Canon EOS 5D Mark II
ƒ/1.4
50 mm
1/200
500

As I saw this foam core poster today, I realized that I had not digitized it yet. It comes from a Palo Alto bookstore, and it was quite a surprise for me to see as I walked by. Rick Smolen’s book A Day in the Life of California had just come out, and they made window displays of the local photos in the book.

This one was from my junior year in college. A colleague from HP knew the photographer for our region and connected him with me for an overview of college happenings (all of the photos in the book are from the same day). He liked the crazy decorations in our room, and this corner had the special touch of my roommate, Greenleaf.

It’s untouched, back from the days of film when that was the presumption not the exception. The red light comes from a neon bar sign and blends nicely with the Apple ][c green screen glow. The motion blur of the fingers comes from a long exposure.

16 responses to “Portrait of the Programmer as a Young Man”

  1. beautifully done!
    and i love your design choices even back then 🙂

  2. Yep, sexy:D…oh, I only mean design, and especially Lenin:D keep wondering – why Lenin though? Funny, but I can picture this in my alma mater environment…

  3. what an ergonomically uncomfortable coding position. ouch!

  4. Jeez Steve, are you just one of those people who interesting things always seem to happen to? … even back then!

  5. Great photo! Can’t imaging having taken this back in the days of film. Even if you had the vision for the photo, walking away you never really knew if you had gotten the shot or missed it! I’m happy to be shooting in the days of digital.

  6. multiplex touching

  7. Hmmm… Lenin seems very interested in vhat you are vorking on.

  8. What’s with the ankle bracelet?
    🙂

  9. heh…. I was not domesticated yet. Back then people made them by hand and they were called friendship bracelets.

    @outerspace – yeah, I like that juxtaposition. The poster came from my roommate’s visit to Moscow in the mid 80’s, and I recall some adventures where they almost shaved his head. Of course, we went on several adventures around, below, and above campus as well…

  10. Surreal. Stern Lenin, braceleted SJ coding in beach repose, black derby hatted horse skull, redlight district meets tech sector hues. First impression was "some kind of crazy art collage" 😉

  11. or junior univ.

    Can someone translate the poster? Been wondering what was staring me down…

  12. The program for the communist party of the Soviet Union… some heavy staff for brainwashing:D
    funny, in mid 80s i was in Moscow… Gorbachev’s era…

  13. Interestingly, fashion has come around full circle. You’d pretty much look normal walking around NYC or Brooklyn in that getup. : )

  14. That skull reminds me of…. of…. something.
    Silence will fall.

  15. The hat on the skull is the touch of genius!

  16. I still have that book around somewhere. (Apparently, Moore’s Law also applies to the length of pants!)

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