Twenty-Seven Exposures of Mostly Gerald

I found a disposable camera in the back of a drawer last Tuesday. Yellow Kodak, the kind that costs about eight dollars at a drugstore, still had exposures left on it. I have no memory of buying it. I stood there in the kitchen holding it for a minute and then, because apparently this is who I am now, I decided the afternoon was going to be a photography afternoon.

This is how it went: I photographed Gerald first, because he was right there and honestly he looked good in the light. Then I photographed the mug, the tangerine I'd been meaning to eat for three days, a shadow on the wall that seemed significant for about four seconds. I crouched down to get what I felt was a more interesting angle on the pothos and Gerald just sat there, very still, putting out leaves, completely unbothered by my creative vision.

photographing Gerald like he asked for a portrait session

At some point I set everything on the table, the camera, the mug, the tangerine, and just looked at it. Still life. I have seen still life paintings in textbooks. Those painters knew what they were doing. I am twenty-one years old and I arranged a citrus fruit and a Kodak disposable and thought, yes, this communicates something. I sat with my chin in my hand for a while and tried to figure out what exactly it was supposed to communicate.

reconsidering the still life

The thing about a disposable camera is you don't get to look at the pictures. That's the whole deal. You just commit to them and drop the camera off and wait. I have used seven of the remaining exposures. I'll probably finish the roll sometime in the next week and then get the prints developed and they will be slightly blurry and the colors will be a little off and I will look at them and feel some specific feeling I can't name yet. That's the part I'm actually curious about. In the meantime, Gerald has put out another leaf, which I am choosing not to interpret.