For more than two months Jordan and I were together almost 24/7. Jordan came to live with us while his mother was in the process of relocating to our area. Jordan is the next to youngest of five siblings. Jordan stepped from his world of noise and video games into my world of morning walks and quiet afternoons.  The morning walks continued until the weather turned too hot. We would walk and visit. Jordan would explore. Occasionally we would stop for an impromptu portrait. We had fun but I could tell that he missed his family. I knew the time would come when he would leave. This awareness hit me fully one morning as he was running ahead of me on the trail. As I made the exposure a wave of sadness washed over me. After Jordan left I started printing the images. That’s when I realized it was probably a mutual sadness influencing many of the photographs we made. I cherish the time spent with Jordan. 

Ours was a perfect relationship of shared solitude and sadness. 

-Michael Hartsock

Images in this series were made with a Holga camera. Sometimes referred to as a “toy” camera, the Holga is a plastic film camera first introduced in China in the 1980s as an inexpensive mass-market camera. The Holga does not have a light meter and has a fixed shutter speed with “bulb” setting to hold the shutter open. The Holga can be challenging to use but the results are worth the effort. The natural vignetting and the softer focus of the plastic lens is a pleasant departure from the ultra sharpness of modern lenses.