1977 | Cambridge, Massachusetts*
Ben Lifson had gathered the work of some younger photographers into an exhibition at Harvard in 1977, and then all of us hung out in Boston and New York after the opening. Ben took me around one day, and insisted on showing me his favorite, unforgettable** Monet at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. (Thirty-five years later, I was to insist on taking my son to the same painting to share that same view.)
Later that day, we stopped in at Ben’s house, and as I was leaving, I made this picture from his front porch. He had been seeing some version of this view every day, and when I saw it for the first time, I did something about it. I am grateful for the many conversations with Ben over our years together, and for his challenging critique and thoughtful encouragement. I may regret that I did not ask him to show me any of his pictures which he might have made from here, but I am glad to have my own – from where I am now, it seems that Ben was lifting me up on his shoulders.
*I can’t find this Leica negative. Around the time it was made, I was fortunate to hear Tod Papageorge talk about his work; he was projecting ‘lantern slide’ positives, contact-printed from his 6x9cm negatives. This gave his audience a better experience of the enhanced surface descriptions gained from-roll film negatives, significantly larger than 35mm. I picked up on that, as I was also working in both formats. For consistency in my own talks, to accompany my 6x9cm positives, I enlarged my 35mm negatives up to 6x9cm size, onto the same Kodak Fine Grain Release Positive film. My projected presentations were big and bright, and they really got my point across.
These days, that process may sound arcane, and seem like a lot of work, but it was neither. That’s what we did.
I still have the lovely, long-scale, enlarged positive, and a good scanner, so I pressed just one button to recover my loss.
** La Japonaise (Camille Monet in Japanese Costume) from 1876. Held in the largest collection of Monet outside of France.