It's been an evening of contrasts.

After spending the day leading a series of work-related field meetings, I cleaned up and headed down to Oakland to meet Elizabeth for coffee. The coffee house is sort of a white intellectual counterculture haven, an island in an otherwise overwhelmingly black neighborhood. Very urban.

Then on the way back north, I stopped for dinner in Petaluma. It was late enough, after 10, that none of my regular places there were open, Denny's was about the only choice. After driving through the upscale downtown, the restaurant... located right next to the Rt 101 ramp... looked like something out of an old and slightly frayed postcard, not remodeled in decades, and inhabited mostly by truck drivers stopping for a bite to eat.

Next, a detour through Santa Rosa's courthouse square to stop at an ATM. Dodging drunken yuppies walking back from some club, I looked around at the cute but over-designed and sterile suburban surroundings... and here I really need my camera instead of words.

I need to get back to documenting this crazily diverse country of ours, this place where some have it all and don't quite know what to do with it, while others hang on to their dignity by the fingertips, and some gave up a long time ago. I need to capture images of the decay hiding behind the sterile gentrification, the places we can't maintain even as we build more places that we someday won't be able to maintain.

The pretty girls are a nice distraction. The surrounding absurdity is a little more difficult to render into a two-dimensional image. But it needs to be done.

gravity

This afternoon I met Julia in Lake Forest, at a coffee place. She looked about as ordinary as it's possible for an exotic Russian 5'11" blonde to look, in jeans and without makeup, and with a hat pulled down close to her eyes. We talked for a while, then she went into the washroom to change. Emerging a few minutes later in a black dress, she ran a gauntlet of quick glances and a few stares... thankfully, on the sophisticated north shore, most people were relatively tactful.

She did her makeup in the car, completing the metamorphosis. Then we shot for a few minutes near a fountain with a small sculpture. Tough light... bright sun, not a cloud in the sky. So I went for the risky shots, backlight with a rim of highlights on face and hair, and the cascading water sparkling in the sun.

We moved over to McLaughlin Meadow, a short distance away, and she changed into a much shorter black dress, impossibly short. Urban edge in the native grassland; intentional contrast. Here the light was a little better, filtered by nearby oaks. Here emotion came to the surface, and was captured on film.

We sat in the car for much too long and talked after that sequence, then another change and a few more images in the fading light. I dropped her back in town just about at full dark.

As before, the connection had been there, the energy flowing in both directions. There must have been a significant residuum, because when I walked into a restaurant half an hour later to get a late dinner, one of the servers immediately turned and locked eye contact, and I felt something intangible slip into place, a connection impossible to describe in words. She hovered after the food arrived, much more than she needed to, was friendly and spontaneous. At the first opportunity, she sat down and talked... for at least 20 minutes, ignoring gentle prods from the owner. A fascinating young woman, with an unconventional but very expressive face and plenty to say... often unpredictably.

I wrote down my web site url and handed it to her as I left, told her I'd photograph her next time if she wished. And I walked out the door. The ball is in her court, she'll accept, or not... whichever it's meant to be.

breathe...

Yesterday was so crazy that I forgot to eat dinner. Meetings all day, a shoot, a quick coffee with two friends, dealing with a ton of e-mails, not getting to bed til well after midnight.

The shoot went well, once I'd fought my way through the traffic and still made it within a few minutes of the scheduled time. We took advantage of a side access to a trail at a site I'd written an environmental document for several years ago, so we had total seclusion even as we were surrounded by suburban sprawl... there are still seldom visited places even among crowds. The model turned out to be energetic and with an acting background which we put to good use... and not shy. The new concept seems to be worth pursuing.

There's a shoot scheduled with Julia tomorrow late afternoon, this will be our third. Then there are a couple of other inquiries which are still in early discussion stages, and are more likely to happen when I return next month.

what?

