JOURNAL

Every session starts the same way. One roll goes into the camera, one light goes up on the stand, and the person in front of the lens gets thirty six chances to stop performing.

Mornings belong to the contact sheets. Coffee, a loupe, a grease pencil and the light table, before the phone has a chance to wake up.

The last sitting in Milan started after the daylight had gone. I rated the 400 at 1600 and pushed two stops in the developer rather than add another lamp.

The best portraits from the Athens shoot were made while the crew reset the lights. Everybody was waiting, and waiting looks honest.

The darkroom runs cold in January, and cold chemistry is slow chemistry. A print that takes ninety seconds in summer needs almost three minutes now.

Every frame carries a small archive on its edge: the film stock, the frame number, a little arrow pointing the way the roll was wound.