The Observed and the Observer
The Focused Truth
I saw her every day and what stood out about her was her hair. She pulled it back
tight against her head into a bun. I didn’t know what her hair was like actually,
beyond that it was brown. Because her hair was somewhat out of the picture I was
able to see her bone structure very well. She had a great neck and skull, elegant
and regal.
When I asked her if I could take some photos of her I explained those things to her.
She was surprised since she said she only put her hair up out of convenience and
didn’t really think it made her look all that great.
When the next school year came around after a summer off (she was a student) I
noticed for the first time she was wearing her hair down quite often. It was very
long and curly/wavy, almost half way down her back. I asked her why she had decided
to wear it down more and she said she had been getting bad headaches. She went to
the doctor for them and found out it was likely from pulling her hair too tight into
the bun every day!
One Person’s Truth is Another Person’s Truth
She wasn’t sure what the photos were going to turn out like, and either was I. I
loved the light in the lobby where I worked and this student happened by one morning
as the sun reflected off the granite floor.
I liked her red complexion but when I worked half the collage up in black and white
and took out 2 of the 3 channels I also loved the porcelain look of her skin. This
got me thinking about how others might perceive her in different ways; red, white,
porcelain, ruddy, however, her perception of her self, her truth is the same no
matter who she is in front of. That is how I came upon the title for this piece.
It is in the ‘Truths and Things I Made Up About This Woman’ series, even with the
variant title.
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.
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.
The Texture of the Truth Beautiful
Day after day I saw a new addition being built about two miles away from our house.
The houses looked interesting, as much as a suburban tract house can. Finally a sign
appeared showing an open house so I went to check it out.
The woman showing the house was tall and willowy with a decided stylish side to her.
She showed me around and we got in a conversation about how she ended up selling real
estate and her background as a model. We went out onto the little front porch and as
we did so the light illuminated her face in a wonderful way. That clinched the deal
for me and I asked her if she would be willing to let me take some photos of her.
She agreed and that was that.
In the end, after many renditions and much more complicated collage efforts I kept
coming back to the beautiful detail of her skin in that light. The color was
fantastic but so was the texture all by itself so I landed on the monochrome/color
diptych as a way of showing off both those elements.
The Cake Seller – The Stranger Juxtaposition #7
This is an imagined story about the cake seller at the outlet mall with the incredible eyes and the cake she was selling and the TV image of the flamenco dancer that I shot in the Bose store demo movie in the small dark theatre where they showed off their sound systems which I did not buy but I got a number of shots of the screen that I liked and then realized how they fit and imagined a story of love.
We Saw Beautiful – Colorado Post Card #7
Another in my postcard series, #7 from our Colorado road trip in the summer of 2007. There was a great trail close to the home where we were staying and I took a hike on my own just for the purposes of photography. When I do something like that I often am not looking for a single shot (though I find those of course) but I am looking for pieces, for moments, etc. that will be part of the raw material for a collage. So in that case I am not worrying always about composition or lighting or a complete image. I am finding the essence of a place or a person and recording it.
In this case the trees had the knots in the shapes of eyes everywhere I turned, flowers were abundant and the creeks had the most amazing light playing on them. The final connection came for me when I saw this woman and her wonderful dog running on the path. The dog was protective and turned to scrutinize me, making sure I wasn’t a threat. The eyes of the dog were compelling and I loved the juxtaposition between the tree eyes and the real eyes.
The Dream and the Dreamer
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.
The Beauty Queen of Starbucks
I met these three women at a Starbucks in Phoenix, Arizona, September, 05. The one with the head restraint was a jokster, having lots of fun, flirting and talking to everyone. I had to negotiate between them all to get my coffee then to use the creamers where they are standing.
She gave me lots of grief about my BIG camera being in the way and ribbing me that I probably just had it with me to impress women but didn’t really take any photos with it! When I asked her if I could take a photo she said ‘You need to tell everyone who sees it I really truly use to be a beauty queen!” I told her I would and so world, here is the Starbuck’s Beauty Queen of 2005!