Mirror Maze

Children in the mirror maze, Star of Texas Fair, Austin

Children in the mirror maze, Star of Texas Fair, Austin

There are as many ways to read this image as there are reflections inside the maze. There is the worried look on the boy’s face, the mirror multiplied arms and hands, pointing and flailing. The gorgeous, famously saturated, Kodachrome colors. 

Here’s one reading: the look on the boy’s face matches the way that Kodak executives must have been feeling in 2002 when it was made. Both this picture and the boy on a carousel picture in yesterday’s posting were taken at Austin’s “Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo” but there is a year and a sea change between them. This is the the older of the two. There is an original Kodachrome 64 slide for this image; there is no original for the carousel, nothing to hold up to the eye or lay on the light box, nothing to pay Kodak for.

I have already written about how I miss the Leica M6 that was used for this photograph but that doesn’t mean I miss film, not at all! If I were taking this photograph today, I could hold my position and click 50 times for 50 different arrangements from which to select the best, and it would not cost me a penny extra. I could pull the images up in Photoshop ten minutes after getting back to the house. I could have an 18×9 inch print in my hands by the early hours of the morning. In 2002 it was two weeks before I got the processed slide back to stick in the scanner.

The catch is, if I had shot 49 more frames I would probably still pick this one.

One Comment

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