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| Denver's City Park |
The morning was picturesque. Late
October, Denver, Colorado, sunny and a deep blue sky without a
cloud-this is how we started the day. Gio and I looked over the
equipment, perfunctorily. We drove to meet with Sammy Emerson.
Travis met us there. On Columbine Street, in Denver's fashionable
Congress Park neighborhood, the three of us collected our thoughts
and our gear.
The exercise was simple enough. We
picked a young photographer to interview and follow around for the
day. We'd met with her once before, sometime in late August or early
September. That initial meeting was nebulous at best. We asked her
a few questions, and stumbled through our intention. Our intention
at Rocket House Pictures was
simply this: we needed content for our website, we needed material
for our portfolio, we needed work. Just how we were going to do it,
well, that was the nebulous part.
In her apartment,
Sammy showed us her collection of antique cameras. She made us
coffee (I drank three cups) and there were croissants with homemade
jam. As Travis and Gio set up the lights and camera, I spoke with
Sammy.
I think people who
choose to be behind the camera tend to be more shy when posed in
front of the camera. I could tell Sammy was a little nervous. A few
days before we met, I sent her the questions I intended to ask.
Still, she was a little nervous. Not shy, not in the least, she was
just nervous. Sammy is a very outgoing and engaging sort of person.
Before
the interview we started to talk photographers. W. Eugene Smith, and
Ray Man proved to be common heroes for both of us. It was a pleasure
to geek out a bit with her. For those of you who don't know, W.
Eugene Smith photojournalist who brought images of war and Albert
Schweitzer into the living rooms of America in the days before the TV
took the impact of LIFE Magazine away. W. Eugene Smith also thought
in terms of entire projects, the photo-essay, as it were. And Ray
Man? Early 20th
century, a surrealist, a pioneer.
It proved to relax
her. The conversation swinging from the pioneers of photography to
Pearl Jam and their new album created a calm in Sammy that made our
interview fun and natural. Later, I watched Sammy as she spoke to
her models and made them kind of forget the camera and relax. It was
an interesting day.
The forthcoming
interview with Sammy Emerson of Sammy Emerson Photography, will be
available to watch soon. Either here at Rocket House Pictures or at
Sammy Emerson Photography.