“You’ll never get it if you don't slow down, my friend”

I don’t know how many people know or remember Wayne Wang and Paul Auster’s 1995 film Smoke with Harvey Keitel and William Hurt but it has this beautiful and philosophical photography-related segment in the middle that can bring me to tears (an easy feat, to be fair). Found a clip on YouTube and it even has some non-technical lessons for photographers. Now I need to go watch the movie again. Don’t make these very often anymore, unfortunately.

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I watched the clip. In 1995, I was lips-deep in a new marriage, trying to figure out my way around a wife, her kids, and one of ours, don’t even remember seeing anything about this movie. Gonna have to watch the whole thing, now…

Kinda why I feel compelled to give a bit of context with any photo I post. A moment in time, surrounded by the what-got-us-theres and then what-comes-nexts.

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There was a companion movie shot in five days after Smoke called Blue in the Face, which is basically just famous New York residents like Lou Reed and Jim Jarmusch improvising stories in front of the camera. Smoke has a proper story.

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I’m intrigued. Please tell us more. :wink:

(I apologise in advance for my crude and childish sense of British humour, but I really couldn’t resist).

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For most of my Air Force tenure, I was a single n’er-do-well, meandering around adulthood. Met and married my wife of, now, 34 years in 1991, she came with two kids and we pretty quickly had one of our own. I think golf is a good example of the rubicon; on my Saturday wedding day I got up, walked from the bachelor officer’s quarters to the 9-hole golf course and played two rounds with my friends as I had done for about 3 years (broke 100 for the first time), came back to the ‘Q’, put on my mess-dress (formal) uniform, went to the chapel and got married. I never played another round of golf again…

I didn’t really miss it, or most any of my single life. Marriage has been a good gig. Actually, got me back to photography, bit of a replacement for the carousing… :crazy_face:

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