The Fanny Bay Inn, also known as the FBI, is a cool place out on Vancouver Island. It is in the town of the same name... Fanny Bay... go figure. The building itself dates back to 1938.
Chris and I were out exploring one morning while Arturo stayed behind at the rental house in Courtenay. By lunch time we were getting hungry, so we stopped at the FBI for something to eat. At that point it inadvertently became one of the locations for our Beer Parlour Project.
Chris and I were having lunch when we noticed an elderly gentleman having a beer in the far corner, by himself. He looked the part of a mariner or fisherman, and we thought he was really photogenic. We called our waitress over, and told her about the Beer Parlour Project. We asked if it would be alright to approach the gentleman and see if he would allow us to photograph him. Her name was Starr, and she thought the project was really cool, and encouraged us to pursue it.
Rather than be inundated by two strangers we thought it would be less intimidating if just one of us spoke to him. Chris went over, introduced himself, and explained the Beer Parlour Project. The gentleman declined our offer to photograph him.
Later, as we were finishing up lunch, Starr came over and asked if we had been successful. When we advised that we had not, and the gentleman did not want his photograph taken, she was really disappointed. She took it upon herself to go over and managed to convince him that he should do it. With the ice broken, Ken really opened up. It turns out he was not a mariner at all. He was originally from Olds, Alberta, and had retired out to Vancouver Island. Ken graciously allowed us to take a few photographs of him, including a couple with another patron. The other guy was Sebastien, a Polish immigrant and a big fan of tattoos. He was also very cooperative and Chris and I really enjoyed the afternoon. By the end of it, Ken tried to donate 20 bucks to our project to help fund it. We graciously accepted the money, but before we left we gave it to Starr and asked her to put it on his tab.
Something doesn't sound quite right about this. Here I am referring to Ken as an elderly gentleman, which he is, but I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm now retired, and over 60 and some see me as a senior citizen... though not many see me as a gentleman. Ken certainly was, an we really enjoyed the time spent with him, and with Sebastien.
I just recently processed these shots as they were part of the batch of Kodak Tri-X Pan 320 4" x 5" sheet film that I developed in PMK Developer on my Jobo Processor. It is time to reach out to the people we met at the FBI and share these images with them.
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