[Leica] re: Project: what's your

[Tom Finnegan <TomF@piengr.com>]

I have four somewhat vague projects going on concurrently. They are, in no
particular order,

- - Pictures of my daughter: this could actually be extended to family and
friends, but my 5-yr old daughter seems to make up the majority of the
pictures. A few years ago a cousin of mine died in an accident and I
realized later that I didn't have any pictures of him. Nor did I have any
pictures of his father who had died a couple years previously of cancer. The
more I thought, the more I realized I didn't have many pictures of virtually
any of my friends and family. Now I carry a camera with me pretty much
everywhere. Hopefully my daughter will have a good photo documentation of
her life, the ups, the downs, and all the in betweens.

- - Pictures I take at lunch walking around near my office: I work in small
town on the water that is north of Seattle. I like to get away from the
computer screen at least for a little while each day, so I frequently wander
around town at lunchtime with a camera and take pictures.

- - Pictures at the beach: my inlaws live in a small town on the Oregon coast.
We go down there at least a few times a year and I invariably end up going
on little walks around town or on the beach with cameras in tow. Pictures
are bound to occur as a result.

- - Seattle at the Millenium: a little article in the paper a year or so ago
caught my eye and got me thinking. Apparently, a local photographer decided
to document the city by photographing a scene from every square mile of the
city so that people in the future would know what Seattle looked like at the
turn of the Millenium. I envisioned the photographer going around with a
Hasselblad and Gitzo tripod taking pictures of run down buildings. It turns
out he is using a home built 20x24 camera on home built rolling stand. I
envision doing something vaguely along the same lines, although with smaller
gear. As it stands now in my head I see three parts: 1) life in the city -
basically street photography using the M's, 2) the landscape/architecture of
the city - using primarily 4x5 or maybe 5x7 gear, and 3) inhabitants of the
city - basically portraits using either 35mm or the LF gear, or possibly
I'll later try out a Rolleiflex TLR. The whole thing is being influenced by
David Hurn's discussion of his Wales project as well as by Strand's 'Un
Paese'. I expect it to be a rather long term project, but I may try and fit
it in with the timeline of FOMII. I don't expect the results to quite stand
up to the level of Strand or Hurn, but I expect I'll burn through alot of
film and hopefully learn something in the process.

Tom Finnegan
Seattle