What I do for fun

While song is most charming, theatre is the soul at its most intriguing guise.

Make love to the camera

I did six photo shoots today. One photo shoot sucks your soul. Six pretty much make you god’s whore. I always felt a good portrait session was a lot like a good fuck. You warm them up, you encourage them into a kind of pare and slowly you start directing them, start reading them, start manipulating them, then lure out their inner soul to the surface, then you delve right into the person. By the end you can read each other’s mind, they know exactly what you want them to do by the most simple command, and they comply, because its all good. And then it’s over. You take each other’s email address, promise to keep in contact, and they leave feeling great, but a little empty inside; a little robbed. Me? I feel tired, fulfilled, at peace, until the next stirring.

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I have less than 10 name cards left, including the one I’m using as a bookmark in Celine’s “Castle To Castle”. Running out of name cards is always an exciting time, because it means you need to make more, which means you need to do something even cooler than the last batch. Our new cards should be ready in the next day or two. Let me tell you about them. The front side is printed on a material that resembles, and feels like, suede. It’s a very expensive paper but it’s worth it. We have 6 versions of the front, each has a different pattern based on ink bleeding into watercolour paper. There will also be a debossed butterfly stamped into the front. The back is a textured paper, something like really gaudy wallpaper, with an exquisite, etched pattern on glossy card. It’s supposed to be unnerving, the trashy flashiness of the back, next to the natural elegance of the front. I think I fucked the back up though (these are 2 of the 6 versions of the front, by the way). The back looks too hideous, like a neon popsicle that has melted into pure sugar.
I’ve put this blog address on some of the cards. Partly to push myself to draw more, and partly because we’ve got a few jobs because of this blog, weirdly enough. Sometime my clients tell me “I was reading your blog yesterday,” and I assume they are going to say “and I think we won’t be doing any more business with you.” But they usually say something like “I didn’t know you were so odd, can you redesign something for us please?” It feels a little wrong, like the time I had a partially nude girl on my name card and I walked on to the exit ramp at a press conference and forced the president of Mitsubishi to take a card. It all happened so fast, the security didn’t know what to do, and I was back in the press section in a flash after he took it, looking completely confused. He never called me, but it all made sense at the time.
Well, we soldier on, I suppose.

Exposed, sort of

Being a portrait photographer has certain advantages, for example, when you need a new passport photo taken and you want it to be just right. I devoted last Saturday to this. I started pretty much as I usually look (except that I just dyed my hair black). Not satisfied with my natural state, I put on a suit. Still not happy, I combed my hair. Then came a little foundation, then mascara, then I darkened my eyebrows a little, then I added a tie. It looked pretty good, so I put on my best Mickey Rourke half jolly / half don’t-give-a-fuck smile, and shot away. Afterwards I smoothed my complexion a little on the computer, made my colour a little more healthy, removed the sty in my eye and softened the lines around my eyes. Smashing. I couldn’t get rid of the ‘lazy-eye’ that seems to set in after a few weeks of skipping sleep, but I figured that added to the persona somehow. I really started to like the new me. I realize it doesn’t actually represent me very well, which may not be entirely appropriate, as it is a passport photo, but hell, why limit yourself to, well, yourself?

I realised, also, my face has 2 completly different sides. I've seen this when i draw, but everything's exagerrated when i draw. Now I really see it though, if you draw a line down the centre of my face the left and the right seem to be doing their own, separate thing. I wonder if this is common.

Blind Sycophancy

I'll let you into one of my own trade secrets. When I do portrait photographs, and the sitter arrives, I always look delighted when I open the door and see them for the first time. It's a concocted reaction to seeing them and it sets the tone for the entire session. I don't mind revealing this because I think it's a good thing. This person is paying me to get a good image, and this means I need to manipulate them into smiling and projecting whatever beautiful things they are holding inside themselves out onto their faces.
I do genuinely adore almost everyone who poses for me. In fact, I pretty much adore all the masses of people I pass on the street every day. I wish I could meet them all and photograph them.

On the street in the morning I always see little, fat schoolgirls waiting for the bus by themselves. They're less popular and more introverted. They don't have many people who are always pleased to see them and subsequently they speak softly and look at the pavement when they walk. It's a shame to see a human, just as fascinating as all the others, restrained and silenced. Don't get me wrong, I'm an impassioned, slaved dog for any pretty face that passes by; but it doesn't stop there. People are strange, amazing ... wondrous. I love everyone.