lupe

Back in my junior year of college, I lived in an apartment building known amongst locals as The Barn.  It certainly looked like a barn, though I’m quite certain the structure never housed livestock or anything more wild than collegiate types experiencing their first moments of seeming independence.  There were two apartments on each of three floors: 1 South, 1 North, 2 South, and so on.  Around December 1994, someone poked their head in the door of my apartment, 1 North: might I be interested in selling some of my Russian language textbooks to her roommate?  The head in question belonged to Lupe of 3 North, and in that moment a conversation ensued; soon after, friendship.  In the summer of 1995, Lupe — and three others — moved into the 2 bedroom apartment I had then relocated to, and we spent that sweltering summer doing everything we could to keep cool.

I set up a makeshift photo studio in one of the bedrooms, and asked Lupe to sit for me; it was one of my first forays into photography proper.  The photo above is perhaps my shining moment of that summer, even though the smudginess of the scan might suggest otherwise.  I was a newbie at this photography thing, but for Lupe … all of this seemed to come naturally to her (and, though she might disagree, it still does).  There’ll be more photos of Lupe to follow, but for now, I’m going to enjoy this one for a bit.  It still kind of kills me how nicely it came out, all things — the newbie with the Pentax K-1000, not to mention the  95 degree heat and 97% humidity — considered.  Thanks, Lu, for putting up with my photographic aspirations insanity.