new world forming, picturesque in it's dance

The Fall is definitely coming on fast. After such a brutal summer, I am so primed to fall right into the autumn.  I already have some interesting things going. For some people, the world narrows down to the person that they are interested by. I am not one of those people. For me it seems like the world opens up and takes on my curiosity with renewed vigor.

 I have found that I am not feeling as nostalgic as I usually do when the Fall girl wakes up. For the most part, I am just looking forward to the future. I know that I am living in a way that I will want to remember later. So many things are moving for me, or poised on the edge of starting. I am making headway where it counts and everything else is being left by the wayside. Granted I am having to acclimate myself with my new  abbreviated budget, but now that I can actually use my kitchen, it's do-able. I feel like entertaining at home more often as well. I think that I am just over whatever I had been doing for the past few years, and I feel like I have a lot to accomplish. I am definitely finding new ways to network myself for my business, and for my photography. I am finally getting a little more recognition and I am getting more subjects in to sit for me. I am trying to catch them at their most "them". I actually took photos of R passing out in my bed. They are beautiful. He looks hotter in my bed than he does anywhere else. I wanted to capture that. I am debating whether or not to show them to him. I am not sure I am ready for him to see himself the way that I do. I will have to send him one eventually.

  The photo shoot with Anna went beautifully. We ended up staying in my house, but I got some photos of her that were just amazing. We ended up sitting around talking about life and looking through some other photos that I had taken for most of the afternoon. Then I was trying to get ready for the wedding when Boss calls me freaking out because Lucy's hair looked like shit. The other stylist had done something horrific with her hair. Who In Gods Name would let a bride wear her hair down when the service is on the RIVER on an warm and muggy day??? So I packed up my curling irons and made my way downtown. I fixed that miss into a down do that held up against the river wind and loads of dancing, and I did it under five minutes just before we started walking out to the river. Matt and Em were there, and Darlene and I just sort of affixed ourselves to each other because Boss way busy trying to assist with the wrangling of people. At the river, we couldn't see shit, so Dar and I just monkeyed around in the back of the crowd. Luckily the ceremony was fast and I got a few decent photos after. I actually took more of the river than I did the actual wedding. I got a few shots that really count though. When Dar and I finally made it back to the reception hall, the band was playing and it happened to be the Memphis Dawls. I have a ridiculious crush on Holly Cole. I gave her my card and told her that I would love to hang out, or take photos of her sometime. She said that she had seen my work and that she loves it, so we shall see. Then there was Gus's chicken and waffles, and cigarettes. It was perfect. I spotted R's wife(she is beautiful) and was sure to never get near if she was standing with Lucy. I was not taking any chances on being introduced to her, though she was sitting outside when I was leaving. All and all I think it was a rousing success. I was supposed to go to the P&H for the last Oracle and the Mountain show with Boss, but I went home to change and succumbed to exhaustion. She came in and covered me up and told me to stay in bed.

 I think that the weekend went off rather well for a new moon. Now let's see if I can get next weekend to come off as well. Hopefully there will be more sleep involved.

get along kid charlemagne.......

The summer is here with a vengeance, triple digits everyday. If the humidity was a little higher, it would feel like Louisiana did when I was little. It makes me think of the beach. 

  My mother loves the beach. I think it is the only place in the world that she is not worrying herself to death. When I was a very little girl, I would sometimes wake up in the bed in the back of this conversion van that she had in the late seventies. It was painted to look like the ocean, dark blues and the ocean floor, and had amazing array of 8 tracks in it (there was also another van in the early eighties in tones of taupe and brown) She would abruptly decide she wanted to go the beach. Any beach within a few hours drive was fine. All over Florida and Alabama. She would scoop me up out of my bed and put me in the back of the van, and head for the highway. 

  We lived in a multi-generational house where there were my grandparents and aunts and cousins everywhere in the house. My brother was so zoned out watching television, I think he barely noticed that me and my mother were gone. She didn't bother to pack anything, there were towels and tanning oil in the van. She would just buy us some beach clothes and sandals from the vendors on the beach. We would eat seafood in these little shack restaurants. She has always been incredible at eating crab legs (a feat that I have never managed to master) We slept in the queen size fold down bed in the back of the van, with the doors open to the beach. 
  
  I cannot say how many times I went to sleep in my bed to wake up to the sunrise over the ocean framed by the backdoors of an ocean blue van. My mother would carry me on her back like a little monkey in a nightgown until she found a flipflop stand, so I wouldn't burn my feet on the asphalt. I remember her being a whole different person when faced by the sea.

