I was having lunch in the Round House Cafe today and I saw a young man clutching a Nikon and looking carefully at each of my portraits hanging on the wall. I remember the moment, I felt as if I was looking at a version of myself many years ago, I could picture me holding something like that, close to my chest, I could see the way he was studying the portraits.

I introduced myself as the person who took the portraits, and he told me his name was Sam Grubb, he lived in a nearby town and was 17 years old. He loves taking portraits, he worked three jobs for more than a year to buy his Nikon, he took it with him everywhere. He showed me some of the nature photos he loves to take, they were colorful, interesting and very well composed.

We talked for awhile, and I invited him to the October Open House, he lit up at the idea of taking pictures that weekend. I saw myself so clearly in him, in a number of different ways, I felt as if I were looking in the mirror long ago, and at myself. I also wandered a bit, obsessing on things I loved and cared about and wanted to do.

I asked Sam if I could take his portrait, he said sure. And he knew how to pose, and how to sit and where the light was that I needed. We did a little ballet together for a few minutes, I felt I understood just what was in his head, the very special way the young look at the world, and how very different it is from the way the old look at the world.

I found his Facebook page Sam Shots Photography.

Jamie is wide-open doesn’t yet know the struggles of photography in the modern world, where cell phone and video devices have upended the very idea of commercial and news photography, and he doesn’t need to know that yet. His excitement and enthusiasm are palpable, and I hope he comes to the Open House with his Nikon, and takes some more great photos.

We are on opposite sides of our lives, but yet we are also in the same place. I have the feeling he will chase his dreams. I had the feeling I was looking in a mirror, I wonder if he did also. The past and the present and the future, all clutching camera.