This collage combines two photos from a shoot I did with a fellow co-worker at the Restaurant where I worked. The color images in the background of the framed image are of the SF bay on one side and of the Nevada desert on the other.
‘A Woman Looking at Herself’, photo-collage
There had been a photo of a nude male on the wall in that location and I originally posed her to be looking at it. But it seemed tacky and I didn’t really like the photo of the guy so I decided to put an image of my own in its place.
Another in a short series I did using co-workers at the restaurant, Eulipia, where I worked back in the 80s and 90s in San Jose, Ca. This one was a result of a photo shoot with a few people who had freckles. I was in the middle of doing a series of pointillist photo-collages where I glued photos of freckles on top of full-color reproductions of pointillist paintings I had in a big art book.
A Snake in the Eulipian Grass
This collage came about after I saw the possibility of making the negative background space of the sky in the prior collage into a solid positive part of the image. In this case the grass no longer just acts as grass but now has a shape and symbolism that makes it into a real/not real object.
She was kind and sweet, with big eyes and beautiful skin. She was great at explaining all the items in the store. She told us she was from the middle of Morocco, in America to work and learn at Disney World as part of an advanced management program. She kindly let me take her photograph in the afternoon light. My wife was thinking I was taking too much time and she needed to get back to her work, but she was happy to pose for me. We bought some rubbing spices for food and they were yummy.
This week I am showing a series of collages from a trip to Disney World in 2007. Epcot Center was a great place to find inspiration.
“Portraits of Chinese Masks’
The Chinese pavilion at Epcot Center in Disney World had a door that faced the lagoon. The sun was setting on the other side of the lagoon and was streaming into the pavilion at a completely horizontal level. It is odd to see sun that low coming into a building. Usually there is something that gets in the way, another building, trees, walls, hills, etc. But in this place at this time it was filling the room as if it was a flood of water. I stayed there until it set.
The woman behind the counter was having a hard time looking at customers because the sun was right behind them, hitting her in the eyes. I asked her if I could take her photograph and in spite the blinding light, was happy to allow me too. I walked around the room finding other elements and came across the buddha. I didn’t realize it would fit perfectly with her, but I did feel it had the same dimensions. Later I was pretty dumbstruck to find that with virtually no manipulation the two faces matched up perfectly.
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.
The woman had taken our family photo and we had taken a photo of her and her friend. While she was posing for photos I took one as well. I didn’t notice her separation anxiety until I got home.
The Stranger Juxtaposition #10, Arizona, July 2008
The restaurant experience was not indicative of the entire trip. It got much better after this!
I didn’t include the gross guy sleeping at the table next to us, or the stale, greasy smell in the restaurant, or the 4 disgustingly dirty men at another table or the really bad smell in the bathroom or the hair in my wife’s mashed potatoes. My patty melt was good though.
I brought my 88 year old father into the Vietnamese Nail Salon to get his toenails trimmed. He can’t do them anymore and they get REALLY long before he says anything about them.
While I was waiting I noticed this woman getting her nails done. I was particularly drawn to her wide set eyes and asked her if I could take her photograph. I took some photos of her fingers and nails sitting on the towel waiting to be filed.
Later when I was doing the collage of her face photos I connected the finger photos and kept seeing them as little wings. I envisioned her wanting to fly from the Vietnamese Nail Salon to New York or Dallas, to BE somewhere, to fly to the top, to be seen gliding and flying and rolling across the sky.
I later came across her at the local Target where she is a co-worker of my daughter. She didn’t remember me taking the photos at all.