Today's shoot is pushed back to tomorrow, I was relieved when she asked last night because by then it had become clear that my day was going to be a little more full than anticipated. So I just got off the phone with the 19-year old model, and now I'm wondering if she really understands what she's getting herself into. I've just printed out the casting call, and I'm going to make her read it before we even leave the coffee place. Why do I bother to write these things out in detail.....

Then a different kind of inquiry, a message from a 45-year old southern California woman basically saying how much she likes my work, and hoping that we can shoot. Only problem is, I don't get to Socal every day, and I have no idea from her words what it is she's interested in. She's cute, although it took some effort to tell that from her very amateur level photos.

If she's willing to get herself to someplace convenient for me, great, I may take a chance. Assuming the answers to the questions I've just sent back to her are reasonably coherent.

brave girls

San Francisco: It broke 90 in much of the Bay Area today. We're not accustomed to this on the coast, especially in spring. It's dead outside, it seems everyone just stayed home. Those who are out aren't moving quite as quickly as usual.

In the morning I get on an airplane to Chicago, where it isn't nearly that hot... not yet.

And I'm trying an experiment. A new series of photos, yeah, I do that a lot. I'm in the mood to work with some fresh talent in addition to a few of the old reliable friends, but not in the mood to deal with girls who are afraid of their own bodies. So I posted a casting call, and very clearly stated that topless-level nudity is a requirement.

The responses so far... it's only been up about a day and a half... have been surprisingly positive. Out of about 90 views, four have responded, and only one of those is an absolute no-way-I'll work-with-her. Another I'd shoot with if the timing worked, but she gets into town a few days too late. The remaining two are local, and they both really do interest me. One has agreed to a time and place, the other just posted, and I haven't had time to respond yet.

They aren't what I'd consider edgy/alternative, not at all. But they aren't hopelessly vanilla, either. They're both capable of being serious, I think. Both have an interest in fashion, which is fine for this concept, actually an advantage in a way; although both are, in the usual unfair way of the world, too short for fashion. Neither has any nudes posted, neither says anything about the matter in their profiles. I wouldn't have guessed they'd say yes, but they don't scream go away, either.

They're young enough and new enough at this and mainstream enough that the no-show or bail-out risk is higher than what I typically encounter. I'll take the chance, and if this continues to screen out the hopelessly inhibited girls, I may try it more often.

concept 119

We break our bonds, yet we carry them around with us like reminders of the past. They fall free, yet hug tightly. They have tone, texture, we still feel them. Some have more, some have less, but few seem able to toss them aside. In the stark box of the frozen image, we can see what we can't in real life. It is simple, almost austere, a little dark, yet elegant in a strange sort of way.

not a model

This was taken in an Oakland coffeehouse a couple of months ago. Yes, I have photos of her face, too, but this was one of the more expressive images, and in a way, it tells the story.

She's a fascinating young lady, only 18, and she had never heard the words to the Alice Cooper song that's considerably older than she is. She's extraordinarily bright, much more so than most people two or three times her age. She's unpredictable. And she's afraid.

I really should do more work with ordinary people. Models are fun, but...

silly girl

Many of the models I work with are creative, intelligent people. Many are artists themselves. I make some assumptions when I correspond with them, write about fairly abstract concepts sometimes. The few who can't handle it... well, let's just say it's better to scare people away early rather than waste time later.

Recently I agreed to shoot with a relatively mainstream fashion girl. This one seems to be helping to perpetuate the dumb blonde stereotype. Either that, or she gets stoned a lot.

A couple of her messages have been semi-coherent. Just now, she messaged and said she had the days mixed up, forgot she will be out of town on Friday so can't shoot then.

I knew that. For that reason, we had scheduled for Thursday. It's right there in black and white, two messages above the one she just sent.

Funny thing is, I don't really care about this particular model. She's cute, but not the type I usually work with, not at all. I would like to test that lens I just picked up, though. Might have to go grab somebody off the street, I don't really feel like waiting til the Chicago trip, which may happen next week or next month.