FestX 2011 is my fourth Zoefest and starting with the 2008 meet ( Joshua Tree, CA) I began working on a body of work called the “Studio Series”.
The goal of the series each year is to work within constrains I’ve imposed to push both myself and the models. These constraints include shooting only one roll of film per session (this year I used 35mm with 24 frames to work within. Previous years I shot medium format and had 10 frames!), limiting the time down to 30 minutes (previously 15 minutes) and apart from selecting a “studio” setting there’s no pre-conceived theme to the shoot. Ideally I’m working towards one hero image from each session to be included in the series.
The “studio” setup for FestX was the Hotelito with their amazing coloured walls. Each image has been designed to follow the same look with the foreground leading into the wall and the models working within this space. I shot colour film converted to Black&White this year and used the colour from each location to tweak the tones to my liking.
There are quite a few other images from these sessions that almost made it in and I’ll post more of these soon, along with the colour work shot digitally.
I managed to grab Anoush for a short time one evening after seeing the sea turtles released….I didn’t have any lights, so decided to make use of one of the lanterns on the pool deck at Casa Bentley.
Well it’s been two weeks since I returned home to Australia and I’m still finding cactus thorns in my feet and pesos in my pockets! What an adventure, I feel so lucky to have been a part of it all. Everything about the fest was wonderful from the accommodation and photoshoots to the people and the parties. A highlight for me was releasing the tiny baby turtles into the ocean. When someone said to me, lets go to the beach and see sea turtles, I wasn’t expecting that! It was a moving experience. More highlights were making new friends and catching up with old ones, creating art, the dinners and get togethers, celebrating my birthday with much tequila, the beauty of the Mexican landscape, Oh and the comment of the week made by Tara over dinner one night “If you looked this good you’d shoot yourself” …referring to self portraits lol. Well I guess you just had to be there 😉 This was a fest to remember. Thank you to Zoe and all involved in making it happen!
This is part eight in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
I thought I would take a moment from the BillyShow here to give some well deserved attention to my photographer colleagues at this year’s ZoeFest. As I mentioned before, Zoe Wiseman, the incredible photographer behind the Fest that bears her name, along with the world class list of international figure models, she also hand picks the group of talented international photographers who attend each year. I was lucky enough to get my first invitation this year.
To see the other photographers’ incredible work, there are links below to see some of their images.
So let’s start with Zoe herself.
Carlotta Champagne in the Pool
Zoe is a busy human. In addition to being a brilliant Los Angeles based photographer, she runs the ARTnudes Network site that focuses exclusively on fine art nude photography. Its roots go back to 1997. It is a place for fine art models and photographers to find each other for symbiotic creative relationships and share their work. It also features articles and blogs, just like this one, discussing the work and various workshops related to Figure Photography. Check out the official ZoeFext X blog to see more work and the stories of the other photographers and models who were part of our incredible artist retreat in Mexico this year.
Out of that also sprang Community Zoe, another Fine Art Nude Photography site, launched in 2002. Community Zoe, allows members to upload their photographs for critiques by the rest of the community. It’s also a resource for sellers and buyers of photography prints, books and articles about the genre.
So clearly, she knows what she’s doing on the computer machine.
Oh, and she puts together this world class international Fine Art Nude Photography artist retreat in some far flung corner of the world. ZoeFest. Every. Damn. Year.
Zoe has mad super powers. And she’s a very generous and nice person. And she shot on film. It’s been lovely to see what she has managed to process so far.
I will admit that myself being a ZoeFest newbie this year, my first task was to meet and coordinate shooting schedules with all of the models, so it took me a few days to really meet and learn the names of all the photographers at ZoeFest. I would hear back from the models about the great shoots they had been having with Ron, Cam, Carlos, Malcolm, Gerry and many others. I had some catching up to do!
First a little blog note: If you’re reading this at billysheahan.com/blog, you may have to join the ARTnudes network to see some of the photographers’ links. Worth it if you’ve been following along on the adventure. If you’re reading this at the ZoeFest X Baja Sur Blog, well then, you’re already here and in! A gold star for you!
First, the Aussies! Why the Aussies first? Well, because they were incredibly fun to meet and second, because… well… A comes first.
Cam Attree hails from Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. For those Yanks who always tend to be geographically challenged, yes, Australia has states like we do in the U.S.. Australia is also not to be confused with Austria. If you call an Australian an Austrian, you’ll be lucky if all they do is roll their eyes at you and slap their own forehead. Completely different continents. Completely different in many, many critical ways.
End of World Geography lesson.
But back to Cam. Cam is a genius photographer. He’s been shooting for 20 years and has an incredible body of work to show for it. He also has a great blog where you can hear the voice behind the photos.
