Back in the late ’90s was my first visit to New Mexico and the Santa Fe area for photography. On the 2^nd day, I traveled to Taos Pueblo to see some of the iconic imagery made famous by Ansel Adams. I very much enjoy roaming around the areas where Adams and Weston made their photographs but have little interest in finding their tripod holes, I simply enjoy the history knowing these giants of the B&W fine art world walked the ground I have roamed myself.

   I walked around the general pueblo area for a while and finally came upon an old, dusty sheet of plywood where various Native American artifacts were on display.  One that caught my eye was a 1934 National Geographic magazine conveniently opened to a feature article about the Taos Pueblo and its lifestyle.  The gentleman in my photograph is pictured in that 1934 Nat Geo issue.   His given name is Quld-We-Kuep-Bd and he fancies himself a bit of a celebrity due to the article which lay open to the exact page where his pictured appeared some 60 years earlier. 

   His “handler”, a younger man asked me if I would like to take a photograph of him, as he did not speak English. I had a roll film camera with me that could be set up fairly quickly so I said yes, I’d like to take his portrait. I was told there would be a $ 5.00 charge. No worries I thought, it was the beginning of a 10-day trip to the Southwest and I still had a large bundle of cash that came out of my pocket to get the $5.00. The two men quietly turned and spoke in Native American to one another, likely commenting on what seemed to be a large sum of money, in reality, it was not that much just traveling expense money for the next week or so.

   I set up my Hasselblad camera in the interest of expediency and I was quickly ready to go, I moved the subject towards the area where the surroundings amounted to some type of symmetry and balance, metered the subject and was set to go.

   The Hasselblad has a feature to allow it’s large 2″ + square mirror to be locked up so there would be less vibration when the shutter was actually released. I composed the image and locked the mirror up, as soon as the subject heard the loud noise of the mirror locking up he quickly moved away thinking the photo was complete. I immediately said “no-no” I did not yet take the picture, only that I was preparing to take the picture now that the mirror was locked up. Problem is with the mirror locked up you can no longer look through the lens, so I had to reposition him and waste a frame of film.  It did take some coaxing to get the subject to return to his position without another $5.00 !

   There’s a famous story about an iconic portrait of Sir Winston Churchill just 3 weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor made by Canadian photographer Yousef Karsh where he only had a short “audience” with Churchill to make his portrait, see accompanying Churchill portrait.  Churchill had lit his customary cigar while waiting for the photographer to set up the last minute details.  Karsh was ready and asked Churchill to remove his cigar, when he did not Karsh walked up to Churchill pretending to take a light meter reading, instead he grabbed the cigar from Churchill’s mouth, turned and walked back towards the camera, but on the way back to the camera Karsh clicked the shutter at the perfect time to record what has now become the quintessential photograph of Sir Wintson Churchill.    While my portrait of this Native American gentleman doesn’t rise to the level of Churchill’s disdain, nevertheless my subject was not pleased with me having a second bite of his $ 5.00 apple.  

Churchill rendering from Wikipedia