Filter - C/Z, NC-17
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My, people come and go so quickly here! - Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz
Filter
by Serai
When the bell over the door to Terrence Miller Artworks sounded, the artist himself was sitting at his scanning station in the studio out back, concentrating on cleaning up the negatives he’d be printing later that evening. Though he still preferred original process for the first run, this new rig helped enormously when it came to fine-tuning and clean-up. It was a bit of a cheat, he was ready to admit, but it produced near-perfect negatives on re-creation, and his final images had shown measurable improvement, so he wasn’t going to quibble over technicalities. He could always go full practical when he wanted to preserve the roughness of pure celluloid, after all. He was wrangling a particularly difficult bit of scratching when Bobby came in. “He’s here,” the younger man whispered, as if trying not to be heard.
“Who’s here?” Terry asked, still mousing. If he could just get this one scratch out, the image would be - well, maybe not perfect...
“That guy that came in yesterday, the one I told you about,” Bobby replied. His tone made Terry look up then. “The one with the binder.”
“Oh, right.” Terry slipped off his tall stool and went over to the one-way installed on the wall shared with the gallery. On the other side it was just one of a small collection of decorative mirrors over the reception desk, quite unobtrusive. Given the nature of his work, however, Terry considered it invaluable. He’d learned the hard way it was best to size visitors up before meeting them. “Go on, take care of him. I’ll be out in a minute.” He watched through the glass as Bobby did his job.
The man who'd come in was quite tall, broad-shouldered and dressed impeccably in black silk and pale cotton, his face weathered and deeply lined. His expression as he examined the work on the gallery walls was impassive, neither enthusiastic nor dismissive, just observant, and with his erect posture and flashing dark eyes, he reminded Terry of one of those great silent trees he'd seen years ago in the Northwest, a sequoia or a Douglas fir. Straight, too, Terry thought, frowning, and wondered why he was here. Bobby hadn’t even been able to get a name out of him when he’d first appeared, and had thought he wouldn’t come back. But here he was, and Terry supposed it was time he found out what the guy wanted. He stepped out to introduce himself.
~~~~*~*~*~~~~
“So what can I do for you, exactly?” The two of them were sitting at Terry’s desk by the door of the studio, Bobby having brought coffee and then retired back to the gallery. The rumored binder was on the desk, padded black filled with negative sleeves, maybe fifty from what Terry could tell. One hand was set on the cover as if protecting it.
“These were sent to me in the mail,” the man began slowly, choosing his words with care. “I‘d like your help in going through them. I suppose you could say I need a neutral eye. I've done some research, and I know you’re one of the few people working in this medium on the East Coast.”
“Actually, there are others,” Terry said, curious. “Amy Rogers in Pittsburgh, and Adolfo Estevez in Miami is doing some interesting work -"
“- but not with your subject matter,” the man finished. There was a slight but awkward pause.
“Ah,” Terry said, finally getting some sense of where this was headed. “So these are -"
“Yes.” The answer was flat, with no room for elaboration. Hm. There was something going on here, something unsaid that he wasn't sure he wanted to know about. His curiosity was piqued, though, so despite the apprehension, Terry continued.
“Are you wanting an appraisal? Because there are people who specialize in that. Or do you just want the pictures printed? What are you looking for?” he asked, keeping his tone casual and businesslike. And then his guest raised his eyes, and refusal became impossible.
~~~~*~*~*~~~~
Terry stretched and looked over at the clock. Three a.m. Jesus, he’d been at this for the past seven hours. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Relaxing, he looked back at the image on his screen. All this technology, yet he ended up at the same place anyway, having to deal with what he’d just seen.
Christ, what have I stepped into here?
The collection had started with random images taken at a high school, it looked like, all of them centering on the same figure - a lanky, dark-haired boy who looked around sixteen or so, not really prominent among the other kids. The pictures had been singled out of rolls of other photos, so the boy hadn’t been the only subject when these shots were taken.
