Sometimes you intentionally make it happen and sometimes it just happens by itself. You look back at three months worth of work and wonder, "Why did I make the last six models stand in a chair looking all detached from reality and odd?"
I don't know, but I did. It occurred to me last night while shooting when I asked the model to stand on the chair, not once, but twice, that I was sort of digging it. I think she did too, as she regaled me with stories of photographers wrapping her in tinsel and caution tape, angel wings - you know the drill - and have her stand in front of a wrinkled bed sheet. She told me that this was different, weird and fun.
I love hearing that. It's not the reason I do what I do, but it sure does make it worthwhile. If I'm not getting the image I want, I'm doing something wrong, and even though it is work, and often grueling, if it's not fun, why bother.
Producing images has many different stages: there's the pre-production of practical details, brainstorming the concept, actually shooting the images and then retouching or "editing" the images. Whether the film has been moving or is a still, I've dealt with this process for my entire adult life. From time to time my "favorite part" flip flops from shooting to planning. From planning to retouching. From retouching to planning. I've certainly gotten bogged down in the retouching where I dreaded the mechanical aspect of it or just hated what sitting in a chair for four straight days was doing to my lower back. There have also been times where I was, in my mind, unprepared for a shoot and felt that anxiety going into it. Shooting is always fun as there is a creative seratonin and adrenaline rush for me. I crash after a shoot. Or I'm wound up wide awake into the wee hours of the night.
Today is a retouching day. It's also a "provide the IRS with your business income and loss for the last three months" day. Probably time to pay that big NYS tax bill.
Seems as though I've got a chair thing going on...
Up and coming porn star, Lux Kassidy, perching on her $900 a night chair in NYC last night.
1 comment:
The key is to turn the unintentional series into an intentional series.
I have done that a few times and it works well. I had forgotten about my jumping shots but I am back to those again.
Years from now those series will be worth the time spent. Actually, they are worth it now.
I am retouching all day today also. Taking a break now. Finishing the Brittany glam shots so I can start fishing them to magazines.
Would be nice to be able to afford to farm that stuff out!
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