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.
Tag: artnude
This is part six in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
I dropped Ella Rose back at the Hotelito and returned to Todos Santos Inn where I had arranged to meet the lovely Carlotta for our mid-day photo shoot that was scheduled to begin in just a few minutes. I was happily exhausted from Ella’s shoot and I only had time to quickly shower the sand off of me and grab some fresh clothes so I wouldn’t be quite so beach-y for Carlotta.
We had decided to stay close to home, so to speak, for this shoot. For a few days, I had been thinking about how to use the grounds of the Todos Santos Inn for interesting shooting ideas. I have to admit it was a bit of a challenge to wrap my head around. It was a beautiful place, but you know how sometimes you walk into a room and it just hits you? You know instantly how it’s all going to come together? Well, for some reason, the Inn and I instead seemed to be dancing around a few ideas, but the Inn was waltzing and I was doing some kind of Hammer-Time thing.
It’s actually an interesting creative challenge to find myself in. You know there is something there, but for some reason you can’t quite put your finger on it. I knew Carlotta would be incredible. We had been table mates at the Hotel California dinner and talked quite a bit at the welcoming party at Casa Dracula on our first night in Mexico. I knew the work we created would be excellent, I just needed to figure it out.
Sometimes when you have a block, it’s best to just start shooting and not over think it. If you let the, “Oh no… I have this amazing model and the ideas aren’t coming,” voice get the better of you, it actually is going to be less than you had hoped.
I’ve learned to respect the block. Don’t panic.
We found a nice leafy area off of one of the garden paths and we began to work. She was beautiful and working the most lovely curvy poses. Carlotta has one of those strikingly gorgeous hour glass silhouettes. I still hadn’t quite found it on my end yet, but after a few minutes, I could feel the block beginning to give way. She was very good as I knew she would be.
Now that the shooting was underway, we began to discuss the large elephant leaves that were everywhere in the garden and pool area. I had her move to the edge of the rear of the pool and among the giant lush leaves.
There it was.
Her shape completely complimented the nature around her. Now we had something really good happening.
I had this idea to photographer her in the pool more or less from the water level. The mid-day heat was fairly intense and as Carlotta got into the water, I kicked off my shoes and much to her surprise, I walked down the steps into the pool with all my clothes on. I was in the zone by then and I didn’t want to waste any time.
That, and the cool water felt so good.
She posed and I bobbed, making sure to keep my camera as close to the waterline as possible without dunking it. It worked.
The water was refreshing for me, but a bit chilly for her, so after about 20 minutes, Carlotta got out of the water and I continued to photograph her perched on a nearby crumbling wall and then the pool’s edge, all while I continued to bob in the water.
Note to self: Shooting from in the water is incredibly relaxing.
Eventually we ran out of places for her to pose in close proximity to the pool and we both ventured back out into the sunlit garden.
Carlotta carefully made her way into the middle of a particularly leafy area, the palm leaves framing her wonderfully. She backed out to the other side and I followed her into the center using the leaves in front of my lens to diffuse the composition.
Absolutely beautiful.
Finally we were ready to wrap the shoot for the day. I was very happy with our journey from my early bit of a block, breaking through to make some truly lovely photographs of her. Sometimes when you’re a bit lost, the best thing to do is keep moving forward. More often than not, you eventually get there.
I would try to do it all over again in an hour with the exuberant Sara Liz.
More to come.
This is part five in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
In preparing for ZoeFest, we all would have to find our way up the Pacific Coast of the Baja Penisula to Todos Santos from the Cabo San Lucas International Airport. That meant renting cars. Two days before I was to fly out of Chicago, I was checking all of my paperwork, passport, flights, maps, etc., when I clicked on the email link to my car reservation.
Confirmed, November 23rd, one compact car at Hertz, San Jose, California.
Whoops.
I should never book important things at 3 o’clock in the morning. Scramble, scramble. No Hertz at the Cabo airport. Hmmm.
Avis! They try harder, right? Avis it is!
A few minutes later, I had a new car reservation, this time in the proper country. And since I want my travels to be as drama free as possible, I alway sign up for the insurance. All of the insurance. Insurance for the car, the people in the car. Everything. It would prove to be a wise decision before my adventure was over. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
Having never been to Zoefest before, I was under the impression that I would rent the car, drive myself and my new friends to Todos Santos, park the car and do very little driving until it was time to return to the airport. Perhaps a waste of rental car money to leave a car sitting for days, but I didn’t see any way around it.
Ha!
The reality of it was even though we were all mostly walking distance from each other, walking even a mile or two in the mid-day Mexican heat was a bit too much for most of us. I found that having a car was essential to get where I wanted to be, when I wanted to be there without lugging a backpack full of camera gear along the way.
And even though Todos Santos seemed to be a relatively safe place in Mexico these days, we’d all read the news. You never know.
I became a bit of a model taxi for the rest of the adventure. Any time I would leave one of the hotels, I’d always check to see if anyone needed a ride to their next shoot location or back to their respective hotels. Most of the time I ended up with a carload of lovely models. Another opportunity to get to know everyone a bit better.