He wasn’t an especially interesting subject either, as far as Terry could see, yet the photographer’s interest became obvious as the pictures progressed. The single negatives gave way to twos and threes, then some full strips. Time passed quickly in these first ten pages, and the initially unremarkable figure changed, going through a rather violent growth spurt that left him half a foot taller than pretty much anyone around him aside from a couple of adults. His expression changed as well, going from lively and typical to more serious and withdrawn. Hardly surprising, the kid must have been in a lot of discomfort from that sudden slam of growth, but he did seem to settle into it, ending up what looked like a couple of years later with an expression of unflappable amusement at the goings-on around him.
It was about here that the photographer, whoever he was, started developing his talent. The earlier photos were technically nice enough but unimpressive, just a few cuts above snapshots. But once the subject had been zeroed in on, the pictures began to show signs of real concentration and even artistry. Inspiration was setting in, and the last of these school shots was a promising set of casual portraits, the boy - young man? he was leaving his teenage years at this point - sitting on a ledge against a brick wall and laughing, a cigarette in the hand he was leaning on. These were really good, and Terry thought he recognized the effect of a blue filter. That light definitely looked like it’d been played with in camera.
The jump from those more public pictures to the next set was pronounced. No more candids. Now the boy sat indoors at a windowseat, shirtless and barefoot, looking down through the window, up at the sky, directly at the cigarette - again - in his hand. And at the photographer, a smile on his face as he flicked ashes, settled his hand on his chest, ran his other hand through his hair. (Whoever cuts his hair should be horsewhipped, Terry thought, though the oddness of the cut did seem to suit him.) The light was quiet, a soft gray, and the surfaces of the boy’s skin, the denim of his jeans, the glass smudged with fingerprints, all shone gently, with just enough contrast to make the images invitingly tactile. At one point the smoke from the cigarette curled in the air between the camera and the subject, framing his face so it emphasized the sparkling eyes and the sardonic twist to the soft lips. Terry was beginning to see what the photographer found so fascinating - the expression that had been detached in public was in private knowing and sensual, with that feel of recent sex that was so hard to pin down, yet unmistakable once you saw it. These were pillow pictures, he felt sure. This boy wasn’t just a subject, he was a lover, and it was at this point that Terry began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. What was going on here? Who was taking these pictures?
The rest of the photos were mostly sex shots, though their quality was more than high enough to escape being porn. Closeups, full body shots, detail pictures, the photographer favoring high contrast shots against dark backgrounds. Some were taken handheld, some with a tripod, but all of them were intense, becoming progressively more involved and emotional. The boy was pictured spread out on a large bed, reflected in a carved standing mirror, leaning against a shower wall as water sprayed onto his neck and chest. One whole roll caught him masturbating, the strain outlining his muscles, the camera in near ecstasy gazing at his hands and face, his belly and legs and cock. In one shot he lay on his side, his face pressed against the pillow beneath him, one eye open and turned back towards the camera as he came, and the heat of that moment, the bright gaze and slack open mouth, a drop of sweat catching the light as it ran over his throat, hit Terry so hard he had to get up and walk away from the screen for a moment to catch his breath.
My god, who took these? he wondered, unsure what to think. There was love and real passion in those pictures, whatever else might be going on. More than anything, he wanted to clear up the ambivalence he felt, because these were possibly the best work of this kind he’d ever seen. Whoever had taken these had true talent, an eye that saw the importance of detail and texture, and knew how to balance them to express deep emotion. He knew he’d be thinking about some of the later shots years from now. It was the kind of stuff that could knock an artist off his game, frankly. Terry wondered why he’d never seen this person’s work before - he couldn’t stay hidden, not with art like this flowing out of his camera. Yet the telltale details of the style were unfamiliar. Whatever the motivations, he felt fairly certain this genius was unknown.
