You’ve go to love that wonderful light that thrusts itself into a dark space illuminating the perfect face.
I’d followed the subject for most of the day covering his fish hatchery small business for an editorial client. There was little need for a tight portrait to help tell the story about possible environmental impact on the business by an invasive species of mussel.
The editorial client’s demands weren’t difficult. I’d completed a lot of assignments for the client and they trusted me to find unique photos to tell the story of this man’s business.
The work began early, before sunrise as trucks filled with fish arrived and departed the rural Amish-country farm and he and his crew sorted through the list of needs for the day.
It’s easy to follow along a linear path as workers go about completing the tasks of doing business. It’s not so easy to find the moments within that prescribed set of movements that communicate the story of their lives. The moments that go beyond showing the flow of their movements and the placement of the bodies at a given time.
That’s why I was so excited to see my subject briefly pause between a series of customer’s needs to look out the doorway of his barn work space. He wasn’t looking at any particular object or point in the distance. He was seeing everything. All that had happened that day. All that would happen that day. And the days that preceded it and the days that would follow. His vision was linear like his work day. It encompassed all that he’d seen and the anticipation of what was to be seen.
He paused long enough for me to just watch, cameras in my hands but not to my face.
These are the times we are photographers. When we see more in our subjects than just good light or composition. When we see a a story that begins to help explain their lives and purpose for being here.
With the strong direction light emptying into his barn, I pulled my camera to my eye, focused on the closer eye, checked my depth of field, adjusted my exposure and found my single image of the day to tell the story about this man and his life.
