leslie

Third day in a row of a portrait? No need to check your browser, I assure you this is not J's challenge journal.

This, though, is Leslie (hope I got the spelling correct!). Leslie works (and actually may have been the owner) at the 7th Street Dry Cleaners where I dropped some stuff off after swinging Leah by school. As I am about to begin teaching in a few weeks, I needed to pull the shirts and ties and pants out of the closet and get them looking sharp. Clothes make the man, as my father has said a time or two before. Well, it wasn't all my stuff--Leah had a few skirts and shirts as well. But despite the prices seeming reasonable, I am still a bit nervous about the bill that awaits us in a few days. Dry cleaning is not something that I do on a regular basis at all; typically, my clothes (like my personality) is all about low-maintenance.

What a pleasant encounter, though. As I walked in, there was this coolly linen-dressed gentleman in there, flirting chatting it up at the counter with Leslie. His name was Perry. Apparently, he is also a hobbyist photographer (he shoots Canon). We talked about digital, film, Polaroid--don't worry I told him about Blip and gave him one of my recently made business cards to recruit him to the cause (he'd mentioned, however, that he was aware of the site). I expect him to stop by here! But Perry travels to Central America every year, mostly Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and enjoys shooting the, undoubtedly amazing, stuff down there. He recalled the days of Polaroid and how much joy the children would exhibit there upon him rewarding them with the photo he'd just taken. And because of this same joy, he wants to get one of those new, portable photo printers.

This was all a testament on the beautiful universality of photography, an art form that anyone, really, can do with just the most basic of resources (cell phone). But you, friends, all know this. Here I walked in, tattooed and grungy in cut-off khaki shorts, and this dapper gentleman, who was clearly successful with his life (I am almost positive he drove in the gargantuan black Mercedes out front, too), and immediately engaged me in a lively, civil, and very enlightening conversation just because he saw the camera I had lashed around my neck. All of this casual comfort led me to request their portraits, something in which they happily obliged.

Perry

Leslie 2.