Malcolm Grant joined us from Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. Yes, the one with the Opera House. Malcolm originally came from a music background (music and photography never seem to be too far apart, it seems) and discovered his love for photography while at university. A familiar tale, not unlike my own. To me, his brilliant work does have a lyrical quality about it. Must be that music thing. Mal’s blog has more incredible images.
Both Malcolm and Cam could often be seen under the veranda at Todos Santos Inn, editing their photos almost as soon as their shoots were completed. I would glance at their computer screens as I was running off to one of my shoots, stopping only to let my jaw hang there for a bit. Both incredibly disciplined by day, and then off to equally disciplined (although that may not be quite the correct word) nights of serious social enjoyment. Gotta love the Aussies.
Michael Marlborough joined us from Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. Michael, in addition to being an extremely talented Fine Art photographer, was also one of the behind the scenes heros at ZoeFest. Michael rounded up the photographs that would be part of the nightly evening slideshows of work, past and present. And when I say rounded up, I really truly mean that it was like he was a cowboy on a horse with a lasso, reining in a group of well meaning but incredibly late and disorganized artist types (myself, fully included in that list), so that we wouldn’t all be staring at a blank white wall come slideshow time. I’ve been that guy in the past. It’s not a pretty job.
I’m really at a loss to imagine how he found time to put everything together by the time the projector was fired up each night. A special tip of my hat to Michael. Well done, my friend.
And then there was Mel Brackstone. I’ve mentioned her in earlier blogs, but she deserves to be repeated. Mel is also from Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. Mel and her husband Scott and I spent hours talking about photography, life and our adventures. Mel is a brilliant storyteller with her photography. She really is telling stories with her work. Unlike some of the photography crew, she hasn’t been shooting for decades, but her fresh approach to her nude work, both male and female nudes is an experience in joyfulness that often comes when an artist blooms after living a bit doing other things.
Now let’s follow the sun over to India.
The story of Sukumar is one of my favorites. He’s a scientist! Yeah, I know! Super cool. Born and raised in India and now living in New York, he has been making photographs since his teenaged years, but science was his training and eventually his profession before embarking on his journey as a Fine Art Nude photographer in the late 1990s. I have two distinct memories of Sukumar from ZoeFest. The first being when I nearly tripped over his shoot one of my first early mornings at Todos Santos Inn while sleepily moving through the veranda with my first cup of coffee.
“Oh, hello. Pardon me.”
Carlotta Champagne in the Pool
The second when was I was picking up one of the models on another early morning from Hotelito and there was Sukumar, lying on the steps of the main house with a sombrero over his face, waiting for another model. I was getting better at not tripping over Sukumar by this point. His work is beautiful, abstract, blurred, spinning, twisting in very compelling ways.
Carlos David, an impressive photographer born in Portugal, now living in Canada in the city of Kirkland in Quebec, just outside of Montreal. Carlos made me jealous every time I saw his camera pack. Unlike me, he did not leave his beautiful Hasselblad camera at home. He also brought lights and lighting accessories. And of course, film! Ah, film. And with those things, he made stunning photographs. Until he manages to find a moment to process his glorious film, we’ll all have to enjoy his past work.
Zvaal is another amazing photographer originally from Belgium, now working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. Zvaal was my car mate up from the airport at Cabo to Todos Santos and was very helpful in locating Ella Rose on foot at the terminal while I drove in circles around the airport trying not to get a parking ticket from the Federales. He was also a Zoefest rookie, so by the time we arrived at Todos Santos and headed off to one of the many parties of the adventure, it was good to see a face I knew.
Well that’s the first half of the photographers group, so many more in the next entry.
Today’s photos are two I made of the lovely Carlotta in the pool at Todos Santos Inn. I love working with models and water. Carlotta stretched and floated and danced on the surface of the water. So beautiful!
Since I’m developing and scanning in random order, with no rhyme or reason, my posts are following the same pattern. The snow was flying this past week. Baja seems like a distant memory…
I was thrilled with Casa Bentley. The grounds, the kitchen area where so many great conversations hatched, the proprietor Robert Bentley and his manager Beatrice…. My room was typical of the eclectic finesse that Beatrice had dressed all the guest rooms with in terms of color, knicknacks and art pieces. I loved it and knew I had to shoot there just to see what would happen with low light. This was my second shoot with Anoush and, once again, I was in awe of her contribution. The first shot that I’ve uploaded is one of those “call me crazy, but…” shots where I’d swear Anoush looks like Mona Lisa lit this way. The other, is oozing glamor to me. Thanks Anoush.
