Today I post one of my favorite all time photos I have ever taken. I took this photo of my Dad almost a year before he passed away on September 15, 2014. I didn’t shoot much 4×5 back then although I had been shooting it for years – it just wasn’t something I did very often – sporadic at best. I asked my Dad to sit for a portrait outdoors and he obliged. He was not in great health but was very patient while I set up the camera. I tilted the lens just a bit to keep only his eyes in focus, snapped the shutter, then put things away and basically forgot about that sheet of film for 18 months. In early 2015 I was developing some film that had been laying around the house. As I pulled the film out of the wash, my heart skipped a beat when I saw this image. Of course it was a negative so I wasn’t sure it was great yet, but I knew I had an image of my Dad that I had forgotten about. After the film dried I rushed and to scan it. As the image came up on my computer screen I almost cried. It was the perfect image – my Dad reaching back to my, giving me a gift that will last forever – a large format portrait of him, the only one I own and now a prized possession.
Subjects
4x5 4x5 film 4x5x365 adventure training agriculture Amazon Web Services bicycle Bill Dragoo BMW Brass Ball Bobbers combine Darwin Motorcycles dirt bike drag racing dual sport film Hayabusa Ilford HP5 John Deere Kawasaki Kodak TMAX-100 Lexington Micha Young motorcycle New Mexico Oklahoma Oklahoma City Oklahoma Living Oklahoma Living Magazine Oklahoma Today Pentax 6x7 R1200GS Ride Oklahoma roller derby running South Canadian River Strava Suzuki Thunder Valley Raceway Tombo Racing Tommy Bolton Toyo 45A Toyo VX-125 video production wheat harvest
About James Pratt
I am an Oklahoma based writer, commercial photographer, editorial photographer and adventurer based in Oklahoma City. I love telling stories about people. A motorcycle is my preferred means of travel, and I have over 5,000 hours piloting small airplanes. My editorial photography has been published in hundreds of magazines and my commercial photography has been used by dozens of companies worldwide.