X Amount Of Photos

  When I'm working on a documentary photography project a number always occupies my thoughts. It's the number of photos that I'm satisfied with. Most of the time my number goal is never reached because of lack of access, gentrification, or the place closes. Take Bob's Diner for instance. I would like to take 1000 good photos for this project but several things stand in my way. One is the length of time it would take me to reach that number. It took me a couple of years to reach 100 photos but at the time I was splitting my time with a couple dozen other diners. Even if I got two good photos a week it would still take me almost 9 years to reach that 1000 number. The problems with 9 years is that the diner has been for sale for a couple of years and the owner is going on 70 years old. My own quickly aging body and my ability to get to the diner. And finally, running out of things to photograph. Today most of the regular customers in diners are above the age of 50 with little signs of the younger generations willing to fill the void or actually work in such establishments. So finding new faces to photograph has been hard. Maybe 500 photos would be a more realistic number but anything under seems incomplete to me.