It's hard to know where to begin. Ten years ago I jumped headlong into photography and was immediately hooked on the experience. It brought forward my own past of road trips and camping and Burning Man and creativity. It brought me a new community passionate about experiences and art. I immediately gravitated toward the touring art model tribe and fell in love with their quirks and foibles. Each of them is the sort of person I want to meet and go on a bar crawl with. Each of them, to be frank, are the type of person I am most attracted to.
So here we are ten years later. A lot of adventures, a lot of exploration, a lot of failure and the occasional flashes of connection. I am NOT the greatest photographer in the world — far from it. But I do manage to create moments of intimacy and connection that I am damned proud to show the world. I'm not sure that anyone can ask for more. And after a decade I am mulling how to handle the body of work that I've built and how to move forward with model photography. Yes, I went through the "do I want to fall in love with them" phase. Yes, I went through the "did she fall in love with me" phase. Honestly, my best work is when I DO fall in love with my model. And also when I have the maturity and growth to use that attraction to create something wonderful instead of internalizing it. I assume that I am simply learning the same thing that every muse-oriented artist has learned throughout the centuries.
I woke early yesterday to a November wind prying around the house. I did all the usual things of getting up and making some hot tea and trying to settle things so that I could go back to sleep. What I wound up actually DOING was re-editing a trip with Zoe West to the High Desert of Oregon two years ago and I'm totally in love with the images. Zoe is absolutely amazing to hang with and I look forward to our next road trip together. The moments that we collected didn't seem so impactful at the time (I was, honestly, a little disappointed that I hadn't managed more scouting — what I had gotten done was mainly to cross things OFF my destination list). But as I look back it gains impact. Zoe is beautiful, to be sure, but her personality-forward sexuality is exactly the kind of thing that has always attracted me and THAT makes her easy to connect with. She knows how to trigger the fantasy but she goes beyond "pretty" to be engaging on multiple levels.
And it wouldn't be a trip with Zoe without unseasonable temperatures! We have connected in cities across the nation and always been blindsided by colder-than-expected temps. This was no exception. Tip o'the hat to Zoe for being a trooper, requiring only coffee and whiskey to step into the world and be more than expected. Thanks, Zoe.
