Reflections of a Portrait Photographer

Excuse me, sir Sorry to bother you.

What sorry to bother you. I'm Chris. Yeah, and I'm a photographer.

I'm a portrait photographer I just thought that you had like a really cool.

Look the hat and everything in the coats. Are you from Dublin, sir? Yeah, no,

I don't live here anymore. I left many years ago. Oh, okay.

I'm leaving tonight I'm going back to London where I live.

I'm not using my first name.

I'm using my middle name,

which is James I've never been happy with my first name.

You're a photographer. Did you say yes?

I look at myself this morning and I'm not happy with what I'm looking at,

you know, here I am

Not rich and yet I still make a slight effort.

I should have money of my own bad.

I should intervene like a top lawyer.

Theoretically, that was within my grasp, right? I missed that train.

What was your name? I'm Chris.

I regard myself, Chris, as the greatest

failure that ever walked the planet Earth. Why? Because I am.

Because I didn't achieve the very basics. I'm the could have been man.

I call myself the could have been man.

I'm the could have been man, but I ended up with nothing. I didn't even get a wife.

And I strived from the age of 13.

Just bought a neckerchief.

You want to put on your neckerchief, if you want?

There's nine million people in London, and I don't have a single friend.

And I'm not saying that.

like I'm crying, that is the reality.

When I was quite young, I didn't need any friends. I'm chasing girls.

Now I had the dawn to be able to chat up and all that stuff.

Then they'd move in, I'd try to move in.

And of course, it never dawned on me I'd get to this age and be practically

penniless and not have a profession and all the rest of it, which I should have,

right? Or money. I should have a profession, I should have money.

And I know in my heart,

I could have been taught in certain things.

My own mother was a piece of ice.

Very difficult woman, piece of ice.

There was no physical contact. Very strange for an Irish woman.

There was no hug. There was no kiss. There was no nothing.

I do remember that school I was at, there was another kid that after

school I went to his house and his mother was all over him, right?

I can even feel this very day,

that feeling of, I wish she was my mother.

The other thing I might tell you,

Chris, is I've always had a don for writing and I wrote

two plays which I'm very proud of and they've been sitting there for 20 years.

I've said recently that

I make people laugh almost every day. I haven't made you laugh because I've been

very serious. My only contribution is complete strangers that I talk to,

they crack up

laughing sometimes. You know, I don't have a bad laugh.

bitterness, but I could have it, I don't have it.

But there are times when you do feel low.