Often I will just play with an image just to keep in practice regarding my Photoshop skills. I spent about 2 hours on this one, just trying different things, not having a particular agenda since it wasn’t commissioned. I like having some time to do that and it is essential for any artist to spend time just ‘goofing’ off so to speak. Without it your work can become so stale and uninspiring that you cease to do it any more.
The Dress shop clerk, happy and without guile. We have gone in the store a number of times on
our visit to Del Mar, it is a resale shop with great clothes and great deals. We were looking for
hats for the first day of the Del Mar Racetrack season, which we were going to attend just for
fun! Didn’t find a hat there, but did find some great deals and a great Tommy Bahama shirt.
She had brilliant blue eyes and the bright San Diego sun was out in full force so I asked her to
pose for me right outside her shop, which she was happy to do. I am not sure she was hot on my
taking photos of her feet, probably worried I had a foot fetish or something (I don’t), but she
allowed me to nonetheless.
Del Mar, California, July 2008
We were in an outdoor outlet mall in Napa. We were in an antique store, all filled
with browns and golds and muted tones when through the window I noticed this pair of
bright yellow vests floating against a wall. They were bathed in bright, bright
sunlight and the color was so glaring compared to all the rest I just had to go take
some photos.
I told them I would donate some money to their cause if they would let me take some
photographs of them and they agreed. Just moments before I had passed the two
cypress trees and loved their ‘symmetry / asymmetry’ against such a stark background.
Once I got home and went through the photos I kept seeing these two girls with the
two trees and so worked the images up to have that happen.
My photo session with this friend consisted of following her throughout her day, from waking on. I noticed when she was doing her make up that she held her eyelash curler with both hands. I asked about it and she said she had once been getting ready for a date, curling her eyelashes when something startled her and she tore out all her eyelashes on that eye! The date arrived moments later and they spent the evening looking for false eyelashes. They didn’t have a second date. So, from then on has used two hands to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
