The guy operating that giant, old-time camera had to duck under a hood to make a photograph.
Said camera looked like something from the 1920s, passerby Jillian Kelly thought. What you might see in jittery, newsreel footage from a documentary.
She was captivated.
“So, I walked up and said, ‘Excuse me, guys, but that camera is amazing. And I’m just curious: What are you doing?”
Two minutes later, she was part of Robert and Linda Kalman’s ongoing collection of American moments.
The husband and wife from rural Brewster, N.Y. — an hour north of New York City — have been chronicling the human condition for around 30 years now.
Robert is a former elementary school principal who has been making pictures in earnest since 1959, when his parents bought him a box camera for this 10th birthday. Linda was a social worker for years, in her native Midwest and elsewhere.
With Robert’s vintage 8×10 large-format camera, they’ve traveled the world, capturing images, memories and musings — from New York City’s eclectic East Village to downtrodden villages in Nicaragua.
Two weeks ago, they were in Morgantown, with plans to head to the other side of the Mississippi for similar stops across Linda’s home state of Kansas.
Texas and California are also on the itinerary, and they’ve already done their work in South Carolina.
The plan is to turn it all into a book in coming months.
Robert said he likes using the old-fashioned camera because deliberate work is involved.
It takes some time to make a photograph, which gives his subjects time to answer his big question: “What’s it like for you to be an American?”
If you stand in front of that camera, you’ll get a free copy of your portrait — but only if you provide a handwritten answer to it.
Kelly, a local, froze in a portrait pose for a second as she considered her response.
Then, the pen scritch-scritched across the paper, in a special ledger provided for just the occasion. In 61 words, she worried about the plights of women, people of color and the LGBTQ+ community.
However, a certain light shone through.
“I feel fortunate but also disappointed, though I stay hopeful for a better future,” she said.
Nate Sidow, meanwhile, was happy to help a brother out.
“I wanted to support a fellow artist,” the WVU acting major from Inwood said.
For him, freedom of speech, and that inalienable to say what’s good — or not — about one’s country always takes top billing.
The full responses from the Morgantown participants:
Jillian Kelly: I feel fortunate to be an American but at the same time I struggle with being proud of my country. Especially currently because we seem to be stepping back in time, taking away people’s rights, the war on women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community. … I feel fortunate but also disappointed though I stay hopeful for a better future and country.
Samuel Workman: Being an American means being comfortable in a state of change. It has meaning only in the moment, to be replaced in the next moment. To be American is to drift in perpetual crosscurrent of social, political, and economic change.
Hollie Gregory: For me, being an American is like being in limbo. Our freedoms are waxing and waning, and we don’t always know in what direction we are heading, but we have no choice but to be along for the ride.
Jackson Bruenjes: Being American means continuously shedding the notion of what it meant to previous generations. Reinventing the idea in a way that is better for our neighbor.
Sherri Kincaid: I find it difficult being an American.
Andrea Antion: It is like being nervous, but confident to want to understand before being understood. I feel a sense of duty to pass this value along to (our) children so we can be inclusive, accepting & a loving American. I feel loved as an American & so I give love.
Nate Sidow: Being an American to me, is to be able to freely express yourself to the world. For most of the problems that plague this country our self-expression is a bond that holds us all together. Express who you are to the world and be the best you.
Tamula Brown: Being an American means getting the life-saving operation I need with state-of-the-art doctors, speaking my mind without worrying about any repercussions. Spending time with my family, who are everything to me. Being an American means I feel safe.
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