On March 26th, I stopped by Colin Sharpe’s home near the Beaches. Colin has been a friend of mine for a while now; I believe I’ve known him for 3 or 4 years. I first saw him doing his psycho monologues at the now extinct Naked Fridays show at the Second City Training Centre where at one point he gave me a lap dance.
Now, before I continue, I should explain the film tech-stuff. The film I used expired in 2005 and I didn’t realize that when I grabbed it. It also had 24 exposures, less then my usual 36 I normally take on 35mm. And because we were shooting in the late afternoon, I pushed the film 2 stops from the recommended film speed of ISO 400, making it ISO 1600. I was aware that it would be grainy, but I was unaware that the film would look more like an old newspaper print than a photograph. But, that’s one of the reasons I’m shooting film: you get unexpected results and you get to make people like Colin look as if he’s a homeless man spouting off crazy theories in some 70’s-era newspaper.
Out of all the people I’ve photographed, Colin Sharpe was by far the most uncomfortable. This is probably because he’s one of the most paranoid people I know. He works at a community centre where he supervises many groups of children playing sports and other activities but, he seems to find it uncomfortable when these kids see him out in public. For example, when he’s out grocery shopping with his brother and a kid or, a group of kids see him, he will believe that they’ll think he’s gay, or at least one of them is bound to think he’s a homosexual. As we took photos around his neighbourhood, I could tell that these thoughts regularly cross his mind, and at that point, I could be potentially be his gay lover in his world of paranoia. We did end up running into a couple of kids from the community centre and they were very shy when Colin went to greet them. Was Colin right? Or just paranoid? Who knows? Regardless, I thought those two kids were gay.
We ate at an Indian restaurant and shared a couple of dishes, like the average gay couple would do. I was full a quarter of the way through the meal but Colin polished off every last bite. It was delicious. However, I did not realize that the Mango shakes we bought had milk in them, but lucky it didn’t ruin my bleach stained underwear until later that night.
After eating, Colin and I walked down a street with a wooden fence that seemed to just stretch off into the distance. Colin mentioned that he had used the street name in an older monologue in which his character lived an abused life - as if to draw attention to the fact that the street gave off an evil presence. However, I wasn’t sure. In fact, I thought the street was cosy.
We decided to make the occasion a memorable one and grabbed a couple of beers to have while we walked around the beach. (He actually bought the beers and I forgot to thank him for that, which was the second thing that bugged me that night. So, thank you Colin!) On the way we saw a couple of swans in a pond and stopped to look at them. Luckily, there were no kids around to see us, but it didn’t matter. Our love was clearly stronger than the straight couple across the pond, because the swans left them and came to us.
Once at the beach, Colin told me of the memories he had of the area, some of which (I believe) has helped spark his bizarre and creative comedic choices. He’s a real artist, as some would say; a brilliant man who suffers for his work. But to me, he’s just Colin - my paranoid friend and potential gay lover.
