Rain, aurora borealis, et cetera
Rain and photography do seem to get together a lot. And when it happens it can create anything from expensive delays to helpless laughter, usually providing exquisite lighting effects by way of compensation.
In 1979 I was art directing the Kodak Calendar for 1981 with the photographer Patrick Lichfield. The theme I had chosen was Harrow School and its surroundings. Patrick was an Old Harrovian so knew all its history as well as the nooks and crannies of the ancient hill-top school buildings.
But in the town scenes, too, he worked wonders. One scene I suggested was a night shot in one of the streets, a wet night, with puddles reflecting street lights and so on. It was fixed. Our very young daughter would be the sole figure visible in the middle distance, carrying a red umbrella. For rain, I booked the Fire Service.
The day and the evening came. In deep twilight Patrick found the right viewpoint along the winding, uphill house-lined street to the final sharp bend to the church, its famous steeple and the school itself. He had explained to our daughter exactly where she should walk. One of his assistants picked up noticeable rubbish in gutters and the other knocked on a few doors to ask if they would be kind enough to switch on their front-room lights for a few minutes.
At a minute or so before the fire crew were due it became suddenly very much darker. And then all heaven split down the middle and emptied itself of an ocean. We were drenched in seconds. Cascades rushed down the gutters.
The fire engine arrived.
Oilskin-clad and helmeted, the senior fireman climbed down from the cab. Through the driving rain he came up to Patrick and me, touched his helmet and, displaying a masterly grasp of irony and the understatement, spoke.
‘Evening sir. I, er. . . I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting us tonight, then?
o o o
In Iceland, too, rain knows how and when to fall.
The Kodak Senior Photographer Jack Oakley was the man on this job and we had talked often about the likelihood of the Northern Lights appearing while we were there; a picture of this phenomenon could end up as the ultimate cover picture for the 1973 Iceland calendar.
One evening about halfway through the job I was getting into bed and thought the sky had a funny look about it; did it it presage the Aurora Borealis?
I called goodnight to my nine-year-old charge on the other side of the room.
I will describe events as I remember them, since nothing like it is ever likely to occur again; in fact the story could find its place among the Icelandic sagas.
It had been a heavy day and we were as tired as we had ever been. I dropped off to sleep within minutes of getting into bed.
I was woken by light.
I don’t mean just ‘light’. It was amazing. Even though diffused by the closed curtains it threw a brilliant spread of pink, orange and red all over the ceiling. I leaped out of bed and dashed into Jack’s room. I shook his shoulder.
‘Jack, quick! Northern Lights!’
In one single movement Jack, ever the professional, woke up, rolled out of bed and pulled his trousers on. He was undoing his camera case by the time I had started back to put something on over my pyjamas. The ceiling was still covered with this unearthly light. The boy was sitting on the edge of his bed, blinking.
I said, ‘It’s the Northern Lights!’
He jumped off the bed and began dressing.
It could not have been more than sixty seconds later that there came a quiet, slow knocking at the door. I opened it.
Jack stood there. Water dripped from his peaked denim cap and trickled, like the anointing oil on Moses’ head, down his beard to the floor. He was clutching his Hasselblad under his waterproof coat.
‘Paul,’ he said, wringing out rainwater from his beard, ‘that was not the Aurora Borealis.’
‘No?’
‘No, Paul. It was sunrise. It is now raining, and with your kind permission I am going back to bed.’
With a certain sadness he turned, and left.
The boy flung himself backwards on to his bed, howling with laughter, pointing at me and screwing a finger into his right temple.
At breakfast they joined forces and put me through the hoop. Oh, they had a lovely time.
Well, I deserved it.
_____________________________________________
Text and illustration ©Paul Wigmore 2010