I was at the Tulsa State Fair and came across this odd scene of a cheerleader in a casino display for the Creek Indian Nation. I see a lot of odd things at the fair, no doubt. But she was one of the most out of place! I asked her if I could take her picture and she immediately posed in this wonderfully unselfconscious way. She was happy and at peace with who she was and what she was doing.
The Cheerleader at the State Fair in the Casino Set of the Creek Indians
When I posted the photo on my flickr site I immediately got a comment from someone who said she knew the woman from high school and that she was one of the most beautiful and sweetest people she ever met. I loved hearing that about her.
I like this one because of the simplicity of the statement that I allowed to show through combined with the scary tribal type face image. But I also love it because of personal reasons, the woman is my ex-sister-in-law and she was the model who would be enthusiastic about most anything I would suggest to do, including getting her face painted as seen here. Also the background is a very memorable image from my ex-wife’s house. The blinds would make a beautiful pattern with the sunlight in the late afternoon and there was a hanging stained glass piece in the window that would cast it’s color with the blinds straight lines.
She was waiting for her man, a traveling sportsman, the longest they had been apart, she had a new car, was hoping he would like it, he was tall, buy maybe not tall enough, she goes to school full time and works full time, it’s been hard but she is excited to see him, she was hoping she was in the right place.
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.
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 Cake Seller – The Stranger Juxtaposition #7
The cake seller at the outlet mall and the cake 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 the fit and imagined a story of love.
January 31, 2008
This woman was a customer at my hair salon. I had just got my digital camera a few weeks before and was anxious to try some ideas. She was actually getting her nails done, not her hair. I took some photos of her and the nail lady doing her work then asked her if I could take some close ups of her eyes. We walked outside in the shade (but with a very very bright parking lot right behind me as I faced her. She had the most gorgeous green eyes. I took photos looking straight into each eye so I could just see the side of her head at the same time. I combined the one in front of the right eye with the one in front of the left eye to get this look. I then layered the words, copied the collage onto a new layer and turned it grayscale, then cut out all the grayscale image that did not act as a background for the words. I then spent a great deal of time manipulating her face and eyes to get the color and depth I was looking for.
