One summer afternoon everything changed
Sometimes, the smallest moments end up shaping your whole life.
This photograph was taken in the summer of 1985, back when I was a music major dabbling in photography electives. U2 had just released "The Unforgettable Fire" the year before, with a hauntingly beautiful photo on the album cover that stopped me in my tracks. I was obsessed. When I showed it to my photography professors, I asked the question only a curious (and wildly clueless) college kid could ask: How on earth did they do that?
The answer? Infrared black-and-white film. A mystical, temperamental beast of a medium. Naturally, I had to try it.
That summer, I went home to Nampa, Idaho. It was a season of long days and short nights, full of family dinners, old high school friends, and our Old English Sheepdog, Gretchen, who looked absurdly funny with her summer buzz-cut. One morning, I piled her into the car and headed into the Owyhee Mountains, bound for the ghost town of Silver City.
The way back down was magic—wide open sky, the Snake River curling through the high desert plains stretched out endlessly below, carving its way through the dust. It was the kind of light you don’t forget. I stopped the car, Gretchen jumped out, and I started snapping pictures of the landscape using the infrared film. And then, just as I was mid-roll, Gretchen wandered into the frame and stood there, looking out over the vista. I took the shot.
It wasn’t until months later, back at school, that I developed the film. But when I saw that proof sheet, that was it. My music major days were over.
