black and white

This is from the first shoot in the new gallery space, not quite a week ago... it's so nice to have high ceilings again, that's one of the few things I miss about the old Chicago studio, six and a half years in the past. No more worries about that issue. Now all I need is more electrical outlets and even and reliable heat, that will keep the models happier.

Anyway, this is Maria. In the past she's done fairly mainstream shoots, with competent but mainstream photographers; a little glammy, very soft in a presentation sense.

She had the sense to ask for edgier, but acknowledge that it might not be wise to dive all the way in at once, to work somewhere in the middle, a transition from, as she put it, where she is now to where I am.

So these are just a little harsher, just a little scarier (for her, at least I assume so), but without pushing limits too hard, without trying to make her be something that she isn't yet.

She worked mostly in a black robe, and with her dark hair and the black background, her skin was the only contrast. The robe moved, shifted, sometimes a little, sometimes dropping mostly away, barely there. I knew it might be tricky to make it work, all the black. Maybe it's crazy to try this on the first shoot in a new space, but I decided to just do it, followed my intuition, either knew it would work because of tons of experience, or have deluded myself that I can pull anything off, not sure which.

I think there are some shots which show a little more emotion, I'm sure there are some with expressive hands, but I'm (again) almost out of paper so still need to make proof sheets.

I thought this was going to be the last shoot of 2007, but there just might still be one more, will know for sure tomorrow. Taller, older, light hair, very different.

spoiled

These past few weeks I've been looking at a fair amount of top quality photography. Enough that I just haven't paid much attention to the mediocrity that is, of course, everywhere.

Mostly, I've been looking at work in the context of thinking about who to invite in for a gallery exhibit. Either my intuition is on this week, or I've just been lucky.... a lot of the web presence I've viewed has been pretty good, and some of it has been world class.

It had to end.

Today I unfolded a scrap of paper someone gave me the other day, punched in the url of this guy they had met, said he was a photographer. The home page didn't completely turn me away, but anybody can get lucky once. In one more level, look around for a few minutes. OK, that's enough, time to go. Nope, not this guy.

There's nothing wrong with it technically, in the exposure and photoshop sense. But if this guy ever had an imagination, it took a vacation. He's a technician with a camera. And he thinks he's good, to the point that he writes about photography in his blog as if he needs to explain to the world why he takes pictures. But he can't compose a picture (or a paragraph, for that matter), and his work is just... bland. It's about the subject, in a neatly boxed and strictly representational sense. There's no deeper connection. There's no passion, no feeling.

He reminded me of myself, at about 17, shooting for the papers, thinking I was a hotshot just because people paid for my photos. I didn't understand yet that they paid because I delivered reliably, every Monday morning, in time for deadline. They tolerated reliable mediocrity, while shunning some shining creative talents who couldn't deliver two weeks in a row.

I look back at some of those old images and wonder why anyone paid for them. I hope Mr. photo dude gets to that point someday. Unfortunatly, I know firsthand that it takes a pretty profound existential kick in the head to wake up.

femme fatale

I like to play with fire.

I met her almost five years ago, then didn't see her for a long time. One night, in a club in Chicago, I saw her across the crowded room. By then, I knew her real name, or part of it. She was surprisingly friendly. I encountered her repeatedly after that, sometimes late at night in that or other clubs, sometimes at gallery openings. Over time, I came to know her well; or at least as well as she lets anyone know her. In so may ways, she remains an enigma.

Like so many femme fatales, she's strong, cold, and vulnerable all at once. She likes to flirt, she's told me so, and she's good at it.

One summer evening we went to dinner. She dressed elegantly, and we sat in a Thai restaurant and talked of things that would have shocked our neighbors. On the way back to the car she let me photograph her, two images on the sidewalk in the fading light. She agreed in principle to be photographed more formally. Then, as often happens, I didn't hear from her for months.

That's been the game, for five years. Friendly flirtation, then absence. Prompt response to e-mails or phone calls, then for a while, none. Then an apology, and more flirting. With most women, even with stunningly beautiful models, I walk away if this happens once. For me, attractive women are commonplace. With her, I tolerate it, enjoy the challenge, and it's all a game. We each win battles in this very civilized war without an end.

At last, she did let me photograph her. We shot in her third floor apartment, first with window light and then with a pair of compact hot lights. The image above was taken toward the end of the evening, after I'd seen an impressive range of expression. Sometime before this she had told me of her past as a fashion model, in Germany I think. Indeed, she's no stranger to the camera, even if it has been a while.

The last time I saw her, about four months ago, she offered to get together and shoot some nudes. Then, of course, I didn't hear from her for several months. She reappeared, by e-mail, two weeks ago. Of course I'm 2,000 miles away, and uncertain when I'l be back in her neighborhood. When I am, there's a 50 percent chance she'll be ready to shoot. Or not. But eventually, she will. When she's ready.

One night, three years ago, I saw her without makeup, in jeans and a tee-shirt. I was on the sidewalk in front of a gallery, getting a little fresh air, getting away from the crowd. She came down from her apartment next door, just running across the street to buy cigarettes. I'll never forget the look on her face when she saw me. It hurt her so badly to be seen that way. Yet, it was just a few weeks later that we went to dinner and she looked so elegant.

She knows so many people, flirts with so many men. Now, she enjoys her power, revels in it's use. She knows, I think, that it won't last forever. She understands the fragility of power, its ephemeral nature. Already, even as she's surrounded by people, she's alone. She may always be alone, and at some level, afraid.

above and beyond

There aren't very many of them. But some models will do whatever it takes to create a powerful image.

Salome has done it every time we've worked together... five times? She's been encased in plaster, unable to move for an hour. She's played in the mud on a hot summer day. She's been buffeted by strong winds and blowing sand after driving an hour each way to the location. She's shivered in the cold November breeze off Lake Michigan, wearing only a thin bit of cloth. Finally, she's braved late winter freezing rain and a winter storm advisory for several hours, and traveled two and a half hours each way with me, to and from another location.

Perhaps I should offer her an easy shoot, one without adverse weather, one not physically strenuous...

Nah. That wouldn't be any fun.

As you can see, Salome takes visual creation seriously. Ask her to go into a particular emotional headspace, and she dives right in. Sometimes that can hurt more than the physical things or the weather. It's something many models never learn how to do. Yet she seems to go there for real, and stay there for as long as needed. I've had to remind her to give that dress a tug, cover that stray nipple when someone walks by, she's so deeply into her creative space.

What to do next...

bridge of now

Nixon Sixx, from a September shoot near Berkeley. This peninsula, a metaphorical bridge from past to future, with each chasing the others tail. Here, those who came before failed, and discarded the pieces. Most walk around, avoid this place. A few create something new from the relics of that past, something the old ones would not understand, would reject, as we have rejected them and their ways. Here, like Nietzsche, we watch the past die, watch it rise from the ashes as something new. What some fear, we encourage. What they don't know might hurt them. Here, among dark and light passageways, we walk, we discover, we create. She wears the flexibility of the edge, and of nothingness.

One who seemed so innocent told me of this place, several years ago. Now, the years mean nothing. Her innocence was false, a disguise, a precurser. The next ones, the silent one, and the dark one, and the yet unknown one, they file through this place without time, leaving only memories, and images.