This was the year of models with cameras. With so many lovely models and amazing places to shoot, I had to fit in at least one shoot of my own while in Mexico. With my 50 mm lens and Anoush’s captivating eyes, my art nude shoot quickly turned into a portraiture session.
This is part seven in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
Sara Liz at Todos Santos Inn
A funny thing happened on the way to the shoot concept with Sara Liz. I’m going to write more later about how ZoeFest allowed me to stretch and experiment in a way that I haven’t had the opportunity to in some time, but for now, I’ll simply say I walked into all of my shoots in Todos Santos with an open mind and ready to be inspired in whatever way the muse du jour cared to lead.
Sara Liz is joyful. Sara Liz is exuberant. Sara Liz seems to view the world through her beautifully large wide open eyes in a way that makes you feel fortunate to be experiencing whatever it is that she happens to be experiencing in that specific moment.
When you are photographing Sara Liz, it’s less like work and more like play. She is also the Queen of the Photo Bomb, about which I will, again, explain more in another entry.
I say all of this not only to explain a bit about Sara Liz, but to give a little background on the unexpected conceptual turn that I found myself experiencing once we began our photoshoot.
My booking with Sara Liz was my third shoot of the day after Ella Rose and Carlotta and I was tired, but in the best kind of way. Back in my studio in Chicago, I’ve had the most lovely shoots between the hours of 10pm and 4am. It’s the time when the work or shoot of the day is finished and I can kick back with one of my model friends with a glass of wine and eventually the cameras come back out and we just play.
Sara Liz at Todos Santos Inn
Our heads are too tired to over think anything. The daytime part of my brain has long since retired and the nighttime part of my brain is fresh and anxious to escape the dreamworld and create something in the real world. That’s usually when the unexpected turn happens.
Sara Liz and I began shooting around the fountain near the veranda at Todos Santos Inn. My daytime brain had decided to call it a day a bit early today and nighttime brain was called in a little earlier than usual. It is in these times when I stop thinking about the photographs I’m making. It’s a bit hard to explain, but it’s a bit like letting someone take your hand and allowing them to lead you somewhere you haven’t been before.
Sara Liz at Todos Santos Inn
From the first release of the shutter, I could feel the images were going to be more about Sara, the person or maybe a character she was creating, rather than the more abstract concept of a traditional nude figure photograph. My nighttime brain told me to keep going, to continue this journey with my new collaborator without asking too many questions.
We moved to a nearby wall above the gardens where she perched and draped in beautiful ways. What was different is that she was engaging the camera with those big eyes of hers in a way that assumed a sort of gentle control, almost like when I’m viewing a beautiful piece of sculpture that in my imagination may come alive at any minute, possibly in a benign way or maybe something more menacing if I turn my back on it.
Unusual things to be thinking about during a photoshoot? Sure. But that’s exactly why I love when nighttime brain Billy makes an appearance. It’s like my second photographer, very much like me, but with a wonderfully skewed point of view. He’s definitely more the risk taker and explorer. A good partner to have.
Sara Liz and I moved into the library room at the Inn where a gorgeous old doorway opened out onto a small balcony. Lovely soft light was coming through the doorway into the room.
I began to imagine what thoughts were going through the mind of the character she was emoting. It was imposible not to be curious as to what was happening behind those eyes. Something a bit more cinematic than usual. Haunting.
Sara Liz at Todos Santos Inn
We headed down below to the garden and found some lovely low angle rays of light navigating the leafy obstacle course. I positioned her so the light would fall only on her eyes in a sort of inverted mask.
Finally we head toward my room at the Inn. I had been paying attention to the light coming in the windows during various times of the day. It was late afternoon and as we approached, I noticed the sun had not quite made it to my windows yet.
However, when we opened the door, a thin shaft of brilliant light streaked across the steps up to the bed.
“Wow!”, we both said in unison as we hurried inside. The light was moving. We knew we only had a few minutes.
I positioned Sara Liz on the corner of the bed, directly in the beam of light and turned on a small table lamp behind her to add some background to what would have otherwise been a black hole.
Once again a character emerged and her eyes began to tell a story. I wondered what she had just experienced, or what she was going to experience. It was like watching a movie.
Our little sun beam silently disappeared and we called it a wrap.
Sara Liz at Todos Santos Inn
Part of the wonderfulness of ZoeFest is being able to make it up as you go. There is no right or wrong, except if you create nothing. That would be wrong. Certainly my time with Sara Liz was not exactly what I had imagined our shoot would be when I woke up that morning, but certainly more interesting than it might have been.
Sara Liz had taken my hand and led me on a little photographic journey that late afternoon in Todos Santos. And I would happily watch that movie again.
