So many old photos and Duane Michals is amazing

A million years ago I took this photo of Megan Hastings at home. Ok, not a million, but it feels like it these days. It’s her old stove in her old kitchen, so that proves that it’s an old photo…probably photographed with my panasonic but I don’t remember anymore.

I’ve been going through all my old photos - at least the photos from my modern hard drives (not even sure the old old photos are available to me anymore…do really old hard drives work? I guess I will find out) and I’ve been trying to be quiet minded and not get caught up in judging quality, my life choices, or my thought process when shooting, so I’ve been listening to podcasts, especially the Magic Hour Podcast with Jordan Weitzman. Jordan is a great interviewer, and I am pretty rough on interviewers. Yesterday I got to listen to one of the first podcasts he ever did, with Duane Michals, and it is so inspiring to hear what Duane has to say - he’s 89 now and still working, he was 84 when this was recorded. He has so much to say, and his photos are just wonderful. I am definitely listening to this podcast episode again, probably today. I need to take notes!

If you aren’t familiar with Duane Michals, you should check him out - there isn’t really a good way to explain his quiet genius. Much of the time he uses words along with photos, and often does sequences, and this description in no way helps anyone want to go look at his work. He says he was asked once to make a self portrait by a big publication, and took a photo of himself from behind holding a book with I Think About Thinking written on one page - and that is the tiniest reason why you should go look at his work.