Door with Woman Coming Through It

She was standing in the back of the vintage store, trying to step out of her closet into the real world. She had found her style, her look but she was still tentative about stepping into the limelight, about getting attention for who she was. But she was halfway out and you can't get all the way out without first going half way. I knew she would make it eventually.

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Portrait with Smile and Eyebrows in a Store

She sold me the paper coasters in Tucson and had a trucker hat on and I asked if I could take her photo but without it on and she said she was vain but she would let me and I am glad she took the hat off because her eyes were cool.

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Portrait of RM with Heat

The brilliance of the sun on her and the chair and the piercing nature of her look were so intense that not only was it hard for her to open her eyes, it was hard for me to not be blinded while taking the photo.

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Portrait of CS With a Window Behind Me

The Model CS. I scouted out this area before she was done working so I knew I wanted to capture someone's face with the beautiful light in the tall windows behind me. She obliged.

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Homesick

She was sitting across from me as I was holding down the fort waiting for our daughter while my unwife went browsing the little stores on 4th Avenue in Tucson. Turns out she was acquaintances with my daughter. I told her we were hoping her friends would watch out for her since we didn't live in Tucson and she said she would, but was leaving to move back home to Oregon in three weeks.



She had moved to Tucson to become independent and discover new things, just develop on her own, which she had done for 6 months. But she was homesick for family and felt that the lack of structure to her life in Tucson, without the familiar obligations and connections was very hard. Her Uncle was in the hospital and she felt bad not being able to visit him.

She is a good and strong young woman, I think she will have a great life.

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Portrait in Reflected Light

She was at the front desk, then in the gallery as I looked at the exhibition. We got into a long discussion about the images in the show and that led to a discussion about my work which led to me asking her if she wanted to create some art with me which led to her saying yes which led us outside to take some photos I will use in a collage and also some straight portraits, of which this is one.

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She was the saleswoman at the Vintage Clothing Store who was also a photographer and an artist and knew about the cool show at the Center for Creative Photography and she was right, it was great.



I loved her great retro style with the bobbed hairdo and the 'little house on the prairie' dress. Her face was serious but not morose, filled with intelligence and just a bit of world weariness. She was a student and had a lot of study on her plate.

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The Application

I love taking photos of models getting ready for a shoot, it is almost more interesting and fun than the shoot itself sometimes.



She had been running around off-set wondering where her lip gloss was, so when she found it I followed her into the kitchen at the auto repair shop/photography studio and took some shots as she put it on.

We were having a photo shoot in an auto repair garage that adjoins the photography studio. We had someone in who was giving a tutorial on studio lighting. At one point he asked this model to do some poses on a divan/couch with her shirt pulled up, exposing her abs and belly button. I could tell she was a bit uncomfortable with that and was worried about what her parents would think, especially her father. The poses weren't exploitive as such, but they were on the cheesy side and I could tell she was a bit awkward about it.

Turns out she has the same name as one of my daughters and graduated from the same high school, a few years later. We talked a bit about her going to college and what she wanted to do. She seemed to like the photos I took off-set. I will have to ask her what she thought about the ones I mentioned above.

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Moves and Looks

Triptych of three studio shots with the Model A. From the first series with my new camera, the Panasonic G1.

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Composition with Fire Truck in the Fall

First series taken with my new camera, the Panasonic G1. I was doing a shoot in my home and we had her sillhouetted against the window when we realized there was a fire truck in the lonely subdivision on the other side of the park. I asked her to go outside and look at the truck through the top of a broken picket in the back fence. She was a trooper and did so, even though it was windy and cold! I love the pose and the reverse voyeur feeling of the nude looking over the fence at the firement.

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Composition with Dirty Work

From a shoot over the summer in a auto repair shop. I didn't particularly like this in color and didn't revisit it until November. I like the view from above in this one. It gives a combination of sexiness and dirty work that has the underlying question of what sort of work is dirty, is she the dirty one because of her outfit, or is the photo dirty, is the place dirty?

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The Young Equestrian

This week will be a number of photos from an Equestrian competition I photographed in Inola, OK.



This is a pretty straight portrait. I waited for her in the shade of the arena knowing that the very bright sunlight behind me would make for a great glow on her face and in her eyes.

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Backs and Straps at the State Fair #1

One of the best aspects of the State Fair for me is the plethora of fantastic backs and straps. The design combinations are never ending.



I liked this one in particular because of the bright lime green X across the middle of her back.

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What I think she Thought

A variation on my 'Truths and Things I Made Up About This Woman' series.

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The Cheerleader at the State Fair in the Casino Set of the Creek Indians

I was at the Tulsa State Fair and came across this odd scene of a cheerleader in a casino display for the Creek Indian Nation. I see a lot of odd things at the fair, no doubt. But she was one of the most out of place! I asked her if I could take her picture and she immediately posed in this wonderfully unselfconscious way. She was happy and at peace with who she was and what she was doing.



When I posted the photo on my flickr site I immediately got a comment from someone who said she knew the woman from high school and that she was one of the most beautiful and sweetest people she ever met. I loved hearing that about her.

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Disney Collage - Trinity

We went to the Disney Cove or something like that where we ate at the Hardrock Cafe and wandered the streets looking at stores, etc.

I found a number of images to collect while there and the 'alter' image came to mind due to the 3 lights and symmetry that I saw.

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Disney Collage - The Queen of Morocco

She was kind and sweet, with big eyes and beautiful skin. She was from the middle of Morocco, in America to work and learn at Disney World as part of an advanced management program. She kindly let me take her photograph in the afternoon light.

Orlando, Florida February 2007

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Disney Collage - Cultural Swimming Lesson

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People of Color #5 - Woman Facing a Snake

The last day of my week long series on 'People of Color'. Give feedback and tell me what you thought of the series and which series has really stood out over the last few months.

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People of Color #4 - Portrait with Mask and Sunburn

Day four of my week long series on 'People of Color'. A regular customer of mine at the restaurant where I worked for many years. I didn't mean it to be such a flat, graphic image but something about the lines on the sheet and pillow started me in that direction and it slowly built from there. It wasn't stylistically consistent with my other work at the time, but the subject matter and the stripes definitely were.

I don't know if she ever saw this drawing or not actually.

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