This is a photograph of Samuel Beckett, taken in 1976 by the legendary Jane Bown, Bown, who was working for The Observer at the time, was on an assignment to photograph the notoriously lens shy Beckett at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloan Square.
Bown arrived early, as she usually did and waited for Beckett, after a while of waiting she was given a tip off that he had already left by the stage door, Bown ran around the building and eventually caught up with him in an alley way, extremely reluctant he agreed to let Mrs Bown take 3 exposures of him, within 10 seconds Bown had got 5 exposures with the middle one being the final print.
One of the most amazing things about this photograph is that she was using natural light, most if not all of Bown's photographs were made using the available light, she also wasn't too bothered about what equipment she was using, secondhand Olympus OM1's, with an 50mm or 85mm Prime. The reason I think this photograph works so well, you have a photographer who knows, understands and can control the light, who is also extremely tight on composition, you have the background, the setting, the scene, its a clean backdrop with a small portion of pattern, and then you have a face of a man who is in no way keen on being photographed, not only that but this man is Samuel Beckett, he has a wonderfully photogenic face, this all combines to be a photograph worthy of legend status.
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