THE DOBLOG

By popular request - The Tale of The Princess and the Triffid.
(Note: For those of you who don’t know, a TRIFFID is a walking alien monster plant as featured in John Wyndham’s book “Day of the Triffids”, which was also made into a movie).

As a regular photographer for the Welsh Craft Council, I used to take publicity photos at their various functions. One such event was Princess Diana’s visit to the Craft Council’s annual get together in Swansea city hall. I was the only photographer allowed inside and my brief was to photograph Craft Council members doing the usual handshake thing with the Princess. I was assigned a Royal Detective to accompany me to make sure I behaved myself and the event went well up to the point where the Princess and officials moved on to the location of the final speech.

As the party went ahead down the corridor, the Detective pointed to a side archway and said if we cut through it, we’d be in a perfect position to catch the speech and a group photo at the top of the stairs before Princess Di left.

Great idea.

He squeezed through the archway and I followed - did I mention that there was a large potted palm tree in the archway? With spreading branches and that it was a very narrow archway? Oh and that I had two cameras with flashguns around my neck and a large camera bag? You guessed it, trying to hurry after the Detective, I became hopelessly entangled in this palm tree and the more I struggled to get by, the more the palm tree began to sway and rock. I was virtually dragging the tree with me as I suddenly came face to face with Princess Di who ducked to avoid the swinging fronds and burst out laughing along with the Detective and the others in the party.

It must have looked hilarious - photographer attacks Princess with potted palm tree! She took a deep breath and in between fits of giggles announced, “My God, it’s a Triffid!”. Then swept on by before I could even splutter out a plea for one last photo. Oh well, you win some etc.

By the time I emerged outside, the TV and waiting press had heard all about  “The Triffid Photographer” and I made the news too!

Back in the old days photography had a certain mystique -  you had to know all about film, filters, darkroom paraphernalia, printing, chemicals, light meters, color temperature and so on as well as all the physical aspects such as posing, lighting and composition. Photographers were respected for their breadth of knowledge and the profession had a certain cachet.  Today a lot of the mystique has disappeared as virtually all the arcane calculations to do with light, exposure, shutter speeds and ASA can be done by the small computer in every camera. There’s no need to understand any photographic principles, not even a need to focus, just simply point and shoot and get a wonderful photo.
Does this matter? After all, we’re free to concentrate on the essence of photography - the image itself. How we arrive at that image is, I think, immaterial. I enjoy the extra help that saves me time but I can always overide the automatic camera settings and my cameras still can’t actually compose the subject! Photographers will always be respected for those abilities that only come from experience. Oh yes and what happens when the batteries give out and you don’t have a spare? I can use a manual camera and hold my finger in the air and say, “Hmm, 125^th. at f8 should do it I think.”!