hong-an tran

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Film stills from an Russian horror movie about disaffected exurban youths run amok?  Or Mike in the Park Slope Key Foods parking lot after a couple rounds of frozen margaritas?  You be the judge.
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An ongoing series of sorts.

[Top: Mike. Above: Jeremy. Below: Michael + film negative mishandling moment]

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About every three years or so, I head to my friend Matt’s parents’ place in central New Jersey for Thanksgiving.  I head there at other times of the year as well, to lounge in their pool or to cozy up next to the fireplace with a wide glass of bourbon in hand, but Thanksgiving at the farm happens about every third year or so for me.  And it’s always a treat — Matt’s mom puts together a great meal, and his dad teaches me on the finer points of the current NFL season. Matt’s own family has expanded to include a wee near-two-year-old, the lovely Lady B, who slept through the meal proper, but who had her own coma-inducing meal afterwards.

After the meal, I took a walk around the farm to snap some late afternoon photos with the Hasselblad.  Everything was very, very still — not surprising, given how much space there was between homes in this rural part of the state, but perhaps moreso after all the post-meal sleepiness took over.  It’s a quietness unbroken by very much at all, except maybe the very loud slap of the Hasselblad shutter.

Earlier in the day, as we were waiting for the incredibly large turkey to finish roasting, I took some photos of Matt and his wife Irene, using a special extension tube fitted onto the Hasselblad that enables the camera to take closeup shots (and without the $3k-5k price tag for a proper portrait lens).  As always in these moments, the tables were turned and Irene got a shot in of me as well.   Throw in photos of the turkey and of Lady B enjoying her meal, and I’d say the day was an all-around gastronomic and photographic success. 

Minor successes, of course, compared to the opportunity to be around my east coast family, on a fairly temperate and sunny afternoon, eating and drinking up a storm. 
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Ok, not really.  Not in the slightest. (And not that Mike D.)  I love Mike D!  But when dear Mike decides to lay down on the grass in Prospect Park after a grueling afternoon of modeling for the test rolls for the new Hasselblad, what else to do but snap away?

To be sure, it’s much too bright for the black and white 400-speed film I had loaded in Dashiell, and so the exposure is a bit off, as is the desired eeriness.  But we hammed it up anyway — and when you’ve got a camera named in part after this guy, it only seemed right to inaugurate his tenure with a hard boiled crime scene of sorts.

At one point, though, I realized something was very much off: “Mike — I don’t think the dead die with their ankles crossed ever so elegantly.” Also, Mike swears that he isn’t smiling in these photos. “It’s my serious face! I swear!”
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