Plus there were the runs to the store. Eggs for Brooke, cigarettes for Rebecca, things like that. I was going anyway for myself and it seemed the decent thing to do was to ask, considering how hard everyone was working and I was one of the few with a car. I mean, we were having the best time, but it was work as well. Good art is work. Make no mistake.
Early the following morning on day two after my usual coffee and chat with Mel and Scott, this time punctuated by maneuvering with my coffee cup around several lovely nude models already shooting in the fountain near the veranda (I know, brutal thing to face first thing in the morning), I jumped in my car and drove off to pick up Ella Rose at the Hotelito.
We headed off in the direction of Playa Las Palmas on the Pacific Ocean with vague instructions on actually how to get there. You see, in Todas Santos, most directions include the phrase, “…A few kilometers further, there’s a dirt road off to your right…” I found that actually spotting that little dirt road as you’re doing 60kmph past it, is a bit of an art in itself. It usually only took me three tries to do it.
After a few passes of kilometer marker 57 and a couple of U-turns, we finally found ourselves on the dirt road we agreed was the correct one. Ella and I took our best guesses as to which of the various forks in the road to continue down until the road just sort of stopped and we got out to walk the rest of the way.
The area of Todos Santos is a bit of an oasis in the Baja desert. It can be dry and desolate one minute and lush and green the next. Ella and I continued our walk that we hoped would eventually lead to the Pacific Ocean, through a large shady palm forest with giant trunks and tall branches above.
We continued to talk about life and art as we meandered down what seemed to be a path. Ella has a lovely voice as well, being from the U.K. and it occured to me that one phrase you never ever hear is, “I just LOVE your American accent.” It’s true. The Aussies have beautiful accents. Ditto for the Irish, French and Spanish. Lyrical. Pleasing to the ears. Not so much with the Americans.
Meanwhile, I was trying desperately to make mental notes of various things along our path so we could find our way back to the car. I’ll remember that tree stump, right? That little spiky plant in the middle of the path before we have to make a left? Sure, we’ll remember!
A bit more walking and we reached the edge of the palm forest and… there it was! One of those views you usually only see in pictures and never with your own eyes. We stopped for a moment, jaws unhinged to take it in. There were little rocky cliffs off to either side of the beautiful, long, curving beach cove. And we were the only people there. Completely stunning.
Ella and I walked carefully into a little stream that spilled into the ocean, she reminding me to be careful not to leave footprints on the pristine sand where we might want to make our first photographs. Good call. I have mentioned before that all of the models were very intelligent and exceptional at what they did, right?
I spent the next few hours with Ella jumping, standing, spinning into so many graceful and beautiful poses in such a lovely environment that it was really beyond what I could have hoped for. I got into the water, carefully laying down in the stream or on my knees in the ocean, desperately trying to make sure my camera never submerged.
A couple of times with the waves rolling in behind me, shooting Ella near the shoreline, she would occasionally yell out, “WAVE!”, just in time for me to raise my camera over my head as the waves knocked me over. It’s fun to play with nature as long as you keep your camera dry. Cameras and lenses simply hate salt water.
After a few hours, covered in sand, we happily walked back to the car, past the little spiky plant in the middle of the path and past that tree stump. It had been a wonderful morning of creating.
As always, more to come.
Hello everyone! I’m writing a series of blogs about our recent wonderful ZoeFestX experience on my personal photography blog and Zoe said it would be okay for me to post them here as well. I really truly miss all of you wonderful humans already. Here’s the first entry:
A week ago today, I got on an airplane in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico to fly home after one of the greatest artistic adventures of my life. It’s a long, long story. Certainly too much for one blog.
So this will be part 1 of 50. Here’s how it begins:
Last July, I got an email from a photographer whose work I really respected. Zoe Wiseman is a friend of a model friend of mine and was inviting me to her annual fine art photographers retreat. This year it would take place in Todos Santos, Mexico in October. I emailed her back asking her for more information.
“Drying my nails. Can’t type. Call me,” she wrote back.
I did and Zoe proceeded to enthusiastically tell me the incredible details. 15 international figure models. A group of photographers she personally respected. All of them hand picked by Zoe, who would spend 10 incredible days collaborating to create spectacular images in an amazing location.
“You really need to come to this,” she insisted.
“Give me 24 hours to think about it.”
An hour later I called Zoe back to tell her, of course, I’d love to be there.
The next few months were very busy and I had very little time to prepare as October raced toward me. A few last minute projects crept up and suddenly my departure date was here. I’d be flying into Cabo San Lucas, picking up a rental car and finding one of the other photographers and one of the models and driving the 120 miles up the Pacific coast to the little town of Todos Santos. The only problem was, none of us had ever met each other. Our flights had all landed within an hour of each other and somehow through a series of voice mail messages, texts and emails, Joris, Ella Rose and I all connected and headed off on Mexico Highway 1.
The photo above is one I made in Casa Dracula, a one hundred fifty year old mansion built as part of a Todos Santos sugarcane plantation in the 1850s. Keira was an amazing model to collaborate with. She had reviewed my previous work prior to our photoshoot and reminded me how I loved to create images with sheer fabric and long motion exposures. She had paid attention. This is one of the amazing images we made and I decided to start our story with this one because of it’s colorful nature and the fact that it’s been dreadfully dreary this week in Chicago.
So much more to come! Stay tuned.