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3.27.18
Believe it or not, I find it a blessing that I have friends that are doing significantly cooler things in life. The fact that I can claim that one of my friends is a PhD candidate is pretty neat, in itself, and to take their photos to celebrate their graduation is so crazy. Also, it’s another level of fun to add the word “doctor” before their name, even if they might not be used to it just yet.
Doctor Michael and I had met up on Sunday, at the marina near from where he lives. I wanted to take photos here since I was familiar with the location from my last shoot with Wes and his brother. The weather, a few hours prior, had its share of downpours of rain, but by the time we arrived, the skies were clear, save for the partially damp streets and clumps of clouds looming over us.
It was a straightforward day of shooting and, in between shots, Doctor Michael and I would catch up, asking each other what our plans for the future were or how mutual friends were keeping up over time. Despite telling me that he feels awkward on camera, he never showed any sign of that. In fact, he had a natural sense of direction in terms of his posture and camera presence.
In essence, I wanted to keep a steady sense of movement in some of the images. Whether if its him walking towards the viewer, or waiting by the platform of a train station, graduating or reaching a new milestone in one’s life is a marker of the trajectory one will eventually take. This is a big accomplishment for Michael, and not because he earned a cool new honorific in front of his name, or that he gets to wear a doctoral hood that I still have no idea how to put on. In a few months, he’ll be taking on his calling, and all the work that he’s invested in, has led to this. That’s something very few people have the opportunity to claim, and to capture just a small glimpse of that for him is so incredibly awe inspiring.