The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,600 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 43 trips to carry that many people.
Sometime in July, I think, I started working with an artist, who has since become a good friend (and fellow Chicago-to-New York transplant), Gen Pop. He draws neat things, and at some point, I convinced him to draw a picture of me with a badger, which I am adopting as my mascot, because I sure do love badgering people about silly things like the life-changing influence of positive thinking. If I could only convince myself….
Anyway. The reference shot was taken from an old self-portrait series, featuring my adorable angry-looking cat.
Lo! Miss kitty is replaced with this terrifying badger!
And now, more pictures that I participated in.
Awesome, no? Yes.
Gen Pop is currently working on illustrating a zombie story. I’m providing reference material for the zombie-in-making, which is apt because, should the Zombie Apocalypse come into effect, my plan is to become a zombie and to start eating brainz.
I’m not a traveling model. Actually, I’m not much of a traveler at all, which is sad on more levels than I care to discuss. Now, I understand that states in the northern part of the East Coast are geographically smaller and demographically condensed, and it is therefore not very difficult to go from state to state, but I’m easily impressed, so my first trip to Connecticut was fairly exciting. Simple joys…
Anyway, I went up there a a few weeks ago to work with a photographer based in Stamford. His art nude work can be seen here. The shoot itself was pretty straightforward: simple and clean art nudes. Though, if I think about it (and I do like to think), it’s not really that simple. I tend to define art modeling as not fitting into any other genre of people picture taking. Sometimes, it feels like a stripping away of external concepts and influences. In a studio shoot with minimal props, no clothing or scenery, it can be a little disorienting to think of what to do with yourself, because you are all there is. Or not do, I guess. Then again, I have a knack for being internally awkward while being outwardly composed. Judge for yourself:
This was also one of the most organized and professional shoots that I’ve had. All details were confirmed, all expectations laid out, communication was clear and consistent. We had a bit of a snafu over train times, which was easily resolved with a phone call. Everything else went smoothly because of the planning and intent of the photographer. As a model with my fair share of flakes and disappointments, this was pretty refreshing.
Plus, I got cookies. I love cookies.
Once again, I’m behind on my posting. Or maybe I will be soon, if I put this off much longer. I’ve had a number of pretty great shoots lately, great for different reasons, which I should be all sorts of excited to share. The problem is that I wedge these photographic endeavors into a busy and slightly obsessive music schedule, and I often run out of energy to actually post about it all.
First up is a shoot I did a while ago with a fashion photographer, Suguru Konishi. It was a very pleasant shoot, and I awaited the results with a fair amount of anticipation. When I got them, however, I was sent into a brief and very silly bit of panic. When I posted two of the three images on my ModelMayhem page, it suddenly hit me that both images have the exact same arm position. And then, I kept seeing the same arm pop up all over my portfolio. Too much sameness! I ended up switching out one of the images for another. Here are all three images, which I’m quite pleased with:
It’s a tough thing, sometimes, to not use an image that you really like because you know that it just doesn’t add the right stuff to your portfolio. The bottom two images are my favorite, but in the context of the rest of my portfolio, they are just too similar. Of course, switching out the middle image for the top one doesn’t really diminish the quality in this case; the are both images I’m happy with. But I’m definitely more attached to the middle one.
All this has made me think more about how I pose. I’ve started to feel like my well of poses is starting to run a little dry. Part of that is due to the fact that photographers will often ask for redundant poses, but most of it has more to do with a bit of a disassociation I’ve been feeling lately with my own body. Time to return to my yoga practice and to reconnect with myself, I think.
In a way, working on our Van Dyke brownprints was easier than the cyanotypes: I was no longer blundering around the darkroom like a dazed and confused idiot, and I could navigate around PhotoShop without constant fear of spontaneous combustion. The actual printing process, however, involved a lot more guesswork and experimentation. We used a seemingly endless array of toners, fixers, and bleaches in the process and ultimately ran out of time. It was a little exasperating, actually. The prints took on a beautiful, rich brown tone when wet, and dried to a washed out and greyish sort of mud color when dry.
For this project, I did a series of cliché verres using feathers plucked out of my pillow. Initially, I aimed to use internegatives for this set, placing the feathers into an enlarger, and projecting the enlarged images directly onto 4×5 film. Unfortunately, because the feathers are so transparent, the film came out too dense, so I ended up scanning the images, and adjusting them to print as the same kind of digital negative I used for the cyanotypes.
I used four internegatives, out of which I got eight images: a pair of positive and negative prints for each feather pattern. One of those pairs was featured at Harold Washington College’s juried art shot over the summer.
It makes me so very sad not knowing when I’ll get to play at being photographer again. I miss spending time in the darkroom. I miss the frustration and the satisfaction of printing my own work. Hopefully, I will get a chance to expand on the tiny bit of knowledge and experience I have. Given the chance, I know that, with time and practice, I can get better results.
The last photography class I took was a course focusing on alternative processes. It nearly drove me insane. I had little to no idea what was going for about the first half of the semester.
We started off learning how to make digital negatives. I was using outtakes from an old roll of film, so it involved scanning, editing, test printing, re-scanning, editing again, printing on transparency, testing in the the darkroom, scanning again, adjusting, and so on. Right up until we actually got to our final prints, I had little idea what each step was for. Actually, I felt a little idiotic most of the time. Apparently, if I’m learning new and confusing material, all previous knowledge and experience just drains out of my brain.
But eventually, after weeks and weeks of futzing around in the computer lab, never once stepping into the dark room, we were ready to start with out first process: cyanotypes. I tried a couple of different ideas, but ended out sticking mostly to the film that I’d shot at Lake Michigan for a set of self-portraits the semester prior.
I also tried a set using natural light, which mostly failed, except for this one image of various citrus fruit:
Since my last post in June, a lot of things have happened. Namely, I’ve moved to New York and started music school (which is awesome, by the way). The indirect result of this has been a renewal of my modeling. Now that I’m in a new market, I am attracting a lot more offers, and more jobs. In turn, it has rejuvenated my desire to continue modeling. I’ve been meaning to post the last bits of my own photographing endeavors for a while, which I will do soon. Sadly, as I no longer have access to a darkroom, it will be the last of my own picture-taking and picture-making for a long time. Tonight, however, I will post the results from my first New York shoot.
I worked with Rebecca Lawrence (for you non-MM people, here is her Facebook page), a photographer and talented model, soon after settling into my new place here. It was an excellent way to kick off my NY photo-adventure. For one thing, I don’t really get to work with female photographers all that often, which is a shame. And these images have little to no editing, which I like. I’m wearing make-up, but in general, the more natural the image the happier I am. That might have more to do with my laziness than anything, though Plus, the girl provided the fastest turn around time ever. I got 50 images the very next day!
Here are some of my favorites from that day:
Now that I have these posted, I am reminded why I have this blog to begin with. 10 images is a lot to get back from one shoot (though, I’ve gotten over 150 on some occasions), but no matter how many I get, it’s almost always more than I can use in my portfolio. And frankly, I like showing off the stuff I do with all the very talented people I’ve worked with. It’s a privilege.