~~~~*~*~*~~~~
A week later, at eleven o’clock, the client sat once again at Terry’s desk, looking through the spiral-bound proofs, four to a page on plain paper, that Terry had printed for him as tests. Terry watched his face for clues, but at first saw only the same impassivity he’d seen before. That began to change as the pictures went from casual candids to the more private shots. Emotions began to flicker in the man’s eyes, his lips pressed together, the pages flipping slower. His hands began to shake, and when he got to the roll where the second form, pale-skinned and slender, began to appear, he stopped and stared at a shot where the two bodies were entwined, mouths pressed open into each other. The second boy’s face was turned away so all that could be seen of it was his jaw and lips, the skin of his torso glowing near white against the darker tones of the first boy’s skin. After a long moment, he turned the page, and the next images made him gasp. He covered his eyes with one hand, and then got up, walking over to the work table. He leaned on the surface, his shoulders shaking. Terry stayed quiet for a moment, letting him have his space, then spoke.
“Did you not know what was in these pictures?” he asked. The answer took time in coming.
“I knew,” the man said quietly, wiping his eyes. “But seeing them is… different. I didn’t expect -" He raised his head and smiled a little. “I guess I thought I could take it.”
Terry considered that. “So where do we go from here? Is there more to this?” he asked.
It turned out there was. If he agreed, Terry would print the pictures and work with them, under one condition: that any resulting images would be kept purely private, no rights of reproduction granted. On that the client was immovable, and Terry acquiesced with a sad thought for the beauty of this art that would be locked away from all other eyes. But now that he saw the man’s emotion, the resemblance between him and the boy in the pictures became plain, and Terry thought the conditions were not so hard to understand. The heartbreak in the man's eyes - was the boy still alive? He would probably never get the full story, though, so after settling the details in order to draw up a contract, Terry finally got up the nerve he needed.
“Mr. Tyler, I know this is a very personal matter, but I feel I have to ask. The boy in those photos is your son, isn't he?” A dry laugh in response surprised him, and the dark eyes flickered with that same amusement.
“No, Mr. Miller,” he replied. “The boy in those photos is not my son. The boy in those photos is me.”
Chapter 20 of High Contrast
Chapter 21
My, people come and go so quickly here! - Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz
Filter
by Serai
When the bell over the door to Terrence Miller Artworks sounded, the artist himself was sitting at his scanning station in the studio out back, concentrating on cleaning up the negatives he’d be printing later that evening. Though he still preferred original process for the first run, this new rig helped enormously when it came to fine-tuning and clean-up. It was a bit of a cheat, he was ready to admit, but it produced near-perfect negatives on re-creation, and his final images had shown measurable improvement, so he wasn’t going to quibble over technicalities. He could always go full practical when he wanted to preserve the roughness of pure celluloid, after all. He was wrangling a particularly difficult bit of scratching when Bobby came in. “He’s here,” the younger man whispered, as if trying not to be heard.
“Who’s here?” Terry asked, still mousing. If he could just get this one scratch out, the image would be - well, maybe not perfect...
“That guy that came in yesterday, the one I told you about,” Bobby replied. His tone made Terry look up then. “The one with the binder.”
“Oh, right.” Terry slipped off his tall stool and went over to the one-way installed on the wall shared with the gallery. On the other side it was just one of a small collection of decorative mirrors over the reception desk, quite unobtrusive. Given the nature of his work, however, Terry considered it invaluable. He’d learned the hard way it was best to size visitors up before meeting them. “Go on, take care of him. I’ll be out in a minute.” He watched through the glass as Bobby did his job.
The man who'd come in was quite tall, broad-shouldered and dressed impeccably in black silk and pale cotton, his face weathered and deeply lined. His expression as he examined the work on the gallery walls was impassive, neither enthusiastic nor dismissive, just observant, and with his erect posture and flashing dark eyes, he reminded Terry of one of those great silent trees he'd seen years ago in the Northwest, a sequoia or a Douglas fir. Straight, too, Terry thought, frowning, and wondered why he was here. Bobby hadn’t even been able to get a name out of him when he’d first appeared, and had thought he wouldn’t come back. But here he was, and Terry supposed it was time he found out what the guy wanted. He stepped out to introduce himself.
