Share the story behind one of your best photos

[x-ray]

Vinales Cuba is a top tourist destination. 99.9% of the tourists spend a day or two viewing the incredible valleys, sheer rock faces, prehistoric painting, take a horseback ride through the tobacco fields and then leave. The closest they come to the people is buying some cigars from a local who rolls them at home from the world famous leaf they grow there.

About 6-7 years ago I was walking down the big hill from the local graveyard and spied an old man and woman under a tree in their backyard taking a break from rebuilding their house. I had to go visit and first met Manolo, a pig farmer. He had never met a foreigner before and believed that if he leaned close enough in my face and spoke loud enough that I could understand his Spanish. I always go visit and photograph them whenever I am in town. This photo was from a later visit when he ran down and caught a baby pig for my photo. I learned he was 97 years old then. I still stop and visit, bringing my sister and Cuban significant other to meet him last year. After I photographed Manolo and my sister she said the expression on her face was because he was feeling her ass as I was taking the photo. I have many photos of Manolo but this is one of my favorites.

camera geek ****: Shot with a Zeiss Ikon RF using either a Hexanon 28 f2.8 or a ZI 28mm f2.8 using either Neopan 400, HP5 or Tri-X. I am sure the experts can pick out which lens and which film.

Great shot and story!

 

[lawrence]

One of my fav
I love the framing, smoke, etc..
Sadly...This beautiful place destroyed by earthquake one month after I shoot this picture.

~ron~

It's a great shot, Ron, but what 'beautiful place' was it taken in?

 

[jazzwave]

It's a great shot, Ron, but what 'beautiful place' was it taken in?

Bhaktapur , Nepal

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-near-Kathmandu-flattened-by-earthquakes.html

 

[lawrence]

Thanks. It's hard not to respond with a cliche but hopefully the people and place are recovering...

 

[Bob Michaels]

I shot this photo of James Jenkins sitting in front of the closed Big C restaurant in Shelby Mississippi in 2007.

I returned 10 months later with a print to share. I found only a vacant lot. Big C had been released from prison for selling drugs from his restaurant but the health department had the building condemned and torn down. Mr. Jenkins has gotten drunk and passed out in the middle of HW 61 and been run over by a semi truck. There was no one to give the print to.

Camera geek ****: Zeiss Ikon RF. Either a ZI 35mm f2.0 or a CV 28m f3.5 using either Neopan 400 or HP5. I am sure the tech wizards can tell which.

 

[x-ray]

I shot this photo of James Jenkins sitting in front of the closed Big C restaurant in Shelby Mississippi in 2007.

I returned 10 months later with a print to share. I found only a vacant lot. Big C had been released from prison for selling drugs from his restaurant but the health department had the building condemned and torn down. Mr. Jenkins has gotten drunk and passed out in the middle of HW 61 and been run over by a semi truck. There was no one to give the print to.

Camera geek ****: Zeiss Ikon RF. Either a ZI 35mm f2.0 or a CV 28m f3.5 using either Neopan 400 or HP5. I am sure the tech wizards can tell which

On again a very nice image but a sad story. Proof again we need to photograph these things when we see them. Too often when I've returned I fond I'd missed my opportunity.

 

[froyd]

Vines and sky by Life in Shadows, on Flickr

Peter, I'm not one for landscapes myself, but I would strongly recommend others follow your advice to see the larger version of this image. I'm glad I did!

 

[Bob Michaels]

This photo shot outside the Boot Hill Saloon in Daytona Beach during Bike Week in 1973 is all that remains of my photographic efforts from the early 70's to mid 80's. I paused to make a critical analysis of what I was doing and concluded it was only taking and printing photos while not accomplishing or saying anything meaningful. I sold all my cameras and lenses as well as a nice darkroom. A year later I threw away all prints and 15 years worth of negatives and contact sheets. Today, I still think that was a good decision for me at that time. This enabled me to start fresh around 2000.

This is a scan of a print that my sister still has hanging on her wall.

 

[robert blu]

Love your photos and the related stories Bob.
robert

 

[raid]

You have good stuff, Bob. Thank you for sharing it here.

 

[MikeWebb]

Not much of a story but we were being taken to our room in a somewhat magnificent hotel in Rhajastan and I saw this. I had my X100 to hand and got one shot off. Quite apart from the content it does ask the question - why the trousers? They are part of the staff uniform so why would they be on the door?


Hanging-B3-DSCF0319

Mike

 

[lynnb]

Back in the 1970s I was a surf lifesaver at my local Sydney beach. Surf clubs were also the social hub of the beach-side communities. On Saturday afternoons most male club members would congregate at the local pub for drinks and to share a yarn or two about the week's activities. Our club used to go to the Dee Why Hotel, a working class pub on Sydney's northern beaches shown in this picture.

Wives and girlfriends were welcome as long as they stayed in the beer garden or ladies' lounge. The public bar, seen in this photograph was a men's only domain, regarded as too rough for ladies to enter. Men could swear, talk about wives, girlfriends and mistresses and be themselves in the public bar without having to worry about being overheard by the missus. It was usually a very noisy place due to the beer consumption and the need to make oneself heard over the horse races on the TV.

