An Air of Past Time: Portraits of Henry
How often do you approach complete strangers and ask if you can take pictures of them?
I first met Henry on the Saue–Tallinn train in autumn 2016. He was dressed much like you see in these photographs, standing out quite a bit from the other passengers. One morning I sat next to him and asked whether I could photograph him sometime. Luckily, he agreed.
We arranged a portrait session in Nõmme forest for December 2016. Henry brought his distinctive style, and we brought the cameras, lighting equipment and smoke.
This was another fantasy portrait project, following Scorched Tales, which I had photographed with my classmate Kätleen a few months earlier. This time, I decided to make the entire series black and white.
I wanted the photographs to form a little story of their own. A mysterious gentleman appears out of the smoke, as if he has stepped out of another century. He wanders through the woods, occasionally checks his pocket watch and eventually ends up at the cemetery. What happens next is left to the imagination.
This was also my first time using smoke candles for a photo shoot. Heigo, another classmate from our Printing Technology course, was in charge of operating them while I photographed Henry. Looking at the behind-the-scenes photos, we certainly weren't short of smoke.
TWO SHOOTS, ONE DAY
I had made the brilliant decision to schedule two photo shoots on the same day.
Earlier, my friend Reio and I had been photographing students' final project presentations and defences at the Estonian Academy of Arts. With the portrait session already scheduled, I had to leave in a hurry while Reio stayed behind to finish photographing the students' work.
I made it to Nõmme on time. Reio arrived later, and I even have a photograph of him running to join us.
Once Reio arrived, he also started taking behind-the-scenes photos of the shoot with my EOS 60D. Looking at them now, it turns out I did quite a bit of running myself, trying to find the best angles. Apparently, nobody got much rest that day.
After that day, I promised myself never to schedule two shoots on the same day again.
BEHIND THE SCENES
For this session, I used a rented Canon EOS 5D Mark II. I didn't own a full-frame camera myself back then, so renting one was still something of an occasion.
We worked with natural light, a reflector and smoke to create the atmosphere. The finished photographs look rather quiet and mysterious, which is quite a contrast to what was happening behind the camera.
We eventually finished the shoot at Rahumäe Cemetery, which seemed like a rather fitting place to end a portrait session with this particular atmosphere.
Henry and I have kept in touch since that morning on the train. He even ended up working on a few Walgus projects in later years. Not a bad outcome from approaching a complete stranger.
