3m 27s 600ms
March in Nashville was colder than anyone expected. The wind came through Germantown with enough weight to make you conscious of your hands, and the light — when it hit — was hard and direct, the kind that flatters nothing and reveals everything. I was in Nashville for a three-day workshop with Thorsten Overgaard. He had said something about beautiful light being the beginning of everything, and standing on a sidewalk at nine in the morning trying to feel my fingers, I understood that meant you had to go find it.
The workshop was never formal. Thorsten described it simply: we walk to the next coffee shop, happen to pass by some nice light, and we shoot. At Elegy Coffee on the first morning, before anyone had gone anywhere, he was already working — sitting beside one of the participants at the table, adjusting something on their camera, explaining with his hands.
The lesson started before we left the table. — Leica M10-R, Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH Titanium.
Inside, the light softened. The barista was entirely absorbed in what she was doing, which is the only time a stranger in a coffee shop is worth photographing.
Elegy Coffee, Germantown. — Leica M10-R, Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH Titanium.
Dan had positioned himself near a large window somewhere in the building, where the light fell on him the way it does in old paintings — from one side, with intention. He wasn’t posing. He was just standing there holding his Leica, thinking about something else.
The light found him before I did. — Leica M10-R, Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH Titanium.
We walked out into the neighborhood. The cold stayed with us but the light kept changing.
Germantown, Nashville. — Leica M10-R, Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH Titanium.
Barrel Proof, Germantown. — Leica M10-R, Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH Titanium.
Later, inside an old brick building — shops, a bar, a coffee shop on the ground floor — the hard light outside gave way to something quieter. I looked down through a window and saw this.
The ruined wall across the water had been standing there longer than anyone inside. — Leica M10-R, Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH Titanium.
On the second morning, at the Hermitage Hotel, Thorsten talked about archives — about knowing where your photographs live, about not surrendering them to software you don’t control. Your pictures are yours. Keep them somewhere you can find them. In the afternoon, we walked a few blocks from the hotel until the light was right, and made portraits.
Tullio, Nashville. — Leica M10-R, Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH Titanium.
On the third day we moved to Broadway, then someone suggested the Gibson store. We went, and then found Carter Vintage Guitars nearby. Outside Gibson, I found Thorsten on the sidewalk checking his phone — probably finding Carter’s — and behind him, through the glass, the shapes of guitars hung like punctuation.
He was teaching us to look. — Leica M10-R, Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH Titanium.
Inside Carter’s, one of the staff was cleaning a bass guitar with the focused indifference of someone who has done it ten thousand times and still does it carefully.
Carter Vintage Guitars, Nashville. — Leica M10-R, Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH Titanium.
We ended at Superica, a Mexican place a stranger on the street had pointed us toward. The table was already set when we arrived. Nobody had sat down yet.
Lunch on the last day. — Leica M10-R, Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Pre-ASPH Titanium.