Sunday Edition: Tine Poppe and Paul Wakefield

PHOTOSNACK #321

Every Sunday, I contact photographers previously featured on PHOTOSNACK and ask them to send me their spontaneous thoughts, observations, reflections, or advice.

Today, I am sharing the messages I received from Tine Poppe and Paul Wakefield.

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Tine Poppe

Serendipity or coincidence has been very important to some of my photography projects.

Sometimes I have had a vague idea on how to implement a project, but on the way coincidences or mistakes have showed me the way to go and sometimes even given birth to new projects.

Randomly shooting this Clematis flower in front of one of the photographic works hanging on the wall of my study turned out to be the key to solving how to implement the Gilded Lilies series, which had been on my mind for a while.

Tine Poppe was featured in PHOTOSNACK #269.
You can visit her Instagram profile here.

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Paul Wakefield

I encountered this calf tethered inside a small temple alcove early one morning while walking along the ghats beside the Ganges riverfront in Varanasi. The contrast between the placid calf and the statue of Hanuman fighting with a devil was so vivid that I thought it would make a good composition. Still, I felt it needed another element to make a more compelling narrative.

Suddenly, this man passed by, stopped briefly in front of me and pitched a beaker of water to the calf, which promptly soaked into the sand, and walked on. It happened so quickly and unexpectedly that I had no time to take a photograph, but his relaxed manner made me feel that he probably did the same thing each morning as a form of devotional offering. So I checked my watch and where I was standing, and returned the following day, but 30 minutes earlier.

The calf was there again, and I found the man downriver going through his ritual routine of bathing and praying. I returned to the calf and statue and chose my spot, recalling where the man had stopped the day before. I was working with two rangefinder cameras at the time, a Fuji 6X9 with a 65mm fixed lens and a Leica M6 with a 35mm lens. They were both loaded with color-negative film, and I chose to use the 6X9 as it's a much larger format, and I knew, most likely, I'd only be able to expose a single frame. As the man approached, I faced away to be inconspicuous, and as he was passing, I swung round, raised the camera, and pressed the shutter. By the time I'd rewound, he'd already gone.

The resulting image is in my latest book, Indian Rites: Signs of Devotion. It's designed, printed, and published in India by the Banaras Cultural Foundation.

Paul Wakefield was featured in PHOTOSNACK #270.

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Sunday Editions connect you with photographers whose work you previously explored through PHOTOSNACK.

I want to reveal some authentic parts of the people behind the cameras.

I don't ask them any specific questions. I ask them to share whatever comes to mind when they think about YOU, the newsletter readers.

It makes their responses genuine and personal.

I hope you enjoyed today's Sunday Edition.

Until next time,
Tomasz