The Pleasures of Youth

My model was eighteen at the time these images were taken, a bit younger than I like. I like my model to be of an age that they have a bit better perspective on where there are going and where they’ve been. I feel like the teenage years are spent sowing a lot of wild oats and just finding out who you are let alone getting down to the business of running your life. People this age have a tendency to feel bullet proof and will live forever at least I did. Anyway I found her on line portfolio and we made a connection and eventually we became friends and I care about her very much. She’s currently the ripe old age of twenty three and will be having her first child in just under two months. She looks back on this time of her life with bitter-sweet memories and calls them crazy times.
I had my own crazy times so many years ago when the world was different, less pressure and less knowledge. I worked for a photographer in a one person shop and he started me on my way. The movie "Blow Up" had just come out it was based on the life of David Bailey an English photographer who lived a charmed life. I expected hot and cold running models to come through the studio at any moment. The first month I figured it was a slow month and by the time I figured out that they probably weren’t coming at all I figured out the photographer was going to get them if they did. I maybe slow but I’m not very fast became my mantra from then on.
But it was a good gig for an eighteen year old, I learned to develop E-6 and to print and more importantly I learned to dry prints to a mirror finish. I also learned to clean and to polish the big drum dryer that we had. I also had the run of the studio weekends and night and I used it but sparingly. We had hot-lights at that time and it just got too hot to try anything besides I was interested in life and how it functioned to spend much time in the studio. I was an outdoor shooter and the city was getting involved in HemisFair, the worlds fair that came to our town that year. I was able to get a press pass for the grounds as I was a working photographer at the time. My friend and I both had press passes and we roamed the ground almost at will shooting everything we found of interest. I focused on the people and my friend was more interested in abstracts involving people but not as the focal point.
The added bonus of the press card is that it got us into the Falstaff House where we were able to buy beer. Not being of legal age yet we made use of this privilege on a regular basis. We didn’t abuse that privilege but we use it for all it was worth and then some. There was also a city press club that we got into at night and the bartender was a fabulous lady who liked my friend and me very much and would let us drink undisturbed. One night we brought our lady friends for some drinks and to chat, it was our lucky night and no one was there at the time. The bartender decided to help us along and made the drinks extra strong and the girl I was with got quite tipsy and then I had to get her home and her mother was waiting for us. Not exactly the night I was planning but I got out unscathed.
Like I said it was a unique time of out lives, unspoiled and innocent and the only danger was the usual dangers of youth. I didn’t drink much then and I wasn’t much into the drug scene much either, I was too busy with life. I worked for the local newspaper by then and had a car that was the envy of all who saw it. My company car had flashing lights, police and fire radios and people would get out of the way when I was on the move. The only draw back was people almost certainly had to die so I could get my work on the front page. That was the saddest part of my job, I’d chase accident scenes and plane crashes and then I could count on the front page. If the bleeds it lead was the saying to old timers though a riot was good for space too. I soon learned I wasn’t cut out to be a newspaper man, I had no stomach for death and dismemberment. But I sure loved that car!