Barry Jenkins, what can I say? Saying the man is an inspiration would be an understatement. The portrait above was made recently with his cooperation on a cold, rainy day in San Francisco at the end of 2009.
As a little back story, I have been lucky enough to work with Paul Trapani for the last few months learning wet plate collodion...yes one of the original forms of photography, straight up chemistry as art. No it is not a photoshop filter, effect or have anything to do with digital other than scanning the final product, a glass negative(ambrotype) or metal positive(tintype). It is captured in camera with a 4x5 or 8x10 camera. It has been time consuming, rewarding, frustrating, tedious, and absolutely beautiful. This process has reaffirmed for me what I love about photography. Paul has been working with the process for a bit longer than me and was instrumental in bringing me up to speed with the technical and creative aspects of the process. Please check out some of his work here(website) and here(blog).
Back to Mr. Jenkins, I woke up this morning to a little surprise, aside from the little earthquake here in SF. His Facebook status update was a carefully crafted expression of gratitude that I think escapes social networking for the most part. I was expecting him to just post the picture to his Facebook and that be that. I was not expecting him to thank me for all work we have collaborated on and more specifically to comment on the above portrait that I sent him recently - "I look at this photo and see the person I 'feel' I am. David Bornfriend will be on the walls of your favorite museum someday." Not sure about that last part, but the first part really struck a chord with me. It has been something I have been thinking about with the process and a future project involving it, but have not been able to succinctly put it into words. Thank you Barry.
I can not thank him enough for including me in the creative processes of his films Medicine for Melancholy and A Young Couple. It was not a hard decision to jump on board with the first project Medicine for Melancholy. Randomly meeting at a second job while in school, and working together, I watched it evolve from a passing revelation, to rough script, and finally into a fully realized creative expression of something so personal. Collaborating on those projects has given me great perspective in terms of what personal work can be and my passion for my art.
Barry's focus, drive, and creativity are intoxicating. Every time we get a chance to catch up, I walk away with renewed creative spark, ready to start new projects and renewed spark for existing ones. I hope to continue working with him on his many, many endeavors.
And just to prove a little point, here is a list of the 19 best movies of 2009 by a little newspaper you may have heard of called the NY TIMES...check out number 5!
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