I made these images over 25 years ago. I've moved them in my portfolio case 5 times now. I'm in a throw away mood and am going through everything and if it doesn't seem like a must have, its gone. I'll probably keep these, but i took pictures of them just in case I change my mind. These images were my first professional awards when I was about 19. The Window washer won a blue ribbon in the Professional Photographers association of RI's annual contest. I also won a judges special recognition away, The one above that I titled wall relief of Michele won a blue ribbon and was selected into the court of honor. To be honest I think the judge who fought for both these pictures was just tired of seeing standard portraiture and was interested in these because, well there just wasn't anything else like them in the competition. Had I not been 18 or 19 and had I known what the competition was really about I probably wouldn't have even entered them. But I did and I got a phone call from one of my instructors 'suggesting' that I come to the awards banquet. I was sorta stunned actually and when I went and saw that I had gotten awards i just felt really awkward and out of place. It was neat, but i really didn't like the attention that I was getting---well didn't like might not be the right way to say--I didn't know what to do with it. I still don't in a lot of ways. Its great to be acknowledged and I certainly put the awards on my resume, but it still feels funny to get congrats...maybe because awards are for work done usually months earlier and I've moved on--and when someone says something nice about my work and I know I just came back from an assignment I just didn't do well on--well it puts it in perspective! Old portfolio photos by Richard Sayer--the funny thing was I was still using the window washer when I applied at the Tribune 14 years ago--it was the picture that stood out in Jim and Kirk's mind as we met for the first time. That and a picture I took of a beautiful girl in a pile of shredded paper! I'll have to find that one some day soo too!
Yes Mom--these are the ones from that show--I thought I'd add a little bit about the top photo. It was a photograph of my friend Michele pretending to sniff a fake flower in the basement of the house I grew up in. I had a bad habit of underexposing all my negatives back then. This photo was one of my favorites at the time(truth is I really just loved that girl, she was a great friend.) I was learning all sorts of techniques in the dark room and one that made me really want to try--was creating a positive by sandwiching my negative on litho film. I then sandwiched the developed litho positive with the negative and just slightly off-set them creating this 'wall relief 'look, Enlarging it onto 11x14 paper--this was my result. Now I didn't take great care in the process so there was a lot of texture and stuff that real techno types wouldn't have been happy with, but I was and still am a very serendipitous guy and when it turned out this way by accident--I thought--cool!
Well, those two sure bring back memories. Was that the show I went with you to Newport? I still like the window washer one. Fun to see some of the old ones!!