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| Linda Lorenzo - Ilford FP-4 Mamiya RB-67 Pro-SD 140mm lens |
In the late 70s I competed for Jobs at the CBC to take
still photographs of variety shows and drama. It was the latter where I was the
only one on set for Leo & Me that featured a very young teenager called
Michael Fox.
I competed with three other photographers. One of them,
David Cooper, owned an expensive blimp. A blimp (similar in look to an
underwater housing) encased the camera and prevented the shutter from being
heard during quiet moments of dialogue.
My blimp was simply a rudimentary wrap made from a very
heavy Argentine wool blanket. I had a hole for the lens and one in the back for
my eye. On the right hand side it was open so I could change the shutter speed
with my hand.
The blimp did not work as well as Cooper’s. It was about
that time that he and I split ways. He went to dance and theatre and I settled
on shooting for magazines.
I had a small artistic streak (that’s what I would call it
but many in this extremely conservative city would beg to differ) which pushed
me to take photographs of undraped females. Through the years I have taken
hundreds of these. Many as the one here were not completely undraped.
Through out it all (1975 to the
present) my ever patient wife has never told me, “There is this very wealthy
woman at UBC (my wife is a FOG, or Friends of the Garden) who wants family
shots.” I have been informed many times that because I show racy pictures in
this blog it means that I will never get that business. In fact, my Rosemary
has said, “Why the chap who runs the UBC Botanical Garden web page unlinked you
(I post lots of scanned roses, plants and garden photographs) probably because
of your blog content and your reputation.”
She may be right but I do not regret my pursuit of women via
my camera. All I have to do is to look at this picture of Linda Lorenzo to know
that I was on the right track and if offerings are now slim I have no reason to
regret my path that all began without a good blimp.
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| The blimp |