I recently watched a video in which the photographer stated that a photograph needs to have two things:

Geometry and emotion.

I like that.

–ooOoo–

I was waiting for an art gallery to open this morning and I struck up a conversation with a man sleeping rough outside.

After some small talk and him taking an interest in my camera and a discussion drifting into the joy of analogue film photography (he used to be a keen photographer) and his vinyl record collection of Australian artists of the 80’s & 90’s – some of those early Kylie Minogue records are worth a mint now, he said,- after all that we shared a little of our lives.

Turns out he has lived in Russia and Ireland (because girlfriends in both countries) and traveled thru Ukraine and been a bodyguard for Micheal Hutchence (hence the Kylie Minogue interest). Ruffling through his overstuffed (cards and bits of paper and barely hanging together) wallet, he pulled out a battered plastic security/bodyguard ID card for proof. More convincingly he showed me the first and second knuckles on both his hands which were the size of walnuts.

Anyways we sat there and chatted for quite a while and he had such a deep grasp of geopolitics and climate change and corruption and the underworld and music and I really wanted to know how someone with such rich life experiences ended up sleeping under a tarp, but the conversation didn’t naturally go there and I didn’t want to force it.

I also wanted to take his portrait, but I felt that would have made the whole interaction feel transactional.

Eventually we said our farewells and I wandered off to check out the contemporary art display….which was somehow now a lesser experience.