Rick’s, Eighth and Walnut
Stephen Bybee
Columbia, MO
1999
The corner of Eighth and Walnut has served many different owners and many different purposes during my time in Columbia. I can recall several of them, including Cornerstone Café, Rick’s, Otto’s, and finally Room 38, under which name it currently operates. This photograph was taken in late 1999, during the era when Rick’s occupied the corner, a couple weeks before Christmas. I had just purchased a used Leica M4P and was out testing it with a roll of film. The camera came with a very fast 50mm screw mount Canon lens attached with an adapter, and that lens coupled with black and white film yielded a magical softness that has been hard to duplicate. I was also fascinated at the time with the work of Robert Frank, whose approach to photography was a combination of handheld spontaneity, deep situational awareness, and compositional genius. This camera was one of my few film camera forays into handheld night photography, and it also represents a departure from my usual tripod-based emphasis on careful and methodical composition. In this image you will also recognize some of the hallmarks of a handheld rangefinder camera with a very early lens…the composition is slightly askew, the photo is a moment rather than a scene, the grain of the film is fairly pronounced, and the lights in the restaurant glow and radiate outside of their usual spheres of luminance. The backs of the diners become shadowy outlines, while the ghostly image of a woman’s face hovers in the middle of the room, seemingly displaced from context.