Month: June 2024

The whole process was new to me. Models, cameras….the idea of ART itself. I've never much thought about art, in fact, outside of knowing it when I saw it. Opinion I can manage. But having reconstructive surgery on both eyes in my late-40's opened up the world. Jordan River (IG @JordanRiverMuse — do look her up!) was one of the first art models I met in Portland, OR. She was on a big upward launch and had just worked with a couple photographers with whom I was terribly impressed. To say that I was a bit intimidated to work with her is an understatement. Our general predilections seemed a bit removed from each other through the first few shoots and it wasn't until a year or so later that we started to click (entirely on my end, I imagine — I was technically and compositionally challenged by some fun-yet-stupid ideas I was exploring early on).

As I've begun to dig deeper into editing, I've been having fun going back to old shoots and I will say that it's a huge learning experience. A lot of the time I can now SEE the model attempting to lead me in a particular direction while I blunder off to do something that's not going to work. At my best, I'd hope that I now understand these cues in the moment!

This particular set of images seems to work so well in their context and I just love the drawn out feel of the space on either side of Jordan. If I had the budget to print everything, these would be my next printing project — I think they'd do well on metal, about 3' wide. LOL. My home is stuffed with art and too much of it is my own. It leads me to wonder if these images have any appeal outside my own enjoyment of the experience? Could they find a home somewhere?

Daria