Double Helix | On Commission

Molecular Biologist James Watson

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd had the pleasure of photographing two heavyweights of the science world in the same day. The first was Professor Higgs and the second was James Watson (above) co-discoverer of the structure of DNA (alongside Francis Crick) at the famous Cavendish Laboratory in 1953.

I remember as an under-age patron of one particular pub in Cambridge (where I grew up) a bronze plaque commemorating Watson & Crick's achievements. I didn't really have any understanding of what it was they'd achieved, mostly because I'd drunk a lot of  Double Vodkas and orange Reef mixers, my favourite tipple between the ages of 17-18½.  I was a classy lad and had the heavily gelled hair to prove it. 

There are often moments in my career that make me reflect on my younger free and direction-less years. The wobbly teen in that Cambridge drinking establishment would never have guessed that he might one day be standing alone in a room with a camera, struggling to make small talk with one of the cryptic duo embossed on the sign above his head.  

Admittedly my understanding of molecular biology and DNA structures hasn't come on much further, but I'm more likely to read a Wikipedia entry on someone than I was a decade ago.