The Spanish Dancer

I was wandering the streets of Gastown waiting for the Gastown Criterium Cycling Race to begin and I sat down on a bench next to this very interesting gentleman.  I said hello and we had a conversation about his life.  The lines in his face told the hints of an interesting story and his words filled in the gaps.  He was a folk singer, who had grown up in Montreal and made a living singing Spanish folk songs and jazz in easter Canada.  One day as he was singing in a dark club in Montreal, the kind that you enter by stairs coming down from the sidewalk, he saw a woman dancing.  She moved through the smokey room with a grace that bewitched him and he felt his voice reach out to meet the beauty of her movement.  She danced, he sang.  He sang, she danced and they seemed to rise to make the other better.  Early that morning he sat down to have a drink with her and 6 months later they had moved out to Vancouver.  “That’s how I got to this bench,” he said.  

“Well, thats a more interesting path than most,” I replied. “Do you mind if I take your portrait?  That dancer is written into the lines of your face.”  He smiled and nodded.

Other parts of my Inspired By Harry Callahan series Jumanji In Vancouver

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

25 Years

Young lovers in a stream.  He has set the timer on the camera and scrambled over the rocks to be there on time.  The shutter clicks and they sit on the edge of the water, talking.  They sit on the rock and they are unaware of so many things.  There is the sparkle and shine of a new relationship and the whole world is lit with that light.  They don't understand what love means or how it changes a person.  They don't know that what they have is only the beginning of what it will become; for their love will have time to grow and breath and become something else entirely, something so much more real.  The babies will come and the lovers will see in each of the children a little of themselves, a little more of the other to love in the small hand that reaches up to grasp their finger.  Their love will be tested and tempered in a furnace that produces a new thing that is once again different, and beautiful and strong.  They find in the other the better angels of their own nature and they look forward to what is next.

-Russell Berg

Games With String

A little girl plays with string. Canon EOS XSi EF 50mm at f/3.5 1/80 ISO 200 −1ev

She leans back in the desk, a little mind filled with big ideas.  Her hands move quickly and without thought, cycling through the patterns and  movements of the cradle.  All the while her mind circles around and around.  She is lost in places I can never see, worlds I will never visit and the string is just a tool to keep her hands busy while her mind travels.

I spent some time with my brothers and their families last summer and a few of my nieces were using string to play ‘cats in the cradle’.  We all went to a museum together on a very hot day and this little girl sat down in a desk and leaned back.  I was immediately struck by the way that she was absently playing with the string while her eyes were a million miles away.  I watched for a moment and waited for her to turn her eye towards me.  When she did I snapped the picture.  There are moments for a person where we really get to see who they are.  Sometimes they are hidden in a momentary glance, they are fleeting; they are there and then gone but the camera sees them in a way that nothing else does.   

-Russell Berg

Concentration

The chef concentrating on his work at bin 4 burger lounge. Fuji X10 at 22mm f/2.8 1/18 ISO 800

I sit down at the bar and opposite me the serving window opens up to the kitchen.  The kitchen is small, but the staff slide past each other and into their work with a studied efficiency.  It is a tightly packed Swiss watch with the parts moving in chorus, each meeting the other where the hand, the plate, the food is expected.  I sit and just watch, it is a joy to watch professionals work hard to produce something beautiful and so delicious.

My wife and I were in Victoria and we stopped at the bin 4 Burger Lounge for lunch.  I had my X10 in my purse and when we were seated at the bar opposite the kitchen I was hoping to catch a decent portrait of the staff at work.  There was not a lot of light so once again I was very happy for the fast 2.8 on the Fuji. Even so it was a difficult shot to take.  It was a very busy restaurant so there were often people moving back and forth in front of me.  The light was so low that it necessitated a very slow shutter speed so I had to time the shot for a moment when movement was minimal.  I had a lot of wasted frames to get this image but I am quite happy with it.  I really like the way that the light falls on the chef’s face from his right creating some interesting shadows.  His look of concentration is also quite compelling.  The slow shutter speed gave just the right amount of blur to his hand and the burger producing the feeling of motion.  I cropped the photo to include the line of receipts hanging down from above, this line is echoed in the line of food below it.  I was also very happy that there were the two small bowls of sauce on the far right to act as an accent to pull your eye across the image.  They make amazing sauces and dips at bin 4.  All their food is amazing, check it out if you are in Victoria.

-Russell Berg

Friends

The old man turns to look at me from where he sits and from eyes that are hooded with age he starts to smile. It is a gentle and knowing smile, a smile from a man that has grown very comfortable in his own skin. He has paused for the moment in his gentle banter, his back and forth with the woman who is cutting his hair. They have clearly been doing this a long time. This Saturday morning ritual where he comes and sits and she stands and cuts and they both talk. He knows the names of the children who are in pictures pasted on the mirror and she knows exactly how low his hairline should be at the back of his neck so that it does not rub on the collars of his shirts; he hates that. They share a quiet knowing intimacy that has never extended beyond this chair and these Saturday mornings but it is, nevertheless, important for each of them. They are friends.

As a photographer, imposing yourself into these kinds of situations can be intimidating and difficult. I have, however, found that people are usually willing to engage in some conversation and will let you you photograph them. That was sure the case with these two I had to force myself to go in and talk to them but once I did we had a great time and I got some amazing portraits of them. For more on the story of this portrait and another shot from this series check out this post.

-Russell Berg