Photography As a Live Performance

Posts haven’t been very frequent lately, as I have been very busy appearing in a community theatre production of My Fair Lady here in Toronto. (By the way, tickets still available for this weekend, just click on the link). The thought did occur to me backstage this past weekend that in some ways, film photography is like live theatre; there is always an element of chance involved, and one is never quite sure how things will turn out, and unlike digital, where the LCD screen acts as a security blanket, in film you never know if you’ve been successful until the film is developed after the fact. Along with knowledge and skill, you have to rely on (as Alfred P. Doolittle would say) “Faith, Hope and a little bit of luck”. Today’s picture of a bike in downtown Toronto, taken with a defective Rolleicord Twin Lens Reflex camera (sold for scrap after shooting only one roll successfully and replaced with a better example) to me is an example of this idea. The picture isn’t perfect, but I got just enough luck to make it work. 🙂

Bike in the Sun

2 thoughts on “Photography As a Live Performance

  1. Interested in your likening film photography to theatre… I’ve just left the theatre industry after 15 years and suddenly find myself for the last 6 months taking up film photography, I wonder if it’s filling a gap?

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