All rights to this photograph is reserved the photographer
This photograph was taken of one of Durban’s most notorious drug dealers. He is responsible for the movement of most of the cities cocaine. It took me 6 months to gain access to him, understandably him and his gang were nervous as to why I wanted to document him and their operation. In this photograph, he was taking a break from the bagging process (whereby he cuts and bags the cocaine in preparation for sales) and was smoking a mixture of marijuana and methamphetamine.
It was shot using a Leica M6 with 50mm Summicron at f2 on Kodak Tri-X 400 film.
Why I use a Leica:
WIthout the Leica this shot would have never happened. It is silent in it’s operation and so unobtrusive, the rest of the gang never really noticed me doing what I was doing.
Daniel Cuthbert lives in Durban, South Africa. The rest of this powerful documentary can be seen at his web site hmmm.co.za/documentary/cocaine.
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For me there are two main aspects to a photograph. First you get strength of composition (and I choose to include lighting, angles, background, foreground etc) with in this. Second you get strength of subject. The stronger (more interesting to the viewer) a subject is, the less important the composition to keep the attention of the viewer. The converse is true for a weak subject.
Very strong subject here, especially with the back-story and combined is very good composition (something not very easy I am sure in the circumstances you were in).
Great moment, great photograph.
I completely agree with Stephen! Strong image…
Thanks all for the comments!
Very powerful. Superb image!