There is no explanation for this photograph.
Other than perhaps “operator error.”
It’s one of the first photographs I took during an internship in Utah in late 2007. I don’t believe I’ve ever used it for anything before now (for reasons I probably don’t need to explain), but I’ve always held onto it—or the modern equivalent: kept the jpeg continuously on the desktop of whatever computer I’m slowly beating to death at the moment.
It was taken outside the home of a family in Ogden. The mother was raising some ridiculous number of children, most of whom were not actually her own. She’s sort of a neighborhood hero.
Perhaps it wasn’t a good omen that the best looking thing to come out of that assignment was an under-exposed lens flair.
But the lesson I take now—which I wish I could’ve taken then—is that whatever’s going to happen will happen. Despite whatever your level of technical skill and forethought and preparedness, you’re occasionally-to-frequently going to get some weird shit.
When I was a much younger man, I began learning to play the guitar.
At some point, I became obsessed with the idea of purchasing ever more expensive, finely made guitars. Not that I or my family had the money for such things, but that didn’t stop my fixation.
But what eventually quenched this weird obsession was some advice from Don Koke, a longtime troubadour, teacher, and proprietor of the Ironhorse Concert Hall in El Dorado, Kan.
Don explained, simply, that every guitar is really about 90 percent player. He said as long as you had at least 12 frets and the thing would stay in tune long enough to start and finish a song, you really didn’t have anything to worry about. Not who made it. Not what sort of wood it was made of. Unless you’re playing Paganini Caprices or opening up for Merle Haggard (because, really, what else is there?), the thing holding you back isn’t your guitar. It’s you.
So, it’s 15 years later, and I am not a professional musician. But I am a more-or-less professional journalist. And guess what?
The camera? Turns out, it’s 90 percent shooter.