Life Still Courses

Canon EOS 7D EF-S 17-85 f/4-5.6 at 85mm f/11 1/250 ISO 100 This older lady wandered into view on the Victoria Breakwater and I just had to have a picture of her amazing face.

There is a woman who walks down the pier.  She does so slowly and with a deliberation forced on her by the pain in her joints and the weakness in her knees.  This is not the tragic story of a dancer whose knees gave out on her or a singer who lost it all.  She was not a dancer or a singer, she did not once command the attention of great audiences.  She raised a family, she washed clothes, she made meals and now her body betrays her.  Her husband has been dead many years and even though her step is slow and her heart is many times heavy she still moves with purpose and will.  Life still courses in her veins.  She looks up to see the sails of the boat in the distance fill with wind and snap and surge and she smiles.

I was walking with my daughter on the Victoria Breakwater and on our way back we decided to walk on the quarried stone below instead of on the walkway proper.  It was a beautiful sunny day and there were several scuba divers heading out.  As we were walking I saw an older lady approaching us on the walkway above.  I knew that the concrete was going to be in the frame so I quickly decided to make it a design element, using it to bisect the frame diagonally.  I also had to move quickly because she was going to see me soon and I didn't want her expression to change if she saw me.  Her face had an amazing quality in it with so many wonderful stories in the lines, I wish I could have talked to her.

-Russell Berg

Big Hugs

Hugs in the street. Canon 7D, EFS 50mm 1.4 at f2.2 1/80, ISO 125A Perfect Photographic Morning Part 4

After I left the barber shop I continued around the block and I saw these two guys causing a bit of commotion up the street.  It looked interesting so I headed up towards them until I could see their sign.  These two, a huge 6’8” older guy in cowboy boots and a little skinny guy had come downtown on a December Sunday morning and were giving out hugs.  At first I was wondering if people would be a little creeped out but they were so open and genuine and not doing it in an creepy way so a lot of people came up to get their hugs.  After I got my hug I hung back a bit to take some pictures of them and I don’t think that anything I got was really good but it does help to tell the story of my morning.  I was so glad I went out for  a walk with my camera and took some chances, it was really worth it.

-Russell Berg

Life In The Lines

A delightful old man with a lot of life drawn into the lines of his face. Canon 7D, EFS 50mm 1.4 at f2.8 1/60, ISO 400A Perfect Photographic Morning Part 3

After I had climbed down off of the scaffolding, ignoring a few strange stares, (see previous post), I headed towards the mall because I wanted to cut through to go to a waffle restaurant that I wanted to have breakfast in.  I paused for a moment, and a thought occurred to me, “nothing interesting ever happened in a mall, this morning is about ‘interesting.’”  I kept walking, heading around the block.  I had walked about 15 steps and I looked to my left and there I saw a most interesting face, I thought, man I would like to photograph him, so I screwed up my courage, walked in and asked him if he would mind if I took some pictures of him.  He laughed, asked if these pictures were going in Penthouse.  I took some photos as she cut his hair moving around them but my favourite image was this one, he was laughing most of the time but I love the slightly wry smile that he is giving here, the heavily lidded eyes that have seen so much of life. I like the old newspaper clippings and old photos taped on to the mirror and the busy countertop.  How much more interesting this was than walking past the Gap.

-Russell Berg

When Cultures Collide

A curious Papuan child wants to take a peak at the strange white people. Konica DiMAGE Z10, 44mm, f/3.2, 1/40

When you are in a place where no one knows you, where there isn’t anyone who understands your language within a 1,000 km, and there are none of the support mechanisms that we westerners take for granted it can get a little disorienting.  My family and I lived in Indonesia for a year in the province of Papua and at Christmas we went out to visit friends who live in the very remote village.  In this village there are no cars, no TV,s no radios, no electricity at all, their experience of the world outside their valley only happens through the planes which occasionally come and go on the primitive dirt airstrip.  Because of the way that the flights worked, these were tiny little jungle planes; Cessna 206’s, we had to stop and wait in a village all on our own for about an hour.  We were the only westerners within a 1,000 km and the whole village came out to see us.  As we waited, we wandered around the village of Biome and about a 100-150 people followed us around to watch us, to see what we would do, to listen to our strange language.  There was never any feeling of danger but we walked past the hut pictured above and I saw another child climbing out of his hut to come and see us.  I quickly pulled up my camera to grab the image and as I did the father pulled his child back inside.  I guess, perhaps, we were a little too strange for him.  The camera was on full auto so I can’t claim artistic intent when I snapped the picture but I love the way that the slow shutter speed allowed the child’s head to blur as he looked back at his father and yet the father’s hand, the other child’s face and the walls of the hut are crisp.  It was an amazing experience and this is one of my favourite photos of the it.

-Russell Berg

Finding The Light

Young lovers in the light of a dying sun. EOS Rebel XSi, EF 17-85 4.5-5, at 38mm f5.6, 1/2000, ISO 200

Sometimes photography isn’t too much more than finding, waiting for, looking for the perfect light.  This was the first time that I had ever done photography for someone else.  A friend of mine asked if I would make photo-cards to lay out on the tables for their daughter’s wedding.  This was a former student of mine and I was excited to do it.  I went out to scout the location, Neck Point, and noted when sunset was.  I had them show up in the hour before sunset and we got some really beautiful light.  For this shot I knew that I wanted them in full silhouette so I set them up directly in front of the sun to avoid flare and just kept stopping down the exposure until I got the look that I wanted.  This is one of the moments when shooting in digital, is so valuable, getting that instant feedback on what your changes are doing to the exposure let me be sure that I was getting what I wanted.  I end up only needing to take it down to -1 EV.  I was really happy and it was a lot of fun.  A couple of the finished cards are below.

-Russell Berg