Robert Davis - barista tip pays off

500 Weeks #033

Robert Davis, October 1991. 

I used to be a regular at Simply Delicious, a café on Queen St. West that has been gone for a very long time. It was located between my apartment and the entrance to the subway, so I would stop in every day. Coffee in the morning, desserts at night. It attracted a very artsy, creative crowd. I hung out. I knew and socialized with the staff. I was there all the time.

One day, one of the staff - who was a student at Ryerson University - told me she had seen a sign on the job board at school. It announced a new alternative newspaper called “Eye Weekly” was starting up and they were looking for writers. This was pre-internet, so the job board would have been a large corkboard with hand written or typed notes stuck in with push pins or staples.

I asked if the notice mentioned anything about looking for photographers. She said no. I asked for the contact info. She didn’t have it. I asked if she could get it. Please. Pretty please.

The next day, I asked about the contact info again. She had forgotten to look. I was devastated. There are countless tales of creative types getting a lucky break in their careers by being involved with a publication when it started. I wanted this chance, was desperate for this information, and was not going to let this opportunity slip away.

I was also on my way to work in the northwest part of the city, which is nowhere near the campus, nor was there any way for me to get there during operating hours. So when I got to work, I put my feelings of desperation aside, phoned Ryerson and put on the most upbeat, polite, please help me tone I was capable of. 

I contacted the main switchboard and got transferred to the School of Journalism, where I had to ask if the person I was speaking to knew about the job board. They did! Wonderful! I was just wondering if you could please help me out. There is apparently a notice on the board about a new alternative newspaper starting up. Do you think you could, um, please, help me out by going to the board and getting me the contact info? Please?

Long pause. They came back with “Yeah. Just a minute” and they put the phone down and walked away.

I am waiting on the other end, elbow on desk, palm planted to my forehead, eyes closed, and proverbial fingers crossed. Time ticked away.

 

After what could have been a single minute – it only felt like an eternity – the person came back, and read me a phone number, with an extension and a contact name. I said thank you very much, hung up and called the number.

 

I dial phone call number two, which is answered with “Toronto Star, how may I direct your call”?

 

For one second, I am stunned. The Toronto Star was the largest circulation daily newspaper in the entire country of Canada, and if they were involved in this project, I instantly knew this new “alternative weekly” would have real money behind it. 

 

I provide the receptionist with the extension number, get connected, and tell the person on the other end that I saw the notice at Ryerson looking for writers, I was wondering if they were also looking for photographers. They say I should talk to the art director, Jean Grey, and transfer the call.

 

BTW: If you read the name “Jean Grey” and think X-Men, please know that so did I.

 

Jean answers, and I introduce myself, tell her who I have been working for, ask if she is looking for photographic contributors, and she invites me to bring in my portfolio. Which I do, and we get along, and she says positive things about my photos. She tells me she doesn’t have anything for me right now, but she’ll call.  Which could be good, or could be terrible, because you never know if you are going to get that call, or if you are just being brushed off with kindness. 

 

Here is a part I must confess to not having full details in my memory of. Somehow, I got invited to the launch party on the evening of Wednesday October 9, 1991, which I went to and got the first issue - hot off the presses - and the launch day T-shirt and everything. Would I have gotten an interview and assignments from the art director just from being at the launch party? I will never know.

 

Then, lo and behold, Jean actually calls me with an assignment for issue number two.  The gig was to photograph Robert Davis, a wannabe stand-up comedian.

 

I staged Mr. Davis against a window, and overexposed the daylight outside to get a clean white background.

I connect with Mr. Davis and we schedule a time at his apartment and I am positive of one thing, regardless of the cost and effort, I know that I have to deliver an image that will get me another assignment. The first time out for a new client, you have to deliver a home run. 

 

The job of an editorial image is to capture – with a single glance - the attention of the reader, and get them to stop and read the article. It would be easier if Mr. Davis was performing in a nightclub on a stage with a spotlight and a curtain in the background with a big sign that reads “The Laugh Resort”.

 

Instead, I arrive at his apartment, take a look around, and quickly realize that I can’t see any area in the apartment that will work as a clean, no clutter background or anything that visually informs the viewer that the subject in the photo is a comedian. 

 

I pull out the microphone I brought and ask Mr. Davis to act like he is practising his act. He does, and with my single little flash set up on a light stand, I start clicking away.

 

When photographing an event, as a photojournalist, you can get this sense of when you have captured something really good. On this assignment, my instincts are telling me that the moments I am capturing are, well, not very memorable, so I just keep going. Different angles, different lenses, Mr. Davis standing, Mr. Davis sitting, in front of the window, on the balcony. A little directing on intensity and projecting. Anything and everything I could think of through an unbelievable 151 images using up five rolls of film.

 

I depart and hope I have something the art director likes.

 

Presented with the prints of my selected images, the art director seems very enthused, and tells me she is going to use one of the selects – big - and have it printed as a duotone.

 

A duotone is a print process that uses black plus one other colour ink on white paper. It is a delicate balance to make it look right. On the glossy, high-resolution paper they use in magazines it can work. On the low resolution of newsprint, which itself has an off-white oatmeal colour, it’s not so good.

I have never seen a firing range practice target used as decoration in any other home. 

The photo appeared in the newspaper – big - as a messy kind of blue blob. It did not look very good at all. The art director apologized, and said she would make it up to me.

 

She did, she kept calling, with new assignments for the next eight years.

 

And that is how a tip from a friendly barista changed my life.

 

Technical stuff: Nikon FE 35mm film camera with Nikkor 35mm, f/2.0 and 50mm f/1.8 lenses using Kodak T-MAX 400 B&W negative film. Lighting was with a Vivitar 285HV used off-camera on a light stand, bounced into a small umbrella.