From the Archives: Day 13

From the Archives 14: This image features two things I love a lot - Polaroids and pitbulls. This was made with the 4x5 large format view camera in my old San Francisco studio, with a very good pitbull named Gator. Gator was a circus dog and could do some amazing tricks. This is the old Polaroid 'Sepia' film which was so beautiful. Sometimes the emulsion didn't work with this film, but when it did it was perfection. Warm and subtle. What I love about this portrait is the perfect balance of proportion - the ball sitting so gently, the head tilted up just so, the fall off of light, the shadow under the ear. On top of that, Gator was deaf so I could not really communicate with him. His person was there, using hand signals and communicating without words in an intimate, skilled way. The icing on the cake is that when you're shooting the view camera, there is no view finder to look through. You duck under the fabric hood to hit your focus, then insert the film holder which blocks your view of the lens. So you have to stand up and actually look face to face with your subject and wait for the millisecond where your subject is in the exact right position - with dogs, this is very difficult. It's a leap of faith, a heart connection between subject and photographer and that's why I love this portrait.