Once in awhile someone will comment on or refer to an old photograph of mine and I'll go look at it and remember how it was made, the interchange with the model and where it was published.  I may remember what was going on in my life during the period when I made that style or which car I was driving back then.

For me at least, a photograph usually has three functions: 

1) The photograph should be an object of beauty in and of itself;

2) The photograph should hold the attention of the viewer by providing enough story cues that she puts herself into her own story via that photograph, and;

3) The photograph should be a record of what I was about at the time it was being made - it should be a record of my world.

Those first two functions are fulfilled as well as I can at the time the image is first made and shown.  The last function is something I can't know until years later when I look back and remember...

-Don

That is a very thoughtful and helpful set of ideas.  Not always easy...for me anyway.  Have you ever had the spirit of the moment drive you to think this is the best photo opportunity in history, and later (back when it was all film) you ask yourself, just what was I thinking/doing to take all these pictures of this old hay rake next to the old barn ?   But I am admittedly more manic, and possible this only happens to me.

Again, high marks on your short but well thought-out essay.


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