Thirty minutes.
Thirty minutes, maybe that’s not enough time to photograph a new, model, actor or portrait sitter?…
When I’m on a trip I gravitate towards the generally calm and reassuring bossom of a public library. I had computer work to get done after almost two months on the roads and tracks of central Australia. At that point I was in the Geelong public library with about one and a half hours before the absolute cut off time I had set myself for driving to and boarding the Spirit of Tasmania ferry. I was distracted by the procession of smartly dressed people parading past the library window and wondered where they were going. The arts district of Geelong was all around me. It turned out, the parade was filing into the Archibald Portrait Prize exhibition next door. What an opportunity. I walked into the ticketing area and learnt it cost $25 for entry. With time ticking down, I wondered if I had enough time to make the visit worthwhile before deciding to be fiscally sensible and return to the library. Unsettled, I thought, maybe the Archibald was a beautiful way to end my trip, an unplanned golden opportunity. I checked my watch again, there was now only about an hour before I really needed to be in the car driving off. Fck it, I’m going to see the bloody exhibition…
About 15 minutes had lapsed as I congratulated myself for deciding to shell out the cash and go in… Oh wow, I thought, the exhibition was great but would you just look at that graceful human that walked by. Her face should be gracing those exhibition walls, I also thought how much I would love to photograph her but how trite and spiel-like such a request could sound, plus, I would only have about thirty minutes if she agreed. Maybe that’s not enough time to do anything much anyway?
She walked over to my area, our eyes met and she smiled and gently asked me which one was my favourite portrait. I gave her my thoughts and after some chats I shared my proposal. She said I had met her at the very point in her life where she has decided to say why not and to just go with opportunities like this one.
My car was parked about 50 metres up the street near the park with temporary shelters for the homeless. We learnt a little more about each other during that distance plus the time it took to collect my camera bag from the car and start photographing. I went back for a reflector, then later for a mirror for Myra, both mirror and Myra are pronounced the same way. I use the mirror for my DIY buzz cuts. It must have seemed like there was nothing my car couldn’t produce. I guessed Myra may have thought I do spontaneous portrait shoots all the time. That actually sounds like a great idea.
I had no expectations or preconceptions of what would be captured, the doing and any record of the doing was enough. Myra’s grace and calm carried right through the shoot, she may well have brought the experience of a professional fashion model or actor from another life. I learnt that some of Myra’s stunning features were created by the marriage of her African and Japanese heritage. Her coat was Japanese. She described the experience of our meeting and the shoot as confirming and influential for some of the decisions that were upon her thoughts at that moment and thanked me with a hug before I scrambled to pack my equipment into the car and drive away. As I navigated unfamiliar streets to the ferry, I wondered if our meeting and the thirty minute shoot would truly make a positive ripple in Myra’s universe?
