I had fun taking this rather theatrical photograph of my friend Chris Drzymalski. We were students at the time and I had a penchant for dramatic black and white photographs.
There is, perhaps, a little Humphrey Bogart about him here, right out of those black and white movies. With the double breasted jacket, the white shirt and black tie, I think this brings a little style when combined with the trilby hat. Add into the mix a puff of cigarette smoke which then gets picked out in the strong lighting, you get that ghostly veil where you momentarily wonder what is happening. Yes, many of us smoked in those days, especially as students.
The photograph is printed onto Agfa warm tone paper. From memory it is the Record Rapid paper which gives lovely warm, deep, rich blacks – I absolutely loved this paper and sadly it seemed to disappear in the 1980s.
The photograph was made in around 1982, give or take a bit. This means we have known each other for at least 40 years. We still keep in touch with each other, in fact I paid him a visit a couple of weeks ago in Cheltenham, in what was his childhood home. As you can tell, we have aged quite a lot!
