A little mushroom tea to while away the afternoon turned out to be a little stronger than I anticipated and may have effected these edits….
The models here span a decade in time but all share my affection for their verve and style. I had been in a relationship that cut me off from friendships with women and in a way my journey through photography has been a means to re-form friendships at a time in life when my previous circles have drifted away from adventure and spontaneity. No dis on them — not many of us are restless enough to continue the search decade after decade and I'd note that I've fallen into it to my own detriment. Generally, I spent my 20's in the music scene and had a particular group of friends who have stayed together as an orbit ever since. My 30's were a dive into Burning Man and that brought a new and wonderful circle of friends. Our 40's are when most of those folks realized they had to focus on careers and jobs (my day job in concert production and events keeps a certain unpredictability that I enjoy). People have families and they do stop going out on aimless road trips about that point! I was dealing with a jealous girlfriend through my 40's and it took awhile to realize that I was being cut off from my friends.
There was a breakup in my 30's, deeply crushing in its sense of permanent loss, that left me really feeling unable to speak to, well, ANYONE but especially to women. In a fit of brilliant desperation, I called a dozen friends and asked if I could "borrow" their wives for on evening. At the time there was a rooftop restaurant in Portland that sat in a sort of "end of Fight Club" vista and was rarely busy on a Thursday night so I spent the entire Spring bringing a series of beautiful women to dinner. I practiced speaking to women in a comfortable setting. I was taking them home to my friend, ffs, and they KNEW me so it wasn't as if there was any kind of pressure to "be someone". After six or seven weeks of this, the maitre d'hotel could not suppress his curiosity and when my "date" went to the bathroom approached me. A quick "how is everything this evening" became a more blunt and definitely less formal "dude, are you shooting porn? You're here every week with these amazing women!" which, as I think back, sort of presupposes that I was dating above my station? LOL. I told him and he really seemed to be in awe of my solution. I hope he's used the idea. We all need it at some point.
Fast-forward a dozen years and here was another devastating breakup, the first where someone had cheated on me. I hear she's a registered Republican now, so the whole "doing what you accuse others of" definitely fits. She had been a model and while my immediate origin story into photography isn't ALL about revenge I will admit that revenge was on my mind initially. It is NOT, however, enough to sustain a practice and the first shoot with a person knocked sense into me.
I didn't know where to find models and I had a technique or approach in mind so I put an ad on Craiglist and went to meet the first respondent with glamorous visions dancing in my head. And then she rolled into the restaurant across from my studio…in a wheelchair. Let there be no mistake — I instantly realized that this woman had far bigger cajones than I would ever possess and I knew that I had to really WORK to give her a good experience. In a way it sorta set the tone for my future relationships in photography — the bravery and boldness of models being the immediate emotional touchstone for everything.
Everyone has preferences in their models. I see photographers whose models are all improbably large-breasted or have a predisposition to sticking their tongues out a la Miley Cyrus. The brat look. I certainly have physical preferences but what I look for most is a creative push to do something different, to take an idea and run with it as an actor, to personify it and breathe into the moment. And working with models repeatedly deepens that conversation. Each of these women has stepped into the moment you see whole-heartedly.
