Being There

a lit­tle bit of alco­holic foreshadowing

When it comes to pho­tog­ra­phy, I’ve seen a lot in a rel­a­tively short time. I’ve been to crazy places, and met amaz­ing peo­ple. I’ve filled many dif­fer­ent roles along the way. Some­times pho­tog­ra­phy is just a lot of hard work, but I’ve been lucky and priv­i­leged to have a lot of fun at the same time. Today, part one of a three part series about assist­ing in the early-ier days of my pho­tog­ra­phy career.

Back when my friend Aaron McKen­zie Fraser was liv­ing in Ottawa (and I was start­ing out in pho­tog­ra­phy), we did a few jobs together. I didn’t assist for Aaron very much, but I was there for what were some pretty choice gigs. Like the time we pho­tographed Stephan Dion. In the lead-up to the Lib­eral lead­er­ship race, Aaron was hired to take por­traits of the can­di­date. It was an early-morning appoint­ment, so we tested the light­ing setup a cou­ple days in advance. I don’t remem­ber how Aaron got that job, but it seemed like a bit of a minor coup, and I sure did not want to mess it up.

When the day came, Dion brought a bevy of assis­tants in tow. His advis­ers and con­sul­tants installed them­selves on the big green couch in Aaron’s liv­ing room. The woman in charge of fash­ion decided that more red ties were needed. The young assis­tant was sent out, and soon returned with a fist­ful of crim­son cra­vats from Harry Rosen.

Dion was skinny and pale in his boxer shorts, like a boy. He seemed aloof, dis­tant. He was unin­ter­ested in the pro­ceed­ings unfold­ing before him in the lit­tle apart­ment in Cen­tre­town. The large screw­driver he drank a few min­utes later dis­pelled any delu­sions of polit­i­cal infancy or waver­ing of pur­pose.  The abil­ity to drink steadily at all hours of the day is mark of a sea­soned politician.

There was a brain whirring behind Dion’s eyes. Every few min­utes he’d call an order for some mes­sage to be given, some report to be retrieved.

A sad day for Stephan Dion

“Turn your head to the left.”

“Get so-and-so’s paper on envi­ron­men­tal pol­icy from my desk for my meet­ing with X this afternoon.”

“Tilt your chin up.”

“Ensure we get such-and-such state­ment on the website.”

“Smile.”

Flash. Click. Repeat.

He was a man on fire, but we gave him not a hope in Hades of win­ning the lead­er­ship. I spec­u­lated at the time that his can­di­dacy was an attempt to become king­maker and secure a plum post in the com­ing Lib­eral gov­ern­ment. Funny how things turned out.

As the elec­tion pro­gressed, I was impressed by Dion. He seemed, by far, the smartest of the bunch of jok­ers we call lead­ers these days. He was earnest, hon­est, endear­ing even. His poli­cies were ahead of the times. His tax green tax scheme was pro­gres­sive (and not that hard to under­stand), if polit­i­cally poi­so­nous. He spoke Eng­lish bet­ter than any of the oth­ers spoke French.  He may not have been a good politi­cian, but he would have made a great Prime Min­is­ter. It’s too bad the Lib­eral party was divided and broke. It’s too bad we have the same spite­ful and ill-spirited Prime Min­is­ter again. Peo­ple say they want a politi­cian they can trust, but what they really want is tax-breaks.

Some­where between the day I saw Stephan Dion in his under­wear and elec­tion day, I changed my vote to sup­port the Lib­er­als. To me, Dion is the best of kind of Cana­dian: an intel­li­gent, just, and thought­ful per­son who could strad­dle the divides of our coun­try to forge a bet­ter future. Maybe one day we’ll get over our petty regional dif­fer­ences and be a real country.

Next time: Aaron and I on the tar­mac with fighter pilots, and one amaz­ing slice of bread.