Fred Herzog @ UBC

Last week I had the privilege to attend a talk with legendary Vancouver photographer Fred Herzog. My task was to take a portrait of him and then write a piece for the Ubyssey newspaper. I must confess they both proved to be tremendously difficult tasks.

Trying to take a photograph of a lecturer without intruding or without distracting him and the audience is obviously hard. And it becomes even harder when you are being judged by dozens of aspiring photographers in the audience and when your subject is a man who made his name in the history books of photography for shooting unsuspecting people in public places!

As the evening progressed and Herzog continued to talk about his work, I found it increasingly complicated to find a good moment to take my camera out and stand up to snatch a pic. I thought that maybe I should just wait until the end and ask him to pose for me with the white wall of the room as a background. But then...just as I was about to give up, Herzog said the magic words: "I like to record how people look in their natural state...it's the reality of how we look. I don't stage pictures." Aha!

I put my camera bag between my legs and quietly opened the zipper. I turned the power switch of my camera "On" and quickly adjusted the exposure settings. Herzog said "you have to wait for a good moment, for a gesture, a detail." And like a hunter, I waited.

Suddenly, the slideshow ended and the lights came on. It was over. Had I lost my chance? I became increasingly nervous...and then the miracle happened. Herzog was asked to sign a book. He walked straight towards me to find a pen on the chair next to mine (I was sitting on the front row). Then, without warning, he took a step back, slowly raised his pen to the light...and surely heard my loud CLICK!