~~~~*~*~*~~~~
“So what can I do for you, exactly?” The two of them were sitting at Terry’s desk by the door of the studio, Bobby having brought coffee and then retired back to the gallery. The rumored binder was on the desk, padded black filled with negative sleeves, maybe fifty from what Terry could tell. One hand was set on the cover as if protecting it.
“These were sent to me in the mail,” the man began slowly, choosing his words with care. “I‘d like your help in going through them. I suppose you could say I need a neutral eye. I've done some research, and I know you’re one of the few people working in this medium on the East Coast.”
“Actually, there are others,” Terry said, curious. “Amy Rogers in Pittsburgh, and Adolfo Estevez in Miami is doing some interesting work -"
“- but not with your subject matter,” the man finished. There was a slight but awkward pause.
“Ah,” Terry said, finally getting some sense of where this was headed. “So these are -"
“Yes.” The answer was flat, with no room for elaboration. Hm. There was something going on here, something unsaid that he wasn't sure he wanted to know about. His curiosity was piqued, though, so despite the apprehension, Terry continued.
“Are you wanting an appraisal? Because there are people who specialize in that. Or do you just want the pictures printed? What are you looking for?” he asked, keeping his tone casual and businesslike. And then his guest raised his eyes, and refusal became impossible.
~~~~*~*~*~~~~
Terry stretched and looked over at the clock. Three a.m. Jesus, he’d been at this for the past seven hours. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Relaxing, he looked back at the image on his screen. All this technology, yet he ended up at the same place anyway, having to deal with what he’d just seen.
Christ, what have I stepped into here?
The collection had started with random images taken at a high school, it looked like, all of them centering on the same figure - a lanky, dark-haired boy who looked around sixteen or so, not really prominent among the other kids. The pictures had been singled out of rolls of other photos, so the boy hadn’t been the only subject when these shots were taken.
He wasn’t an especially interesting subject either, as far as Terry could see, yet the photographer’s interest became obvious as the pictures progressed. The single negatives gave way to twos and threes, then some full strips. Time passed quickly in these first ten pages, and the initially unremarkable figure changed, going through a rather violent growth spurt that left him half a foot taller than pretty much anyone around him aside from a couple of adults. His expression changed as well, going from lively and typical to more serious and withdrawn. Hardly surprising, the kid must have been in a lot of discomfort from that sudden slam of growth, but he did seem to settle into it, ending up what looked like a couple of years later with an expression of unflappable amusement at the goings-on around him.
It was about here that the photographer, whoever he was, started developing his talent. The earlier photos were technically nice enough but unimpressive, just a few cuts above snapshots. But once the subject had been zeroed in on, the pictures began to show signs of real concentration and even artistry. Inspiration was setting in, and the last of these school shots was a promising set of casual portraits, the boy - young man? he was leaving his teenage years at this point - sitting on a ledge against a brick wall and laughing, a cigarette in the hand he was leaning on. These were really good, and Terry thought he recognized the effect of a blue filter. That light definitely looked like it’d been played with in camera.
The jump from those more public pictures to the next set was pronounced. No more candids. Now the boy sat indoors at a windowseat, shirtless and barefoot, looking down through the window, up at the sky, directly at the cigarette - again - in his hand. And at the photographer, a smile on his face as he flicked ashes, settled his hand on his chest, ran his other hand through his hair. (Whoever cuts his hair should be horsewhipped, Terry thought, though the oddness of the cut did seem to suit him.) The light was quiet, a soft gray, and the surfaces of the boy’s skin, the denim of his jeans, the glass smudged with fingerprints, all shone gently, with just enough contrast to make the images invitingly tactile. At one point the smoke from the cigarette curled in the air between the camera and the subject, framing his face so it emphasized the sparkling eyes and the sardonic twist to the soft lips. Terry was beginning to see what the photographer found so fascinating - the expression that had been detached in public was in private knowing and sensual, with that feel of recent sex that was so hard to pin down, yet unmistakable once you saw it. These were pillow pictures, he felt sure. This boy wasn’t just a subject, he was a lover, and it was at this point that Terry began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. What was going on here? Who was taking these pictures?
