“He came, he saw, he snapped ...” was one among the many witty titles Wolf Suschitzky suggested for this book. If so offhand a motto does little justice to the quality of his work, it perfectly describes the photographer’s approach of capturing the right moment. “I’m one of those photographers who like to wait for an opportunity for a picture to present itself, rather than create it by careful posing. I much prefer my subject to take up a favourable position of its own accord instead of having to coax it into position. Remember, the first rule of photography is patience. If you wait for the right expression or the right position it will come. It is far less likely to come if you try to force it.”
Such perfect opportunities also arise when the photographer and his subjects meet eye to eye. Suschitzky’s subjects return the photographer’s gaze: the Bedouin bride, the girl at the window, the man behind the picket fence. Even the perfect pose the painter Nikos Ghikas adopts conveys immediacy and spontaneity, as well as confidence and aplomb. “Nikos Hadjikyriakos- Ghikas is a well known artist in Greece. At the end of filming a short story on the island of Skiathos, I encountered John Craxton, the painter, who was just about to go to the island of Hydra to visit his painter friend. He asked me to come along. Ghikas, at the time, had a house with his studio on a high hill on Hydra. I thought his paintings most interesting. Some weeks later I heard that Ghikas’ house had burnt down. There was no water, so high up, to put out the fire. The entire painting collection there was lost.” St Mark’s Square in Venice, with pigeons flying, forms the backdrop to a memorable moment, as well as to an ironic duplication, with the photographer photographing another photographer snapping pictures of tourists.