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(The Very Thought Of You, a Doris Day cover by Nellie McKay)
A few months back my friend showed me a photo of her son with his schoolmate sweetheart. Need I say more? I knew I had to photograph them at some point and really wanted to get a shot that would fit with my Eclipse series. And I might have gotten one shot that could work, but I just couldn’t bare to keep these black and white. The story just unfolded itself in an entirely different way. These two had the kind of chemistry that can only play out to Doris Day covers and milky summer tones. And so it is…
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I really do scare myself sometimes…the way I can dive into situations that are absolutely foreign and for which I am probably absolutely unqualified. Still, no matter how well I prepare…and this is strictly related to photography…I still end up creating better images when there are unexpected elements way beyond my control. It’s like I shift gears and tap into that deeper sense of aesthetic that is part fight, part flight, and part accident.
Between now and next Sunday I have six…yes, count them 6 different shoots. And I do still have a day-job. One of those beautiful part-time jobs that keeps me happy and fed and where I’m kept in line and on point. So first up is a quick test shoot for hair stylist Michael Haase who is concocting something fantastic that he wants my lens on. The same day I am shooting my first nude session and as if that wasn’t challenging enough…there will be a 10 by 4 foot mirror involved in a rather small space. How do I NOT get myself or this strobe or that reflector into the picture? No idea…that’s where the scared part comes in.
On Sunday I am shooting two adorable children in continuation of my Eclipse series. Without getting too much into my head let’s just say the series is about longing and an attempt on my part to handle white. Apparently, white clothing/color is the easiest thing to blow out and the hardest to control texture and subtle nuance. Having done the first of 10 shoots last week…I get it. Not easy. But oh, so worth it….
Then next week is a yet unconfirmed trip six hours up north to do some stills for a music video. I’ll keep this one under the radar until I know for sure, but what I can disclose is my gittiness over Genart’s Fresh Faces in Fashion at Petersen Automotive Museum, which I get to cover on Thursday night. Everything is a photograph as Steichen would say…everything indeed.
Wanna know something else? I have a pending jury duty committment for next week….yup….got called in two weeks ago and there is still chance that they will tie me up when I show up in court on Monday. This is NOT the time to panick, though. I will still squeeze in a trip to the pumpkin patch with dear friends on Sunday night….oh, and I also embarked on a month of veganism…;)
Ain’t life grand.
Lest I forget…I COULD NOT do this without my boots. The look that keeps me calm, cool and collected is perfectly embodied in this collection by twentysevennames…
…and I certainly couldn’t handle this week without Fever Ray…I set this album aside when it came out at the beginning of the year…it just didn’t have the resonnace…and this week it came back with a ROAR…
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A dreamy, dreamy day ahead…already watched La Jette, 400 Blows, and have music videos running through my head…I love days like these…just need a little focus to work through the 800 photos from last night’s event…glad I wore some serious boots for the occassion…
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Not much to say other than I’m finally getting around to playing with some gadgets that I’ve neglected, shied away from…literally had staring at me like scary monsters in the dark for weeeeeeks now. I really have to get over my fear of strobes and remote activation of stuff and chords and batteries and gels, etc., etc…it can be quite lovely…
I’ve had knitting on my mind all day as the rainstorm took over our sunny corner of California. The light is such a soothing shade of blue and gray…I worked on some headshots yesterday and we made it to the rooftop at a magical hour. The sky was mesmerizing.
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I went to Florence to see and shoot the total eclipse of the sun
It was sudenly cold
And a silence different from all other silences
The light on the land different from all other lights
And then darkness
Total stillness
All I could think was
That during an eclipse
Feelings cease to exist too
Antonini shot these images without really knowing why
Obsessing over a strange premonition
And he will not use them
Because he doesn’t like explicit definitions
They belong to the most intimate memories of an artist
Who never ceases to explore the unknown
I came across Aether a few weeks back and gave it a listen. Never thinking of it again until Sunday after fashion district adventures. And in the usual manner of random order, the chaotic nature in which my decisions seem lacking foresight I was drawn back to the album. Milla Ann came on and in the same random manner I was struck by its rhythm. There was something in it that needed further looking into…so out came the browser and a video search. What turned up was a short snippet from Antonioni’sL’Avventura, which I’ve never seen, though I am familiar with his work.
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So what of it? Well, nothing really other than a perfectly timed moment of synchronicity. I’ve begun a ten week mentorship with Ken Merfeld yesterday and have to come up with 10-12 pieces by mid-December with some semblance of continuity and hopefully a new spectrum of my photographic vision. I have white in mind. He tells me I’m up for a challenge. I still want white. I’m working with longing at the moment and like the idea of reflections on longing for the eclipse. Wouldn’t that be nice? Can you see it? For an added layer of difficulty these have to be portraits. It could never be that easy…so my subjects will be my suns, dressed in white, some sort of white, some incarnation of white…and now I just have to find their moons….
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I’m in good hands, however. Ken is an accomplished photographer who has taken a step away from commercial photography for the most part and regressed to an almost extinct method of capturing images. He does portraits using the colllodion method pioneered by Julia Margaret Cameron as early as 1870s. This process is absolutely staggering to me:
Clean the glass plate (extremely well)
Flow the glass plate with “salted” (iodide/bromide) Collodion
Immerse the plate in a silver nitrate bath (for 3-5 minutes)
Expose the plate (can range from less than a second to several minutes)
It’s time-consuming and lethal, but Ken’s studio where we will meet weekly is everything but. He also lives there and created an environment that is as intriguing as his portraits. Every nook and cranny makes no sense, but it does. It is at once an attic, a library, a living room, and a secret garden (the place used to be a nursery). It has toys and cats, and fishes that bite your fingers, but is most importantly a photographic playground. Ken even brought in bowling alley flooring as it is the most enduring, back-friendly surface to stomp on as you shoot for hours at a time. There is much order in his chaos, and he’s a man after my own heart.
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What began as a little mission to find turquoise alligator upholstery for Muffy’s couch turned into an afternoon full of lighthearted adventure. I have to admit that this one could have gone all wrong…I have a huge week ahead and I honestly just wanted to get it over with as efficiently as possible and get back home for more planning, strategizing, site updates etc., etc…
Instead, we opened with lunch at Angelique where I ran into Jerell Scott from Project Runway and got invited to visit him at MOCA for his Wednesday show. I will probably pass due to another committment, but the incident set the pace for the rest of our afternoon. There were puppies, bubble guns, wigs, fabulous knock-offs of thigh-high boots, cute boys riding bicicles, strange reflections on high-rises, spanish red wine and flying pizza at Bottega Louie.
All in all we covered some five miles, which should have me exhausted. Not so. I rested and relaxed more than I have in weeks. My mind has cleared and I’m ready for the insanity of the upcoming week.
