludes me. Perhaps Chad or Jenny remember?

2001, as it turned out, was a year of many technological firsts for me. First digital camera, first layoff from a technology firm, first MP3 player. If any tech device has changed my life as much as my first camera, it would undoubtedly be this one. A Christmas gift, the Compaq iPAQ PA-2 was small, rugged, quite advanced for its time, and served me well for years. The 64 meg monster had the uncanny ability to take a hell of a beating and continue working after a sufficient rest period. Even after being completely submerged in water during a slight mishap in U.S. Army Airborne school in 2004, all it took was a few days to dry out, and it worked just like new again.

Ultimately, battery corrosion from long-term non-usage led to its demise. I have a sneaky suspicion, however, that if I took the effort to clean it up a bit, I would hear the Beatles again. (Moderately entertaining side-note: before I was given the iPAQ, I used to queue up a playlist served through WinAmp on my laptop stuffed in my backpack. Hugest walkman ever.)

One of the great things about young kids is their ability to be complete goofballs, at any moment, just because. little Ian was certainly no exception here, both before bath time:

And after, ready for bed:

What a cool dude.

Without a doubt, the most character-building exercise in my post-graduate youth (post high school graduation, that is) was the two-hour commute I endured involving, at times, a bus, three trains and a cab ride.

In truth, the trip from Keansburg, NJ to lower Manhattan is not nearly as complicated as I often made it. But then, those were simpler times, and I was a glutton for punishment.

First I would head out of the house, lock the door behind me and walk down the street to the bus stop.

The bus would, after fourteen hours and 342 local stops, drop me off below Times Square, at the 42nd Street Port Authority. Long-time listeners may remember I was arrested at the Port Authority the year before for attempting, quite successfully, to estimate the shatter strength of a Port Authority ticket booth window.

The following self-portrait is included not only because I look so incredibly handsome, but because it just might be the only portrait I have of the actual camera. (Look how far away my finger is from the shutter–how’s that for lag time?)

Between 1999 and early 2002, in addition to death and taxes, one could count on me either drinking whiskey and playing Playstation2 or me drinking Guinness and playing Dungeons and Dragons in the basement of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Leonardwood, NJ.

Without a doubt, those were amazing years for me. Despite the personal turmoil and the deep, dark holes I often dove head-first into, the countless hours of escape therapy provided by gaming saved my life. On the D&D side, I owe that refuge to Rod, the best DM it’s ever been my fortune to play under. Seriously, I can’t over-state the creativity and detail Rod put into his campaigns. Simply amazing.

While I wasn’t busy living life as Shi, the re-incarnated-as-a-troglodyte monk, I was tag-teaming Final Fantasy X with my roommate and brother-in-law Charlie. We killed about as many ounces of Jack Daniels as we did monsters in those days.

After five years on the east coast and an increasingly fruitless job-search (thanks, 9/11 hijackers), I decided to take a trip back home.

As Man-at-Arms says, “Live the journey, for every destination is but a doorway to a new one.” Such a sentiment perfectly captures what happened on this final and fateful journey to Ridgecrest, CA.

Before we continue with the main course, let’s take a last quick appetizing bite of public restroom goodness, courtesy of a Las Vegas International Airport restroom.

There’s a street sign just past Kramer Junction on the way from Vegas to Ridgecrest that I have always made me laugh. It’s allegedly a cul-de-sac sign, but I’d swear it’s actually a disgruntled state employee’s depiction of a penis on a road sign. (Unfortunately, you’ll have to take my word for it this time.)

Two things happened during that fateful trip to Ridgecrest, one of which caused me great pain.

When I left home in 1996 for the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, I left behind a 1969 Ford Fairlane 500, affectionately named Betty. She was left in the care of nobody in particular, and eventually found herself parked on the street with an expired registration, and was towed.

Eight years later when I’d once again moved back home and was in need of a vehicle, I went searching for her. After hours of sleuthful detective work (actually it was one phone call that lasted less than five minutes), I was led to the junkyard at the edge of town. Betty was … not as I left her.

My good friends Jason, Frank and I put hours of blood, sweat and tears into restoring that car, and when I left her, she may not have been pretty, but she and her well-aged 302 cubic-inch engine ran like a dream.

I was tragically optimistic in my hopes for future development of the Betty Project, and when I first caught sight of her in the junkyard, my heart dropped, my knees buckled and I may have even shed a few tears.

As I said, she was not as I left her.

Her last gift to me, as it turned out, was a piece of mail, addressed to me, that still sat on her floorboard, eight years later.

If anything can soften the blow of a lost love, it’s the discovery of a new one. How apt, then, that on my 100th day, I would capture a picture, the first picture, of me and Tracy, together and smiling, on Chad’s couch.

The rest, as they say, is history.