The nature of writing blogs for me is to have frank discussions about serious issues that face photographers and creative people in a tenuous time. But sometimes even I get overwhelmed with my gloomy mein. So I thought I'd dredge up a delightful memory I have from a different time in my photographic career.
I was on a week long assignment for a tour company that represented a large chain of "all inclusive" resorts in the Caribbean. My favorite resort in their inventory was the property in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The main building of the hotel complex was originally built as an estate for Prince Edward just before the second world war. It was an amazing, solid place with a wonderful open air restaurant and a large swath of white sand beach. I've been back on vacation with Belinda several times and we've always had a wonderful and relaxing time. We even took turns (unintentionally) flipping over a little Sunfish sailboat in the bay.
The photo above was taken on my first working visit to the island. This was one of our four models, hired in Dallas, who flew down to the property with my small crew in a chartered plane. She was standing on the dock, getting ready to hop on a catamaran for a sunset cruise and I snapped this with one of the original EOS-1 cameras sporting a 70-200mm early L lens. All of the film from this particular assignment seems to be Fujichrome 100.
We worked hard on this trip and got images all over the resort. We even took a trip to climb the falls at Ocho Rios. We worked hard, played hard and generally had a good time. No one broke the rules. No one went on a "diva" fit. The client was pleased enough with take to assign us to five more island adventures over the course of the next year.
We worked from a shot list. We kept our film cool and dry. We kept the cameras and lenses out of the air conditioning so they wouldn't be affected by condensation. We wore hats. We used sunscreen. I learned to scuba dive.
The check came in the mail. It was good.
Now that was a boring blog.......
