Say you want a revolution (Icons Behind the Lens Series)

Chairman Mao comfortably behind Pentacon Six

John Lennon sang about him.  Nixon visited him.  Pope Paul VI smoked opium with him.  (I'm kidding on the last one.)  I'm talking about Chairman Mao Tse-tung.  Formidable at one time.  Poets, Priests and Politicians took notice of him.  Walter Bosshard shot this portrait of Mao in 1938.  Mao was yet to be future founder of the People's Republic of China.  At this point, he still has everything ahead of him.

I always wondered why great men usually don't show their teeth when being painted or photographed.  Until I read that great men like anybody else have bad teeth.

On this tribute, I decided to shoot a still life photo of my Pentacon Six along side Bosshard's portrait of Mao.  No special reason.  It was a pure act of randomness on my part.  My creative juices have dried up, and I felt uncompelled to make sense of what I was doing.  Perhaps, subconsciously I affiliated China's communism with the East German's.  Originally known as Praktisix, the Pentacon Six was a product of then communist East Germany.


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