James Ellroy - Alexis Hotel - Seattle - November 1996

 "Call me Alex," I told him. "I will, if you call me dog."

As a little boy my father liked to read to me with both of us in bed. One of my favourites was when he would read or tell me stories about King Arthur and his Round Table. Since then, firmly in my mind, is the realization that King Arthur could never fail with his Sword Excalibur in hand.

In 1977 I was trying to get work as a photographer in Vancouver. I told Rosemary, “Good photographers walk around in Stanley Park with Hasselblads around their neck. I cannot afford to buy one.”

I decided on what was then a new-fangled camera called a Mamiya RB-67. I bought it from Adorama in New York. One of the features of this camera, which had a 6x7cm film back, is that you could turn the back for horizontal or vertical photographs.

I took it to Vancouver Magazine and showed it to the the art director Rick Staehling. He was floored by the size and weight of it. A week later he called me with an assignment and asked me to use my new camera. When I brought the results we both found out something that was astoundingly unusual. On a horizontal format the photograph fit exactly on a two-page spread. On a vertical it fit a full page bleed on a vertical page. From that point on I got a lot of work.

All these years the camera has been my Sword Excalibur. And this is particularly so because of the 140mm lens (equivalent to an 85mm in the 35mm format). The lens has a floating element that I can adjust so that my photographs are sharp from infinity to a macro close-up. Because in those days it was the kiss-of-death to fail an assignment I quickly bought a second lens and both were always in my camera bag.

There were two variations that I used when taking portraits. When they were business men I would shoot with my camera lower so that they would look more powerful. With anybody else I would shoot down.

Indeed, the equipment one has, can make it almost impossible to fail.