happy

Sometimes I've got it pretty easy.

I've been off-and-on planning a Bay Area trip, with the initial impetus being work related. It's a pretty simple site visit, some travel time, maybe a couple of hours in the field, and half a day to write it up.

But the client kept pushing the day back. Initially, that meant I'd be able to delegate it, because I had someone in the general area on another project part of last week. Then the day slipped again, so that didn't work. Now it's maybe Monday, more likely Tuesday. So I'm headed down that way tomorrow afternoon, and I'll basically work out of our Santa Rosa or San Francisco offices til the word comes from the client to "go." I have a stack of paper and project file folders and my laptop, enough to keep busy for a couple days easily.

I have about half a dozen models wait-listed in the Bay Area, some I'm more interested in than others. But the constant schedule changes have made it impossible to really set anything up. I kept a dialogue going with one of them, the one of the bunch I'd really like to shoot with, and that may still happen this time. She's checking her work schedule and hopefully I'll know in the morning. But no guarantees on such short notice.

I hate to waste a trip to a major market when I'm still feeling a need to play with the new digital gear. So tonight I posted a casting call, clearly identified as short-notice, clearly identified as a dusk/night shoot... because that's all I can be sure of at this stage.

Within 30 minutes I had a response. She's attractive, she's alternative, she already has some good photos, and after reading part of her blog just now... she's very, very smart. She's also efficient. Two sets of messages back and forth, and we had a time and place set near the Berkeley campus. Less than half an hour to set things up.

So while other photographers whine about drama and no-shows, I routinely get to pick from really interesting people. They're not only fun to shoot, they're fascinating to talk to during the shoot.

eureka

It's an unusually warm evening in Eureka, as I prowl the alleys with Inga during our third shoot. She just keeps getting better. First the poses tighten up, and now, midway through this shoot, I begin to see subtle expressiveness well beyond what she's done before.

Up to this point I've been struggling a little with direction on my return to color/digital. It's almost as if what had been so easy for me with black and white is suddenly brand new. The technical aspects have been surprisingly easy. Today, suddenly, I have the conceptual answer to go with it.

Just as I've made the technical things work by simplifying, I'm realizing that minimalism is my answer for the creative things also. I know this, have known it for a long time, yet it's so easy to stray from the path.

At least in the short term, I think the emphasis is going to be on simple colorful head shots, with simple background elements; and a renewed foray into nudes in the landscape. There will need to be a little experimentation with this, with the balance of person and land. It needs to be done in a fresh way, something just a little different from what others are doing. I have some ideas to start with.

mantra

Simplicity is the new rebellion.

looking up

lead by not leading
the doorway is below.
hesitate...
at first, nothing there
the fire is passion
inside
ancient mysteries
lost for so long
found again
so simple
the duality of man
human and animal
the body and the mind
one