…Ursula Rucker…over the holidays i was cleaning negatives, slides, and prints that occupy half of my home in New York. i found negatives of Ursula Rucker that i photographed for a magazine in December 2001. Ursula is a spoken word artist. she’s a brilliant writer and has collaborated with many artists, most notably The Roots.
i never gave this portrait to the magazine because they wanted to run a color image. i’m not sure if i’ve looked at this B/W portrait since i developed it. it’s probably better than the photograph that was published. the eyes are always the key in a strong portrait. when i got this assignment, i was too inexperienced at editing because after a quarter century of experience since, i would have fought to publish this portrait.
when i photographed for magazines, i kept a roll of Tri-X in my Mamiya 7ii that i would use to experiment with. this roll was developed with a lith developer. i used lith often because i hardly had any success with it. lith developer was unpredictable, and i’m sloppy when it comes to science. but in the few instances that i got printable negatives, it would be interesting. i took more chances as a photographer when i was younger. i’m not sure why i was so daring back then because if i didn’t submit a photograph that was better than what i did before, an editor wouldn’t hire me again. it was probably me being more crazy and hungry than daring.
i had to clean this negative a few times after it had been dormant in the plastic sleeve since 2001. i’m looking forward to making a final print that i can frame. in the 1990’s, it would have gone in the portfolio book. i miss that….now it gets scanned and posted….
Tags: Music, Ursula Rucker