Portrait of CS With a Window Behind Me
The Model CS. I scouted out this area before she was done working so I knew I wanted to capture someone’s face with the beautiful light in the tall windows behind me. She obliged.
The Saleswoman
She was the saleswoman at the Vintage Clothing Store who was also a photographer and an artist and knew about the cool show at the Center for Creative Photography and she was right, it was great.
I loved her great retro style with the bobbed hairdo and the ‘little house on the prairie’ dress. Her face was serious but not morose, filled with intelligence and just a bit of world weariness. She was a student and had a lot of study on her plate.
The Clouds of Knowing – Velveteen Woman Project #46
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
The Colliding Senses
Definitely one of my freakiest collages. The hair pulled back so tight is what first
drew me to the model. I simply created a different type of ‘sensual’ portrait here,
with the senses all colliding out of synch, out of order, within her.
The Color Opera – The Stranger Juxtaposition #9
I went into a salon spa near my old house to get info and see the place. I have
passed by it for quite a while now. The manager showed me around and I dropped off
some Biz cards for her to give to people in need of photographic services. The light
coming in through the door was very luminescent (love that word) and the manager had
blue jewelry and blue eyes that really popped in that light. I asked her if I could
take some photos of her and she said yes right away (always a nice thing).
I was also on the hunt for old buildings and dilapidated structures as part of a
group assignment my local photography club was doing that month. After I left the
spa I went south into the town of Bixby, Oklahoma and found an entire abandoned ranch
off the road aways.
The manager’s color; of her eyes, skin, hair and jewelry were strong and I kept
finding similar colors in the new environment. The collage sort of made it self once
I saw the colors. I got the feeling of a musical score in colors while playing with
the collage and I had seen part of an old opera on a college channel the other night
so it was on my mind.
The Observer and the Observed
I noticed the woman in the distance drawing me while I waited at the coffee house for
my friend who was going to model for me. When she arrived I did some drawings of her,
then some photos. All the while the woman in the background was drawing me. This was
quite ironic since I had met my model while drawing her at another coffee house just
days before.
We were right next to a big picture window and my friend had this luminous glow on
her skin from the sky reflecting into the space. Meanwhile back in the establishment
the woman doing the drawing was bathed in indoor incandescent light. I loved the
contrast and did my best to get both in one image. I could have worked out an image
that had both in focus but I liked the blurred image in the back since you could see
all you needed to in it without the focus.
wind ow
We had a fire drill where I worked and as we all gathered in this little outdoor area
I was up close to a woman I hadn’t met before. I introduced myself and she told me
where she worked in the building. I noticed when she was gesturing that she had this
great scar on her arm. I had my camera with me and asked her if I could take some
photos of her eyes and her scar for a collage. She was very excited about the idea,
much more so than most people and graciously allowed me to do so. I am sure any
number of people around me were wondering what the heck we were doing.
She later saw the collage and loved it, purchasing 2 prints to have framed and given
to her family. She had grown up hating the scar but in recent years had come to see
it as a good part of her body and life. The collage was a sort of confirmation of
that she thought.
Post Card #1 – Texas Panhandle
I had to drive my father’s belongings back to California from Oklahoma in the fall of 2007. I kept my camera next to me in the rented moving truck and took a lot of photos out the window as I went. The Texas panhandle is one of my favorite areas precisely because there is so little to see there. What that actually means is that the interesting things you do see are spread out, they are alone, by themselves, easy to spot and appreciate.
Sometimes in dense environments, just as in a dense piece of art, it is hard to discern what is there. That is ok in a museum where you have time to look, but on a road trip it is nice to see something coming 2 miles away!
I stopped at a convenience store outside Amarillo and the clerk’s eyes were blindingly bright and blue with the west Texas sun shining in the window. I asked her if I could take some photos of her eyes and, though she was chided by her fellow clerk, she said yes and was a wonderful, albeit fleeting, model.