Day Out at The NPG – Part 2 – Kit – A One Shot Story

Towards the end of my article Day Out at The NPG, Part 1 – Eddie, I very briefly introduced our photographic model for the day.  Kit, a gentleman in his late 70s who is a professional photographic and artist’s model.

After Eddie had explained what the day would involve.  Kit followed, providing us with a potted biography of himself and how he ended up a professional model.  His adult life started by attending medical school, training to be a Doctor.  But unfortunately, the sights of suffering on hospital wards were too much for his sensitivities.  So he quit.

Via jobs in retail, film extra and acting – the latter two never generating enough cash to pay the bills – he found himself a reasonable living posing for photographers and wannabe artists.  Not only that, he informed us that he had known some names in Soho in days past.

Cultural note on Soho for non-British readers.  Soho is a district of London’s West End.  In the mid 20^th century, it had considerable notoriety for some of its business and entertainment activities.  Strip Clubs, Revue Bars, Gambling Dens, Porn Shops, Brothels, dodgy Pubs, Police corruption and so on.  Made all the more “dangerous and exotic” by lurid stories in the tabloid press.  Of course it also had a very respectable side to it of family life and legitimate businesses and trades.  This is the Soho Kit would have been familiar with in his much younger days.

Today a good part of it is now London’s China Town and the rest a mecca for tourists with the obligatory attractions of overpriced pubs, eateries, souvenir and clothing shops. Yet around a corner one can still find the occasional modern business incarnation of yesteryear’s sleaze.  This is the Soho in which we took Kit for our photoshoot.

Back to Kit.  After his introduction Kit trotted off to someplace outback to get changed into his costume for the day.  An ensemble for a gentleman of a certain standing about town and not out of place in the 1940s to 1960s. Light grey three-piece suit, white shirt, dark tie, silk scarf, summer trilby hat, two tone shoes and walking stick.  Obviously sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the perpetually scruffy, trainer clad, backpack and bum bag wearing, cash dispensing, multi-national tourists that inhabit today’s daytime Soho.

We had a great three hours in Soho with Kit and Eddie and as you would expect from Kit, the professional model through and through.  He was very accommodating and knew what we would require and more or less unbidden, posed accordingly.  Our time over, we returned to our studio in the basement of the NPG where our films were developed for us and scanned on a flatbed scanner.

I will mention at this point that the quality of the NPG’s scans of my negatives was very disappointing to say the least.  Which meant that during the end of day show and tell session my efforts couldn’t be assessed.

Naturally I rescanned them when I got home.  Using an Optima scanner.

So what of the featured image?  To put it bluntly a serendipitous cock-up.

But first a brief explanation of how it came to be.

Up to the time the photo was taken Eddie had guided us as a group, via a fountain in Leicester Square, to quieter areas of Soho.  Deserted alley ways, side streets and so on.  Then Eddie said it would be good idea to get some shots of Kit mingling with the crowds.  Juxtaposition shots of Kit in elegant attire from the mid 20^th century-ish along side early 21^st century scruffy tourists.

My shot is a grab shot of Kit walking past me and up to a shop called Supreme.  Purveyors of iconic street wear – or so their web site tells us.  As Eddie said a place where rich kids have to be seen and need to show proof of their visit by purchasing something.

When I first saw the rescanned image, I said to myself what is that?  On closer examination I worked it out.

Whilst it could be better technically it certainly has an attention grabbing factor.  And as we know some of the world’s most iconic pictures fit that description.  Attention grabbing is certainly what it has been doing from the comments made by the very limited number of people I have shown it to.  So much so that my neighbour asked for a copy to hang on her living room wall.  I obliged her.  So what happened?

A grab shot. I had focused on Kit.  But exposure for some reason or other is for the slightly out of focus security guard.  The result is that Kit attired in light grey suit and in full sunlight is seriously overexposed.  I’ve turned him into Ghost!   Also, his feet have been partially cut off. Ugh!   As I said a serendipitous cock-up.

Interpretation

At the end-of-workshop show and tell session one of the ladies had a trio of images of Kit in a side alley.  Eddie said that they are beautiful, they have an air of loneliness about them.   I added that I thought they had a sadness about them too.  That got me thinking about a comment made by Kit of having known people in Soho.  A book I had read not so long ago came to mind.

Dog Days in Soho: One Man’s Adventures In Fifties Bohemia, by Nigel Richardson.  Too early for Kit’s Soho.  Then unbidden, Amazon popped up with Soho Night & Day by Frank Norman and Jeffrey Bernard.  Essentially a collection of one and two shot stories about the people, places and events of late 60’s Soho.  Just recently republished.  Yes! that’s it.  More Kit’s time.  Now purchased and read, fascinating and relevant.

How does all that lot fit together?

A dapperly dressed older gentleman visits the haunts, the turf, of his younger days when he was equally well dressed, a face, a character about town, well known.  But now the fun, gaiety, naughtiness and edginess of the area that he knew has all but gone.

The people he once knew, long time passed.  They have all gone away, everyone.  Now all he sees around him is change, strangers.  No longer his world, his people anymore. What is this new world?

On one hand streets made prosperous by tourist and on the other? Turn a corner and there for all to see – urban decay and economic blight.  Is it really him as flesh blood that we see in this new world or is it an apparition?

We see him as an ethereal figure, out of time, gliding past a symbol of today’s world.  Time moves on, the world is forever changing.  Our pasts are just memories, personal to us and unknown and mostly irrelevant to those who come after.  We and our memories, all eventually just fade away.  Fa d  e    a     w     a      y.

Thank you Kit for you for your contribution to the picture and the thoughts it generated.  Apologies for not managing to properly include your feet in the image.

Next and final episode.  One Shot Story, Day Out at The NPG Part 3 – 85mm Lens, coming to this blog post soon.  Follows on from the lens focal length discussion in Part 1.  Where I move on to discuss the background to the use of the 85mm lens.

In terms of the technicalities for the picture. Nikon FM3a, 85 mm f/2.0 Nikkor, Ilford Delta 400, bright sunshine – obviously.

Share this post: