Lovers

Date: 2004
Place: Avila Beach, CA
Modus operandi: Practising invisibility
Weather: Overcast and cold
Time: 2 pm
Gear: Cosina Bessa T, Leica 21mm Asph Elmarit
Medium: Kodak Gold 100
Me: Waiting for the moment
My age: 52

No two ways about it. Get in close and you become invisible. The sort of thing ultra-wide lenses were made for, and it didn’t hurt to have the greatest 21mm lens ever made for a 35mm camera on board. I kept the lens and its atrocious viewfinder on the Bessa at all times – thus avoiding having to mess about with meter removal on the M2. Come to think of it, after a while you could dispense with the viewfinder, having learned to think wide.

The pier this young couple had chosen for a quick snoggle was deserted, as well it should be on this frigid day. The snap actually took a couple of minutes. No matter. Their passion and my secret invisible sauce made things easy.

All I was waiting for was that raised leg….

Holocaust memorial, Paris

Date: September, 1974
Place: Holocaust memorial, Paris
Modus operandi: Waiting a long time for this moment
Weather: Sunny
Time: 11 am
Gear: Leica M3, 35mm Summaron
Medium: Kodak TriX
Me: Really wanting to get this right
My age: 23

Unlike the warm and welcoming architecture of Paris, with its mansard roofs and lovely light, the Holocaust memorial is, appropriately, an ugly, spiky, unwelcoming place. Even the light seems harsher.

The old man on crutches had come to revisit bad times, maybe commune with lost friends. He walked about with difficulty, yet with consummate dignity.

I waited a long time. Eventually, this scene presented itself and the moment was right. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

Beached whales

Date: August, 1981
Place: Central Park West, NYC
Modus operandi: Wandering the streets
Weather: Overcast
Time: 2 pm
Gear: Leica M3
Medium: Kodachrome 64
Me: Gotcha!
My age: 29

What’s that old joke about the two American tourists in Venice, torn between catching the plane home and seeing yet another priceless cathedral? “OK, honey, you take the outside and I’ll do the inside”.

I imagine these two whales were visiting from some place it’s good to be from, in W C Fields’s words, like Arkansas or Mississippi. They had just ‘done’ the Natural History Museum (the same one in which Woody Allen wanted to “…. make interstellar perversion ….” with Diane Keaton in his fabulous movie ‘Manhattan‘) and simply had to take the weight off their tortured feet.

Wrapped Heads

Date: 1996
Place: Hong Kong, HK
Modus operandi: Jet lagged
Weather: Muggy
Time: 3 pm
Gear: Olympus Stylus Quartz
Medium: Kodachrome 64
Me: Awed by the electricity of this special place
My age: 45

There’s nothing good about the flight from LA to Hong Kong, unless you include the lovely Singapore Airlines stewardess waking you with a warm meal and a smile. You arrive so zonked out on jet lag that for the first day or two eveything is strange. Sorround that strangeness with the frenetic pace of the world’s most crowded place and you have a prescription for strangeness. And fun.

These statues were patiently awaiting probably illegal export to some loony collector in New York; long live free trade!

As this really was meant to be a business trip, I restricted my gear to the small, clamshell Olympus Stylus, as sweet a piece as Olympus ever made. When not in use the built-in cover slid over the wide angle lens and the whole thing slipped nicely into a pocket. Or suit. The lens may not have been the greatest – barely better than the one on its predecessor, the Rollei 35 – but it was adequate for little memorabilia like this. And how could anyone resist the wild surrealism of this scene?