OLD SCHOOL.
It’s Friday 7.30 AM and I’ll head out for my morning run like every other morning. It’s really cold but I start the timer on my Garmin Tactix 7 Pro and head out of my comfort zone. I always pass the same people in the morning and I usually only change the way I run but it’s always the same route. So one day I run it from the back and the next day again the other way around. It’s about 3km or roughly 2 miles at a 4.40 pace so it takes me less than 15mins every morning.
I’ll always cross the same little hut that inhabits sheep and there is always this old bicycle leaning agains the front part of the hut. The sun was still not out yet but I saw an old man with his ax already working the wood he piled up behind the house. With my analytical mind I was already creating different scenes and pictures I could have taken of him working there outside of his old hut. But just thinking of that also meant to do so, I would have to go up to him and ask him if I could make pictures of him and only that thought alone made me face to road again to keep on with my run and forget about it.
After my run the schedule always is the same, shower, breakfast work block of 1.5 hours and then I would take our dog on a walk with my girlfriend.
The only thing I’m alway carrying on me is my camera, no matter where I go, I always carry it in the Porter bag Sam’s dad gifted me. I’m always prepared to shoot something, even if I know 99% of the time there won’t be anything new on our morning walk.
The sun was already rising as it was around 9.30 AM now but since our home is surrounded by high mountains it always takes a bit longer for the sun to fill the valley with light.
We walked the same way I went on a run the same morning, because it’s the perfect way for Max to get off the leash and put his nose into the wide fields of grass.
As we got closer to the hut I saw the old man again and now he was on the other side of the house organizing the wood he just chopped. The light hit the hut and the man perfectly so it created some dramatic shade but it wasn’t to harsh just yet. In my mind I was like; those pictures would look amazing in Monochrome - and since my camera is a Leica Q2 I always shoot the in raw/jpeg which gives me the raw file in color and the jpeg is shot straight in Monochrome HC.
But again, there was the same issue. In order to get those cool shots, I would have to go up to him and ask him for pictures. And to be honest, I would consider myself confident but when it comes to that I always hesitate because I don’’t want to intrude peoples space or make them uncomfortable.
And the following pictures probably would have never been taken if Sam didn’t make me jump out of my comfort zone.
After I took the shots a rush of joy, excitement, pride and relief rushed through my body. Something so simple, so trivial that I made so big in my head.
He was even happy that I asked him, laughing and telling me a bit about himself, even if it was only a couple of words.
It made me want to make more portraits of people, but not for the pictures, rather for the stories and the soul thats living within.
We have a little Canon Selphy 1300 printer that prints pictures in a postcard format. I’m printing the pictures above and will return on my next walk and hand him his beautiful pictures. For me they are not just pictures, they are connected to stories, the one of him working to give him the feeling of being alive, and mine, jumping over my shadow and put the first big step into the direction of portraying people and telling untold stories with my camera.
