Portrait of the Mind Entertainer as a Dittel Man

IMG_0005, originally uploaded by bjhiggins.

As I feared, I was unable to keep up the torrid content production pace that I was rocking at the beginning of this return to blogging. I let the blog fall by the wayside as all of my other side projects (and my actual job) began to occupy the majority of my time. I figure I'll post more Disney pictures at some point, but I needed to branch out and dip into the archives a bit in order to freshen things up.

I went to Ithaca College for one semester. I was a film major, and I left when I realized I didn't want to be a film major. I have some wonderful memories of the place, and some less wonderful memories, but one thing that I really owe to that school is that it really got me into photography.

Photography was a required class for film majors, and we had to have film SLR cameras. Prior to that, I had only used point-and-shoots and disposable cameras; I often tried to be the disposable camera auteur, but seriously, there is a limit to what you can do with those things, especially when shooting indoors. I got my SLR, a Nikon N65, and I became a photo kid.

I'm going to post a number of shots that I took for my photo class, because I still regard these shots as some of my favorite photographic work. I figured I would begin with an image that was supposed to be for a portrait assignment.

While visiting home, I was hanging out with Eric Dittelman, and I decided to use him for my pending portrait assignment. I took a number of pictures (and I will post more of them on here eventually), but when I developed the negatives and started looking at them, this one stood out immediately.

We had been sitting around, watching episodes of "The Simpsons" (the Season One DVD had recently been released). and I hopped behind the couch and snapped this shot. Eric in the foreground, Bart on the television. It was perfect. If you've spent any time with Eric, you know how much he loves The Simpsons, so this image really captured who he is.

The teacher told me I couldn't use it for the portrait assignment, because you can't see his face.

Despite that, I think this is a perfectly fine portrait, because while it doesn't necessarily show his eyes or nose or mouth, it does show who he is.