If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough

[vin_petrol]

Watching the BBC D-Day reconstruction, with Robert Capa featuring prominently, reminded me that a large part of my early years consisted of "wanting to be a war photographer when I grew up." I thought this was the coolest job on Earth. I wanted to be riding a Huey in the Mekong delta, flak jacket on with peace sign painted on the back, a couple of Nikons slung around my neck and a backpack full of Tri-X, living with the press corp in the Holiday Inn in downtown Saigon, picking up tips on where the best pictures could be taken. I thought the sound of a motor drive was the best sound there was. Tim Page was my obvious role model.

Some of my favourite films are those with war photographers in: Under Fire, The Year of Living Dangerously, Full Metal Jacket, Frankie's House, Salvador.

I did the best I could by doing loads of amateur photography, and working on York Uni's newspaper Vision, but I didn't need a steel helmet. I did wear an an ex-German army shirt with the sleeves cut off, and filled the pockets with HP5, but that was the closest I got. I never could afford a Nikon.

Unfortunately, the world had kinda moved on by the time I graduated. Still photographs from war zones had been supplanted by moving images. It did seem like a lot of hard work, and probably quite dangerous too. So I became a computer programmer instead.

Comments

[mister-ed.livejournal.com]

And maybe another universe with "Supreme Overlord Vin"!!

I think I may well have met him once....