I Shoot People

Boy shorts, pigtails  and argyles — now that’s a step back in time.

Should I say it takes me back to the days when I used to play on the playground and dip little girls pig tails in the ink well?

Well, actually I’m not THAT old …. but there are some fun reminiscences to be had.

What is it that makes a woman beautiful?  Science can give us all sorts of quantitative guidelines but the fact of the matter is that all sorts of men find all sorts of women beautiful — and vice versa.  Truly — there is no accounting for matters of taste.  But once that beauty is seen, once it is found – for sometimes it must be discovered — it is no mere string pulling you to that person — it is more like the gravitational power of the sun constantly drawing us to them.

It really is true, Love IS best when improvised.  Whether you are male and female, or male and male, or female and female the abiding fact is that you are people and not objects.  You change, you morph, you have your ups, downs, likes dislikes and there is nothing more fun than finding a lover who understands that and who stays in the moment — right there with you.

It was a fun shoot, two friends with feather pillows and lingerie.  But someone wasn’t expecting the shoot to get just quite as friendly as it did….

When I asked the model the question I didn’t expect this response.

A single stand of hair and a brastrap.

As I drove cross-country through California I was reminded just how similar much of the U.S. is to various parts of Europe. Geographically speaking that is. My photo trips through the US are often accompanied by the yearning to be touring Europe instead of the US. For a long time I’ve never quite understood why. Today I think I’ve come to terms with my own motivation.

Every photographer has a unique sense of image – their creative eye. I have always realized that much of my work is about small details that make something uniquely itself. And while I can find images anywhere, the idea of working for a short time among people or a geography that recognizes itself as unique is always challenging to me. Take France for instance, each Departmente is not only unique, but each also takes great pride in just how unique it is and continuously celebrates it’s heritage in speech, in geography, in dress, in food, in architecture.

When I travel the US there are obvious geographical differences. But much of the rest of our culture is more homogenous than in other countries I’ve visited. National food chains result in a homogenous diet, National television and job mobility have huge influences in the way we form our words and sentences. Fashion is available in the same cut and style nationwide, and various retail establishments either look like every other store of their brand, or every other retail store designed in the same year. And it’s why I find myself spending less and less time photographing buildings and more time photographing people and nature.

I guess I’m constantly amazed at how important individuality is to me. I’m a maverick in my own right — certainly any of the models who have posed for me know that I am by nature a hermit. But I also VALUE the unique in people and nature.

When I first began doing bodyscape shoots I fretted about using makeup artists. So many other photographers did and I didn’t want to. And I realized that the effect of makeup was to create fantasy; but that my work wasn’t about fantasy. I wanted to show those things that make my models unique — however insignificant the model may have thought them initially, or mundane. And I realize that has been my mode of operation all along — something I just never paid specific attention to.

And that brings me to Arcata CA, and the end of the long drive West. There were a thousand places I might have stopped to create images — but then it would take the entire allotted time to get here and I’d have no time to shoot her – so I just went boogety, boogety, boogety all the way out here — with that short stopover to see Fred.

So, tomorrow, off to work…

Fullness of Breast
Lace
A Few Freckles
A little bit of light.

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So much of a good image is has nothing to do wit the image at all — it’s about what the image makes you think.

And sometimes what you see isn’t what your eyes see at all. Every time I look at this image it’s as if I’m seeing more than what’s revealed.

The texture of the silk, the softness of flesh, a strap just a bit akimbo…. Sometimes you can be completely covered and be more naked than if you wore nothing at all.

The curves of a real woman are a compelling sight.