The rest of the photos were mostly sex shots, though their quality was more than high enough to escape being porn. Closeups, full body shots, detail pictures, the photographer favoring high contrast shots against dark backgrounds. Some were taken handheld, some with a tripod, but all of them were intense, becoming progressively more involved and emotional. The boy was pictured spread out on a large bed, reflected in a carved standing mirror, leaning against a shower wall as water sprayed onto his neck and chest. One whole roll caught him masturbating, the strain outlining his muscles, the camera in near ecstasy gazing at his hands and face, his belly and legs and cock. In one shot he lay on his side, his face pressed against the pillow beneath him, one eye open and turned back towards the camera as he came, and the heat of that moment, the bright gaze and slack open mouth, a drop of sweat catching the light as it ran over his throat, hit Terry so hard he had to get up and walk away from the screen for a moment to catch his breath.
My god, who took these? he wondered, unsure what to think. There was love and real passion in those pictures, whatever else might be going on. More than anything, he wanted to clear up the ambivalence he felt, because these were possibly the best work of this kind he’d ever seen. Whoever had taken these had true talent, an eye that saw the importance of detail and texture, and knew how to balance them to express deep emotion. He knew he’d be thinking about some of the later shots years from now. It was the kind of stuff that could knock an artist off his game, frankly. Terry wondered why he’d never seen this person’s work before - he couldn’t stay hidden, not with art like this flowing out of his camera. Yet the telltale details of the style were unfamiliar. Whatever the motivations, he felt fairly certain this genius was unknown.
~~~~*~*~*~~~~
A week later, at eleven o’clock, the client sat once again at Terry’s desk, looking through the spiral-bound proofs, four to a page on plain paper, that Terry had printed for him as tests. Terry watched his face for clues, but at first saw only the same impassivity he’d seen before. That began to change as the pictures went from casual candids to the more private shots. Emotions began to flicker in the man’s eyes, his lips pressed together, the pages flipping slower. His hands began to shake, and when he got to the roll where the second form, pale-skinned and slender, began to appear, he stopped and stared at a shot where the two bodies were entwined, mouths pressed open into each other. The second boy’s face was turned away so all that could be seen of it was his jaw and lips, the skin of his torso glowing near white against the darker tones of the first boy’s skin. After a long moment, he turned the page, and the next images made him gasp. He covered his eyes with one hand, and then got up, walking over to the work table. He leaned on the surface, his shoulders shaking. Terry stayed quiet for a moment, letting him have his space, then spoke.
“Did you not know what was in these pictures?” he asked. The answer took time in coming.
“I knew,” the man said quietly, wiping his eyes. “But seeing them is… different. I didn’t expect -" He raised his head and smiled a little. “I guess I thought I could take it.”
Terry considered that. “So where do we go from here? Is there more to this?” he asked.
It turned out there was. If he agreed, Terry would print the pictures and work with them, under one condition: that any resulting images would be kept purely private, no rights of reproduction granted. On that the client was immovable, and Terry acquiesced with a sad thought for the beauty of this art that would be locked away from all other eyes. But now that he saw the man’s emotion, the resemblance between him and the boy in the pictures became plain, and Terry thought the conditions were not so hard to understand. The heartbreak in the man's eyes - was the boy still alive? He would probably never get the full story, though, so after settling the details in order to draw up a contract, Terry finally got up the nerve he needed.
“Mr. Tyler, I know this is a very personal matter, but I feel I have to ask. The boy in those photos is your son, isn't he?” A dry laugh in response surprised him, and the dark eyes flickered with that same amusement.
“No, Mr. Miller,” he replied. “The boy in those photos is not my son. The boy in those photos is me.”
Chapter 20 of High Contrast
Chapter 21