  I think about it now and I think that it was probably very dangerous. To sneak off without telling anyone where you where going, because you didn't know where you were going until you were halfway there. No cell phones, huge stretches of open southern roads in the middle of the night. Sleeping on the beach with a young child in the open like we did. 

  It was a different time, and later she told me that she didn't think that I would remember any of it. 

 I realize that she did it because she couldn't handle life with so many people in her face when she was missing her husband (as he was traveling all the time and then after he died) I think it was more an act of desperation than a holiday. I loved it that I was taken along when she didn't take anyone else along with her. 

  She stopped right about the time I turned ten. I still think of it when I hear certain songs, or see the ocean.

no cause for concern

My birthday this year was incredibly no-frills compared to last year. I couldn't throw a party because I had to work. It was, however, pretty special. I was home sundaynightwashing/dyeingmyhair when deb calls me and tells me to open the front door because the boys are coming over. This could be any number of people. So i unlock the front door and get in the shower to get the dye out of my hair and to consequently turn the bathtub pink. They showed up while I was drying my hair so I didn't hear them sneak in on me and the first person to walk through my door after midnight was Adam. It surprised the shit out of me, and I don't even remember crossing the floor, I was just hugging him.

He and I have a lot of weird history. We haven't spoken in five years. I wasn't sure how I would react if I ever saw him again, But was fully prepared to never meet face to face again. I had a feeling we wouldn't. He had moved across the country and was doing some rather crazy extreme things on snowboards and motorcycles. He's already been to prison once, and has a habit of diving off the deep end of the wild side with fucking relish. He is my family, and I love him more than I can explain, because we have a really deep connection that is a lifelong one. He is my brother. I have two marks from his hands that will go with me to the grave. A tree and a snake. When I met him 13 years ago, I couldn't stand him. He is the only apprentice to The Arts that I have ever taken. He was a natural witch (still is) that I was afraid would do too much damage unless he was educated. It seems like time in nature has tempered him into something even more elemental (which can be considered quite frightening under some conditions and incredibly beautiful under others) We stopped speaking under charged circumstances. I was not sure how I would greet him.... it didn't take long to figure it out.

So behind him were Dugger and T, who are also my family that have moved away and come back. I had been hanging out with them the night before when I was at M's birthday party. I felt like I was just enveloped in family. It made me really miss Heffe and Gabriel. Then Deb came home and Bee and Jason called to say that they were coming over and I had the sense to tell Jason to bring a guitar. They got on famously and we had ourselves a little ho-down. Played Pass the guitar for ages. It was so much fun to play and sing with him again. He used to call me and wake me up at three in the morning when he lived a few houses away on Evergreen, wake me up to tell me to bring my guitar to his house and play some songs with him. I was too wasted to be playing, but my voice was true enough.

He ended up crawling in my bed sometime around sunrise. He still growls a lot and roots around in the bed. I apparently still either keep one hand on his chest or neck, or hook his foot with mine. I remember when I started doing that ages ago. we had decided that I must be trying to keep track of where he is in the bed while I am sleep. When we got up later I took some photos of him and he left to go back to Vicksburg, where he is working at WildmanPaul's tattoo shop. It was so good to see him and just kinda bond for about 12 hours. I got a few really wonderful shots of his hands.

barely worth remembering

I know that it's been ages, but it seems like all I want to do anymore is take photographs. I don't write nearly enough anymore. I feel like half of what is happening is nothing I will want to remember... the other half I want to remember in 12 megapixel detail. I still have mixed feelings about the digital medium, but it certainly has it's advantages. Sometimes I wonder if so much instant gratification and unlimited "film to burn" is ruining my eye for things. I used to ache out shots before I would even begin shooting, but now I feel as though I am developing my skills as a quick-draw artist. I see something that makes me practically vibrate with need to capture it, and  then I try to nonchalantly whip out my fuji and catch the moment before it's gone. It certainly underlines the fleeting nature of the things that I find beautiful.

where you'll find me now....

So much has been going on. The new year has been more than a little eventful. I feel like the whole game has changed and this year is going to be an interesting and bumpy ride. Nonetheless I am getting to much work done. I have had 5 people sit for me so far since New Years. Some of them are people that I am just getting to know, or I should say that in shooting photos of them I am taking a crash course in getting to know them. It's been quite interesting. I feel like I am adding new people to the pot right now and I am glad, I have been needing it.

