Journal

Before every shoot I already know the photograph I want. The spot. The time. The distance.

I get there and take it. Then I take it again, closer, farther, just in case.

The one I keep is almost never the one I came for.

The plan gets me out the door. It never takes the picture.

I should know better by now.  

The city is at its largest the week you know no one in it.

It gets a little smaller every time someone learns your name. The barista. The bartender. The barber. The owner who waves before you reach the door. The regular who remembers meeting you before you remember meeting them.

The streets never changed. Your relationship to them did. 

The seasons used to arrive like letters. You knew they were coming. You just never knew the day.

Now they still arrive. Just never the way they were supposed to.

Winter lingers. Spring barely introduces itself. Summer shows up before you're ready.

Nature never considers your preferences. 

Saturday mornings were for soccer. Saturday afternoons belonged to Spring Lounge.

Miller High Life cans stacked into towers. A shark on the wall. Someone's phone charging from an outlet in the ceiling, hanging like a chandelier.

We'd replay the game, watch the street, and spend six hours deciding what to do that night. Then go home, change, and come back out.

I don't see most of those guys anymore.

Spring Lounge is still there.

Fifteen minutes in line can feel like an hour. Four hours on a dance floor can feel like forty-five minutes.

You stop by an afters and somehow end up hosting the after afters.

People you've just met are sitting in your living room. Conversations start in one corner and pick up somewhere else.

The sun is coming through the windows. Someone goes out for more booze.

Outside, people are going about their Saturday.

Inside, someone just put on another record.