(no subject)
I won't be handing control of my emotions over to some guy again in a hurry. Sometimes I wonder if all dating is harmful. After a certain point, breaking up seems to me like a divorce -- an admission of failure, taking the easy way out, being too lazy to try, to stretch yourself just that little bit farther to make it work. The question becomes, when are you stretching yourself so far that you're compromising on being true to yourself in order to be true to that person. To what degree is it healthy to change yourself in order to stay with someone? How much do you compromise on essentials because the nonessentials are warm & fuzzy? How far is too far to stretch?
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Had lots of fun with Shell today: mini-photoshoot, to get some idea of what we were looking for in the big one. Crowgirl, I just took the pictures, which is every bit as much fun as being the one dressing up and doing the posing. It's creating, in a less abstract way than modeling is -- but the whole process is such a give and take, very instinctive and instantaneous. You have to be viewing your subject from all possible angles at once, up down left right close faraway, trying to see which is going to capture best the feel of the pose. How to frame it, checking for details in the background, sizing up the potentials of the space you're working with. Kinetic, that's the word for it. I wasn't quite sure the exact mood and look she was going for, so we experimented with everything from impish to bitter to fierce to weobegone.
It's amazing seeing the way some faces open to the camera. Shell has a wonderfully expressive, mobile face -- the EYES!! -- that just kind of blossoms up to the camera. Except, of course, the other 30% of the pictures where she looks stoned.
I can't wait for the Big Shoot. Real lighting & all. Might be postponed until January, what with the frantic holiday schedules of everyone. I'm thinking of doing Showgirl, as Plaid will take a lot more work (not to mention makeup--and what to do for hair? You see...) although its quirkiness is milk & honey to my soul. Showgirl is more girly, and potentially more showoffy & glamorous. Although I think I'd like to show her more tired and wan -- do a few of the traditional glamour queen ones, but just keep deconstructing (her persona flickering as the mask of makeup comes off), in a coherent series, maybe five or six you could put next to each other to tell her story. The first ones regal, glamorous, careful projection of an image -- but then captured moments, downcast eyes and sad mouth glimpsed over her shoulder in the mirror as she putters through her makeup ritual. That kind of thing.
(The first shots all head-on, posed, she knows they're being taken. The later ones stolen, unobserved, intruding into privacy, all from over her shoulder, in profile, odd angles.)
We need to get Steph in something really nuts next time, though, where she's covered up enough by some wild costume that she gets that psychic release everyone has when they put on a literal mask, and then when she sees how fabulous she looks in those, she'll be able to cut loose more and just play around in the rest of the photos.
*
Had lots of fun with Shell today: mini-photoshoot, to get some idea of what we were looking for in the big one. Crowgirl, I just took the pictures, which is every bit as much fun as being the one dressing up and doing the posing. It's creating, in a less abstract way than modeling is -- but the whole process is such a give and take, very instinctive and instantaneous. You have to be viewing your subject from all possible angles at once, up down left right close faraway, trying to see which is going to capture best the feel of the pose. How to frame it, checking for details in the background, sizing up the potentials of the space you're working with. Kinetic, that's the word for it. I wasn't quite sure the exact mood and look she was going for, so we experimented with everything from impish to bitter to fierce to weobegone.
It's amazing seeing the way some faces open to the camera. Shell has a wonderfully expressive, mobile face -- the EYES!! -- that just kind of blossoms up to the camera. Except, of course, the other 30% of the pictures where she looks stoned.
I can't wait for the Big Shoot. Real lighting & all. Might be postponed until January, what with the frantic holiday schedules of everyone. I'm thinking of doing Showgirl, as Plaid will take a lot more work (not to mention makeup--and what to do for hair? You see...) although its quirkiness is milk & honey to my soul. Showgirl is more girly, and potentially more showoffy & glamorous. Although I think I'd like to show her more tired and wan -- do a few of the traditional glamour queen ones, but just keep deconstructing (her persona flickering as the mask of makeup comes off), in a coherent series, maybe five or six you could put next to each other to tell her story. The first ones regal, glamorous, careful projection of an image -- but then captured moments, downcast eyes and sad mouth glimpsed over her shoulder in the mirror as she putters through her makeup ritual. That kind of thing.
(The first shots all head-on, posed, she knows they're being taken. The later ones stolen, unobserved, intruding into privacy, all from over her shoulder, in profile, odd angles.)
We need to get Steph in something really nuts next time, though, where she's covered up enough by some wild costume that she gets that psychic release everyone has when they put on a literal mask, and then when she sees how fabulous she looks in those, she'll be able to cut loose more and just play around in the rest of the photos.