“This shot will stay with me forever…”
Visitor comment from Royal Photographic Society, 151st International Print Exhibition.
A few years back I was doing a big trip down under. I was travelling with a small bus group and our driver made a stop off at an outback bar. The owner (out of frame to my right) was busy telling us the story of how he saved this dingo as a puppy from a baiting programme. As he talked, I caught sight of the dingo looking out of the window and suddenly all the components came together – the leg, metal chain, expression, light, texture… I brought the camera up to my eye, a quick turn of the aperture and click…
I have to be honest, at the time I thought ‘that will be another shot that only lives in my head!’ You see, on this trip I was using an old fashioned manual film camera, loaded with Velvia 50, so the combination of slow shutter speed, metering challenge with the bright light vs shadow, mixed with the split second nature of the scene, I thought no chance! But there you go – always trust your instinct for a shot! A couple months later, when I got the roll developed I was delighted to have captured exactly the moment.
It’s still one of my most favourite photographs, and as an added bonus it was selected from over 2700 images from 700 photographers around the world to place 2nd in the Royal Photographic Society, 151st International Print Exhibition. A really proud moment for me!
