Every year the forsythia blooms and I think of this photograph. It was taken back in 2011, on a trusty little Holga, the shutter clicked by a friend who hasn't spoken to me in 10 months. I lived in the old four-plex that was filled with traffic sounds, right off Natio. One night my best friend was staying with me and we went on a night walk, watching the traffic getting onto the Ross Island bridge. We found this huge forsythia bush. At the time I didn't know it was named forsythia. I just knew it was a big blazing ball of yellow, that appeared after months and months of rain and dark, like a flame.
I stood in it, wondering about spiders, while she photographed me with the Kodachrome film in the camera. The shutter was set to bulb, the photograph is so blurry. Just a ball of yellow and a girl in the middle.
Each spring the forsythia blooms, I always notice it while I'm driving, the big balls of yellow flowers dotting the hills by the highway. Like torch flames leading me from one point to the next. And I always think of this image, the girl standing in the fire, captured by her best friend.
