The First Frames: Blue Sweater Afternoon
The First Frames
Before the Leica. Before the studio. Before I knew what I was doing, there were these. The first frames. Awkward, overexposed, underexposed, sometimes lucky. But every one of them mattered.
This is the fourth in a series of early shoots — small moments that shaped how I learned to see.
Kelley. I met her at ARC the year before. Outgoing, bubbly, with this easy, infectious personality, you couldn’t ignore. Everyone liked Kelley. I liked her more than that.
We ended up at Spring Break together in ’87. U2’s With or Without You and I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For " played on every radio station, all the time. The soundtrack of that season is stitched into my memory — the heat, the laughter, and Kelley at the center of it all.
These photos were from a quieter day, though. A park somewhere in Sacramento, maybe early spring. The trees were still bare, but the sun had that gentle warmth that makes you think winter’s finally over. Kelley showed up in that powder-blue sweater and light-wash jeans, very much of the time. Her hair caught the light perfectly. She didn’t pose so much as just… be there. Comfortable. Herself.
I didn’t direct much. I didn’t have to. She leaned into the tree, rested her cheek on her hands, and smiled like she was in on some secret. Then she stood by the fence, sunlight through her hair, looking right at me like I’d better not mess this up.
I’m almost sure this was shot on Fuji film — the colors have that softness Fuji gave you back then, but the blues and greens still pop in a way that’s survived the decades. I thought about converting these to black-and-white for Creatively Bare, but that felt wrong. The color is part of the memory, part of the decade, part of why these photos make me smile now.
They’re not perfect — I can see the little mistakes, the things I’d do differently now. But they’re honest. They’re a piece of time I don’t want to forget.
