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.