"Yes we can"

As mentioned in last week's post I'm going to dive into the archives on a semi-regular basis. Some of the images might only be 12-months old...others go back a fair bit further to my time at The Advocate Newspaper ... some even when I was shooting black and white film.

This week's offering is one that came to mind after watching the amazing promo for the Paralympics produced by channel 4 in the UK. (It is a must see... follow the link)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzjuQoNM534

The assignment was to photograph a guy (sorry I can't remember his name but this image is from the late '80's-early '90's and I sometimes struggle to remember my own name :) ...for the sake of the story let's call him Bob.) who had done pretty well in the local tennis league. So what? you say...well there was a twist...Bob is a double amputee, mixing it with the "able-bodied" players.

On the way to any job my usual practice is to develop ideas in my head...visualising how I would like the image to look. The trick with this is not to get too locked in. I've lost count of the number of times that the reality of an assignment has absolutely no resemblance to the brief I was given.

In my mind, the key to this job was the fact that Bob obviously didn't see his lack of legs as a handicap. I wanted to show Bob firstly as a tennis player...and then reveal his "difference"...I wanted it to be subtle. I'd like your thoughts...but I think it worked.

Devonport, Tasmania. Probably shot on Kodak Kodacolor Gold 400 (we used what we were given) and a Nikon 801s. Settings not recorded (no exif data in those days).