The First one was this little hipster/gelfling girl that I had photographed previously. She is an incredible model and a total natural at posing for me. She is an illustrator studying at MCA. I desperately want to teach her how to apply makeup. She is a beauty, very ethereal... colt-legged, but in the most charming way. It all comes off beautifully on film (I still say that even though I shoot digital now) and I am loving the work. I gave her a sack of PBR and a bottle of rum for her troubles and it was loads of fun. I need to actually hang out with her more. She is an interesting character.

The second was a rather shy and sweet boy, who is also an illustrator who studied at the same art college I went to way way way back. He was really eager to volunteer for my "project". I love how recent art students still think in projects. I didn't tell him that what I am really doing is trying to improve and see if photography should become what I make my life's work. I know that at music I am mediocre at best (I am too lazy to practice and I cheat) I have pretty much lost my will to paint anymore. Writing is too private for me.... but photos are so much more visceral and immediate and really like a hunt, a way to capture something fleeting and to make the conditions and composition match up to what you are seeing with your minds eye. I was a little worried about loosening him up (I did give him the rest of the PBR leftover from the NYE party), but he was actually a lot of fun, and I got some truly beautiful shots of him. He is a very tall, lanky african american with dreadlocks. I got some shots of him smoking on my roof in silhouette against the sky that I really fell in love with. He looks very regal in a few, which is not a word I would have ever used to describe him. But now I see it, because it's the beauty in him that needed to be found.

You can surprise yourself sometimes, and them as well. One friend I shot late last year was looking at what I took of him and told me that he had never seen himself that way. He said that I was showing him himself. I found that a little disconcerting because it fell on me that when you do what I am doing, you could very well be tinkering with someone's self image. But I digress...

The third subject was a guy that I don't know as well as the first two. Truthfully I have no clue where I know him from. He sent me a friend request on FB a year or two ago and he looked so familiar... I knew that know him from somewhere, but I come up a complete blank when I try to think where or when. The screwy part was that I had the realization that both my roommates were out for the night and I was suddenly alone in my house with a guy that I essentially DO NOT REALLY KNOW..... right about the time he was coming up my stairs. It didn't help that while he was climbing said stairs I saw that this guy is ginormous. He did not look that big in pictures. We are talking biceps the size of my head. I actually had a real fight or flight moment looking up at him in my hallway. It passed and he turned out to be a total sweetheart. He's a personal trainer and a combat medic in the reserves, which explains why he is "built to tear a man in half" (as Trevor would say) He has the sweetest brown eyes, an intriguing nose (despite loathed septum piercing), gorgeous skin, endearingly crooked teeth and an achingly beautiful jawline. I also took a liking to his hands as well. I noticed that he held them in steeple formation most of the time. I had a hell of time shooting him though. A lot of guys who are that muscular are incredibly hard to pose because their body is rather locked up in itself. It makes for rather stiff looking poses. I got a lot of great head shots and quite a few nice ones of his hands. He was very snuggly, he hugged me 3 or 4 times before he left to go to a wake. Another one I will have to get to know better.

The fourth Subject is a Lady I have been meaning to get to know for a while. I met her one day when I went with a friend to take photos at the Ornamental Metal Museum on the river. She is this dark middle eastern beauty with big liquid brown eyes and a long, lean frame that is more muscular than waif-like. She has a Dali tattooed on her back that she never shows to anyone. I immediately wrapped her in a sheet, put her hair up and proceeded to take these really graceful shots of her back with peacock feathers in her hair. I also got a black and white topless (but still wholly decent) shot of her that is so weirdly intimate.... you would never think that it was made by two people who barely know each other.
I also got some shots of her playing my guitar and a few of her hands that I really like. She wants me to come and shoot still life at her house. She had told me beforehand that she was camera shy, but she did a wonderful job taking direction and holding still. She is willing to do it again and I am excited about what I can do with her in a long-line odalisque type pose. It will be gorgeous.

The fifth subject is a rather self assured little creature that is kind of dating one of my room mates. He tells me "I am kinda vain, so will you take my picture?" I said of course and we set it up. He is, in no uncertain terms, hilarious. So hilarious, in fact, that I really hope that my roommate continues to date him. He is a tiny slip of a man that can eat twice his body weight in bacon in one sitting. As expected, most of the shots I got were rather humorous, but I got a few genuinely good ones that reflect his personality, and still manage to be good portraiture. A few that I shot on the roof turned out really well. I still have yet to go over them all.

I have more people getting lined up and I am trying to come up with new ideas, lighting schemes and poses to put them in. I am rather excited about it all. I am afraid it will be slower going since I have gone back to work after a week off for New Year. 2012 is shaping up to interesting indeed.