MINE (part one)

I have always wanted something that is mine. Not material possessions, I have plenty of those. I mean something I do that belongs to me. Something that is not a shared project or experience. Something that is just mine.

A few years ago I decided that I wanted to photograph local bands. I would tote my cameras and film with me to every smoky, crammed, cramped over imbibed bar where a band I liked was playing. I would make my way through the crowds with my camera held over my head. I would stake out a place in front of the stage or on the stairs and shoot away. Lost in my own "creative space" within the throbbing, jumping, drunken masses. I felt like I had found something that was mine. I was pretty good at it and I loved doing it. I got to know local musicians, they would mug for me from stage. My friend would come along and watch my stuff at our table and make sure I had a base of operations and enjoy the music while I photographed.

Then one night my girlfriend decided to bring her camera and try it. She also found it to be quite a rush of creative energy and decided she wanted to give it a go also. We would do it together. We came up with a name to call ourselves, even had business cards printed up. We were a team. We photographed all over the place. To see us taking up booth space, loading film, changing rolls, standing on bar stools and tables was nothing unusual. Of course local struggling bands don't have any money to buy photographs but they enjoyed looking at them and telling us how good we were. We had a few favorites. There are some bands (some now defunct) that we have hundreds and hundreds of photographs of. But the point is, it no longer was a me thing, it was now as us thing. A partnership, a combined effort. Until my girlfriend decided she liked Long Island Tea's better than she liked her camera and as the months wore on, she would get increasingly intoxicated at our "shoots" to the point that we could no longer talk to the band afterward because she was too drunk and that just made us look bad and her drunken ramblings idiotic.

We had a lot of fun. We saw a lot of great bands and heard a lot of great music. We took a lot of pictures. We, we we. It was no longer mine. It was ours. I don't regret teaming up with her, she was a really good photographer when she was sober, and an excellent printer. There is a part of me however that wishes it was, could have been, just mine. It makes me feel petty and selfish to feel that way, but I do nonetheless.

She got sober, I had a baby, no more smoky bars for us.