bw1975-05 Intensity
In the old days I shot a lot of black and white, and I probably photographed people more than anything else. This is a tricky species - unpredictable, clever, sometimes dangerous - but with knowledge of its behaviour and common sense precautionary measures, it can be safely photographed.
Often, a seated, unarmed individual may be approached without causing alarm and eliciting the "fight or flight" response. A blind is usually not required, and unlike most wildlife species, it is acceptable to tempt them with food. In this case, a simple pot of herbal tea with honey was enough to put my subject at ease and obtain good quality images at close range.
Alright. Enough levity. The truth: I was going through old negatives. For some reason I had not even printed a contact sheet from this roll. Eyeballing the negative, I thought it looked promising, and therefore I scanned it. Too many years have elapsed for me to recall the details of this conversation, but it was obviously intense. We were sitting in my top floor suite in a communal house, where I lived for nearly two years. I didn't know Ron well; he was one of my acquaintances from my first years in Vancouver, in the 1970s. All camera settings were manual in those days, so I would practice guessing the exposure, setting the distance, waiting for the right moment, then lifting the camera to my eye and shooting quickly, before the person really understood what I was doing. It's basic photojournalism: f/8 and be there. And don't fiddle with the settings - visualize the image and then shoot fast!
Photographed in Vancouver, BC (Canada) and scanned from the original Kodak Tri-X Pan negative (ISO 400). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©1975 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
bw1975-05 Intensity
In the old days I shot a lot of black and white, and I probably photographed people more than anything else. This is a tricky species - unpredictable, clever, sometimes dangerous - but with knowledge of its behaviour and common sense precautionary measures, it can be safely photographed.
Often, a seated, unarmed individual may be approached without causing alarm and eliciting the "fight or flight" response. A blind is usually not required, and unlike most wildlife species, it is acceptable to tempt them with food. In this case, a simple pot of herbal tea with honey was enough to put my subject at ease and obtain good quality images at close range.
Alright. Enough levity. The truth: I was going through old negatives. For some reason I had not even printed a contact sheet from this roll. Eyeballing the negative, I thought it looked promising, and therefore I scanned it. Too many years have elapsed for me to recall the details of this conversation, but it was obviously intense. We were sitting in my top floor suite in a communal house, where I lived for nearly two years. I didn't know Ron well; he was one of my acquaintances from my first years in Vancouver, in the 1970s. All camera settings were manual in those days, so I would practice guessing the exposure, setting the distance, waiting for the right moment, then lifting the camera to my eye and shooting quickly, before the person really understood what I was doing. It's basic photojournalism: f/8 and be there. And don't fiddle with the settings - visualize the image and then shoot fast!
Photographed in Vancouver, BC (Canada) and scanned from the original Kodak Tri-X Pan negative (ISO 400). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©1975 James R. Page - all rights reserved.