You never know just where your day will take you in this profession. Last Friday morning we received a call from a gentleman needing a head shot taken and he needed it done that day. Little did we know we were about to experience a session we could have only dreamed about. Not knowing much about what he needed until he arrived we were shocked when we found out what he needed it for. When he arrived we noticed he appeared to be in his 70’s and when we talked to him he told us he needed the headshot for an acting job, it was a job where they were looking for a man in his 80’s. My first thought was you aren’t there yet, then he told me he was 90 years old! I never would have thought he was even 80. As we walked back to the studio I texted Chance and told her she needed to come back to the studio. As we got in the studio we learned so much from this amazing man.
Mr. Bryant is a WWII vet who served toward the end of the war in an all black regiment. After the war he managed a band, worked for a paper company and acted. When we photographed him the big thing that we noticed was that he could do anything we wanted him to do, he was in great shape. We found the stories of his time in Germany so interesting. At his age we could tell that he had to have gone in at a young age, and we were right! It seems that when he was 17 his mother helped him enlist early. One of the most amazing stories was one he told about having to wait to wait outside of the mess hall until all of the white solders and POW’s had eaten. As the German POW’s came out of the mess hall one who spoke English asked him how he could fight for a country that treated him like that. He looked at the man and said, ‘I would ask you that same question about Germany and what they have done to the Jews.’ We hope you enjoy his images and story as much as we do. It is sessions like this and the people we meet that make us continue to love our job.
.jpg)
Bentley Photography
Black and White Portraits