Every other week I drive over the peaks to go and visit Rob, we sit for a while updating one another about what's happened in our lives since we last saw one another. He's a keen photographer so we'll often chat about images we've recently seen or ideas we've come across.
On this particular occasion I can't remember what we had been talking about but I remember the warmth of the light shining down through the glazing of his uni hall windows.
With his back resting against the wall, a paper in hand and the light highlighting his face, I asked to take his portrait. He agreed glancing up from his reading and I clicked the shutter release. The whirling of the automatics in my Olympus AF dragged the film across the spool of the back of the camera and Rob carried on with his reading as though I had hardly disturbed him.
'That'll be a good one that mate- nice light' he noted as I placed the point and shoot back in my bag.
It was a month later when I dropped my film of at Take It Easy ( a lab in Leeds) to be developed that I remembered taking the image.
There's something about film that is magical, I feel as thought I would never have been able to take this image on a digital camera. Kodak Gold 200 is my usual stock of choice due to it's versatility and warmth. Maybe this is why I am so fond of this image, there's a warmth that the film gives to it, the relaxed gaze to camera, the light illuminating Rob's face and the warmth of the tones with in setting of the image. It in some ways captures the essence of the warmth that our friendship provides to one another.
This is the work that I want to be producing, imagery that portrays a narrative and that is naturally photojournalistic. As much as I attempt to challenge the ideas of documentary photography as a genre with in my University work, I have great admiration for those who are working with in photojournalistic settings whose work is used as an a accompaniment to articles within mass media outlets.