Take It Easy (Signed Edition)

John Duncan started taking photos with his father’s old camera that took 620 film and developed them during camera club at Falmouth Middle School. After graduating from Falmouth High School in 1969, he headed to Woodstock. When he entered the working world, Duncan became a roughneck on an oil rig in Wyoming, a deckhand at Casco Bay Lines, a worker at a truck stop, and eventually joined the Air Force. With a draft lottery number of 125, it was that or move to Canada. Upon his discharge in 1972, Duncan returned to Portland to work a  series of odd jobs, like driving a taxi and selling cotton candy with the Ringling Circus. He picked up photography again, this time focusing on the complex characters he saw during his travels. In 1979 Duncan left the U.S. for London with just $200. Duncan spent years hitchhiking through Europe, including Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece, Istanbul, Italy, and finally Sweden where he spent eight years with his wife Susanne. They came back to Portland in 1987, and Duncan picked up work as a photocopy tech and later a truck driver. Now retired, Duncan has been looking back over his photography and reminiscing about his long, almost-unbelievable life. 

Author photo by Dave Dostie

“Most striking about the book is the joy — these are people smiling, kicking back, in quiet moments, with light in their eyes, and an evident calm delight in whatever it is that’s going down. It does not feel nostalgic, but rather like a document captured by someone with an eye for the twinkle in other people, and who likely brings it out in them.”—Nina MacLaughlin, Boston Globe

“With 130 black-and-white images and a lively first-person narrative, Take It Easy feels like a time capsule of a familiar but elusive moment in the city’s history.” — Bob Keyes, Portland Press Herald

“His empathy for his fellow neighbors lends him a personal connection to his subjects that is key to not only his success as a photographer, but also to his positive outlook on life in general.”—Nick Gervin, Street Photographer

“Duncan’s Portland past is not a comprehensive, systematic look at the old city, but rather a personal glance backward focused on the long-haired freaky people of his wild youth, the street life along Congress Street as seen by a hippie cab driver, and a few portraits of downtown denizens of the day. I got lost among old friends as soon as I opened the book.”—Ed Beem, the Portland Pheonix

“Duncan had a camera, and shooting photos of what was going on around him on the streets helped pass the time. Turns out he had a superb eye and a genuine gift for composition.” — Rob Caldwell, News Center Maine