A couple of months ago I pulled out our college portfolio cases for an afternoon, just for giggles. It was a self-affirming moment; not only did I get to briefly to relive those awesome years when one figures out who "me" is, but it was pretty cool to see what I/we considered good work then and compare it with today's description. Does the old work still hold up?
Of all of the work (two photography majors x three years, folks = mountains of prints), I was most excited to see Dave's Haymarket series from 1999. Haymarket is Boston's outdoor farmer's market, and has existed since the 1830's. It's only open on Fridays and Saturdays now, though I believe back then it was a Saturday-only event. I introduced Dave to the Haymarket around the same time we were charged with coming up with an in-depth semester-long project for our major's class. It was instant .
From January through May, Dave either camped out in my dorm room or took the early train into the city from his home in Concord. He arrived at the market long before sunrise and photographed everything about the market, which, in January and February, was a very cold task. During his semester he built up relationships with some of the vendors, drank a lot of coffee to keep warm and became an insider in this unique little corner of the city.
The majority of this series was made with a Mamiya TLR camera which shoots a 2 1/4" x 2 1/4" negative - this is why the images are square. The rest were shot with his old faithful Nikon 35mm, all on Tri-X 400 black and white film. He printed each photograph himself during marathon darkroom sessions on 11x14" Agfa Classic paper. In the end, he produced a 30+ piece body of work that earned him the only Honors grade awarded that semester.
Feel free to browse through all of the Haymarket photographs, or like our page on Facebook to see more of what Kristin's digging up on her days off!
