I have no idea who this person was, but I’ve carried his photograph with me throughout most of my life. I look at it every once in a while, usually when I am going through a Kondo phase. It must be the case that he was friends with my relatives, possibly even my parents, but as far as I can tell, he was never the topic of dinner time conversation or holiday reminiscences. An old acquaintance of some sort. Someone’s army buddy. My connection to the photograph has everything to do with the fact that he is using a camera, and that is probably the only reason I’ve never thrown it away. I picked up a copy of a similar Graflex at a local camera store a few years ago and it was my first experience with a 4x5 camera. That is our only connection.
