You Can Check Out Any Time You Like But You Can Never Leave

In 1965 Stephanie and I moved from Boston back to my home town of New Bedford, about 8 or 9 months after we'd gotten married. We rented an apartment in what had once been a huge house at 195 Cottage Street, probably built in the late 1800's, but later converted into apartments. The tenants were mostly students in their late teens or early twenties, and many of them attended the nearby Swain School of Design. It was still a private school then but I understand that it's now part of the Massachusettes university system.

Wayne and Sue Simonsis lived upstairs from us and we became good friends. I often took photos of Sue. I was playng around at the time with my Minolta Autocrd TLR, with the addition of a pin hole aperture, perhaps f/256. This gave depth of field from a few inches to infinity with just a bit of softness from difraction effects, but still sharper than a plain pin hole would give. Exposures ran to minutes by window light, and at first I stayed with photographing still lifes. Sue was intrigued with the pictures and offered to pose for some. I still have a couple of 11x14 prints framed on my wall, one of her and one still life.

I don't know how she managed to stay still so long, with just shallow breathing, but we got a few decent pictures from the session. I need to dig out those negatives and print up a few. This picture of Sue is more conventional. I was shooting with a Leica and my 35/1.8 Canon on the sidewalk out in front of the house. It was one of those typical overcast New England days.