Saturday afternoon at the local, 1970s #967 by lynnb's snaps, on Flickr

I always carried my OM1 and Zuiko 28mm loaded with Tri-X. I took this while buying a round of drinks for my group back in the beer garden. The large guy in the No Jog, No Grog shirt was the club captain and quite a few of the people in the bar were club members.

A few years ago I was contacted by a literary magazine who wanted to use this image editorially. They told me there were no pictures of 1970s male pub life anywhere they could find - not all that surprising as it was not the sort of place one would normally take a camera.

 

[Shab]

Great thread, great stories, great photos... great idea lynnb and thankyou everybody for sharing!

 

[Bob Michaels]

............ I always carried my OM1 and Zuiko 28mm loaded with Tri-X. I took this while ............. not the sort of place one would normally take a camera.

Inspired by lynnb's message that the important things are 1) be there 2) have a camera and 3) use it.

I got into one of those horse drawn wagons that serve as mass transit in Sancti Spiritus Cuba about 5-6 years ago because I was going cross town. This girl was already sitting there with her rooster. I had my camera in my hand or around my neck. I shot two frames. I liked this one best.

camera geek ****: Zeiss Ikon RF, either a CV 28mm f3.5 or Hexanon 28mm f2.8, either Neopan 400 or HP5. One of the experts should be able to tell you which.

 

[panerai]

Best image

Best image

My niece was holding my niece in law's daughter on her lap and took a picture of her legs against her black pants with my Panasonic LX3 (which I still use).

Have gotten many good reviews on the image, but my nephew wasn't impressed

DON

 

[RobinWinter]

Irish Kid

Irish Kid

Pretty intimidating to post in this thread with all the other amazing images, especially since I haven't posted any images onto the forum before (I hope I do this right!), but here goes. Last year I took a trip to Ireland. This photo was shot on my second to last day in Dublin before heading back to the US. I was walking around in the Smithfield neighborhood and this kid saw me taking pictures and started yelling at me to wait while he ran over. He then took the pose in the photo. Luckily I had my XA4 se t for pretty close focus and I caught what I think was the perfect moment. The kid immediately asked to see the photo and I tried to explain to him that it was film. His response: oh, you're making a video?! No concept of analogue photography at all, made me feel old, haha.

 

[Bob Michaels]

Ten years ago, I shot this photo of then 15 year old Omar Gordon playing at the Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale Mississippi. I learned his name from inquiries of other musicians in that area as I was never able to speak to him. This photo has been in a number of exhibits over the years and I have always followed up on his progress for the photo captions. I got reports from his fellow musicians that his life has been quite up and down from playing with BB King to being an involuntary guest in government facilities. Yet, I never managed to be where he was so we could actually meet.

Last year, nine years after I made the photo, I received a telephone call from him out of the blue. He had tracked me down just to thank me for the gracious way I had portrayed his life's ups and downs. Just another reminder that it's a small world and we should be kind to everyone, if not just for basic humanitarian reasons, but that you never know when your paths may cross again.

camera geek ****: Contax G1, 45mm Planar, either Neopan 400 or HP5+ exposure determined to ensure shadows dropped to zero and highlights did not blow out while still insuring tonality in his face. Processed normally in HC-110

 

[johnnyrod]

Some great pictures and stories here, a couple I have heard before. Keith - I remember the other images from that set, really good. Daveleo - fantastic, like a person and their shadow, or the public mask and the inner feelings.

 

[JChrome]

Some excellent work here and great stories.

I think my favorite shot was taken in Komodo, Indonesia. I stayed aboard a little skiff there captained by a salty old Brit for about a week in 2011. Above water, the landscape is like a Dr. Seuss book. Long, oddly shaped trees with little puffs of leaves at the top like pom-poms. Luscious green islands the size of a barge dot the landscape. And the water is perfectly flat. Not a wave in sight. Which is just incredible considering its... the ocean.

And under the water is even more of a wonderland. Biodiversity just exploded there. On one dive, all I could see was pastel pinks and oranges of the corals during a sunset. Fish, manta rays, sharks... all of it... just magnificent.

My favorite shot is of a sea whip goby I took resting on it's orange whip.

 

[Bob Michaels]

Voyeristic roadside vendor

Voyeristic roadside vendor

This started off as a still life of green peppers and red tomatoes at a roadside stand. Then the vendor stepped into the background of the photo. When she stepped even closer, I asked if it was OK that I removed the green peppers and rearranged the tomatoes. Then I asked her to step even closer. Even closer. Then she leaned over the table while rotating her shoulders forward and calmly said "like this?".

She never gave any external indication that she knew the scene she was providing but there is no doubt in my mind she understood. Especially since I was very close shooting with a 17mm lens.

I stopped by two weeks later to give her a print as I was really curious about her reaction. But she had moved her stand and I have not seen her since.

Camera geek ****: Nikon D-70 w/ Tokina 17mm lens