Hotelito – stark geometrics and hard surfaces. The perfect foil for a curvy bod 🙂
Categories
Anne
Tag: fine art
This is part eleven in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
Ever been to a party where you don’t know anyone? Many people find that to be an uncomfortable situation.
Me? I don’t really mind it. I guess it depends on the people at the party, but I can usually get a conversation going with someone without too much effort. And if I’m at a gathering of artists, well that’s a piece of cake!
That’s good, except with all the evening socializing, great conversation and mingling going on at ZoeFest, it was a challenge to make it across the room to speak with someone you were hoping to have a conversation with because there were always a handful of great conversations to be had in the space between. Kinda like trying to get from the hotel entrance to the elevators in Las Vegas. A maze of shiny, blinking things to distract you on the way.
During the first few days, St. Merrique and I had managed to only have a few sentence fragments of communication in passing. Enough that I knew, yes, we both wanted to work together in Todos Santos and also that she would be departing from ZoeFest a few days earlier than the rest of us.
Yet we always seemed to be on opposite sides of the room at whatever social function we were attending. She finally resorted to sending me an email to try to schedule some shoot time. It worked.
Merrique is from my favorite city in the world, Paris, although she currently calls Los Angeles her home base. She has a quiet graceful quality about her, but you can also tell there is a powerful strength behind those eyes of hers. Beauty not to be trifled with.
This was the second of three shoots on my third day of ZoeFest. Again it was at the Hotelito where I had just photographed Claudine. Since my shoot with St. Merrique was scheduled right as the mid-day heat was about to make its entrance, we decided that perhaps shade should be the theme of the day. I found an interesting vibrant pink wall that would keep her out of the direct sun. Definitely a background she would stand out from, even in the shade.
I took one test exposure frame of her casually standing at rest against the wall and satisfied with my camera settings, I told her I was ready as I raised the viewfinder back to my eye.
And bang!
Before even clicking the shutter, just looking through the viewfinder, whoever it was that was in my first test frame was suddenly replaced by… well… St. Merrique!
One of the great thing about working with models who exude a great deal of professionalism is that there is so little direction needed. Merrique knew her environment, the light she was standing in and where I was in relation to it all. All I had to do was find the composition that worked with what she was giving me. Just her against a textured wall. A doorway to the left of the frame and a shaft of sunlight from behind the little building, sweeping past her feet.
Maybe I would have her move a bit closer or away from the wall or maybe a half a step to the left or right, but to be honest, there was very little I could say to improve upon what she was doing. Really perfect.
It was also one of those times when I was having a color or B&W argument in the back of my head while we were shooting. I’ll talk about this more a bit later, but I usually know whether an image is going to be color or B&W as I’m composing it, because I do compose differently depending on that choice. The decision is usually not made in post processing, but at the time of the shoot.
The wall was so vivid behind Merrique. I finally let myself off the hook by agreeing that I could later choose how light or dark the wall would be behind her in my B&W conversions and balance the composition accordingly whether I decided to go with B&W or color. Regardless, I had to stop the mental argument because St. Merrique was really doing some amazing things with her shape!
We decided to head over to the pool. Even though I had shot in that location just a few hours earlier, the light was completely different now and one half of the pool was now completely in the shade. Perfect.
I had Merrique move to the middle of one of the long sides of the pool and this time I moved close to the wall instead of shooting across the pool. It created a lot of negative space which I love to work with. All I had to do was to not fall in the water as I balanced precariously close to the edge!
She continued with lovely poses and this time I ignored the color or B&W argument that had started up in my head again. It was a lovely blue wall, but I was thinking B&W as I shot.
St. Merrique was a joy to work with. Lovely, graceful, intelligent. A wonderful collaborator in the hot sun. Except that we were smart enough to remember to work in the shade.
We wrapped the shoot, very happy with what we had created.
Oh, and I should mention that not only is she a stunning model, Merrique is also a musician and audio engineer! Crazy talented! You can hear some of her music here.
My next shoot with the spectacular Rebecca Lawrence would begin in an hour!
More to come!
This is part ten in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
People have been asking me:
“So, Billy. How do you know this blog is going to be 50 parts?”
or
“So, Billy. Are you really going to write 50 entries about your trip?”
Both fair questions. I originally figured the blog about ZoeFest was going to be one or two entries. After I drove to the Cabo San Lucas Airport for my flight back to Chicago, I had plenty of time to kill both at the airport and on the flight and I wrote what turned out to be the the first half dozen or so entries before I landed. It was then I realized I had way more than a blog entry or two.
About how I came up with the 50 number? I really just pulled it out of the air. In my very brief editing sessions while still in Todos Santos, I quickly found 50 photographs that seemed to have promise. And that was only after a very quick glance. I will most certainly find images I like better than those first 50 that caught my eye once I have a chance to sit down for an extended period of time and really get critical. I thought I could write one entry for each of the 50 first-round-of-editing photographs. That was how I came up with the number.
Of course, it also became impossible to talk about each shoot without showing several images to illustrate what I’m talking about. It’s only fair to you lovely readers.
As for the second question, I really have no idea if I’ll hit 50 different entries that all pertain to the wonderfully artistic ZoeFest Mexican Adventure. I would do neither I, nor you, kind readers, any favors by stretching this out with filler, just to reach a number.
And now since this is starting to feel a bit like the filler I want to avoid, let’s continue with the adventure, shall we?
I woke up on day three, had the usual early morning coffee chat with Mel and Scott and headed off to Hotelito for my first of three shoots that day. By the end of the third day, I would complete no less than seven shoots. Thankfully, for the remainder of the adventure, I would book a maximum of two shoots per day.
I was starting the day with Claudine, who was based out of Chicago like I was, although amazingly, we had never worked together before. Instead, we would fly 2,500 miles to get to our first shoot.
Claudine is a very happy person. A deep infectious laugh that I had been hearing for days whenever I was in her proximity. Maybe it’s a Chicago thing. We both laugh big.
I was anxious to shoot at Hotelito. A very different shooting environment than anywhere I had shot up until then. It was modern, colorful, geometric. Claudine was curvy and it seemed to be a good juxtaposition to photograph her there among the straight lines and geometry.
Since it was morning, the heat of the day was still a few hours off, so we headed outside to look for interesting places to begin. There were many interesting chairs and lounges around the grounds. One made up of white circular padded cylindars caught my eye, but I wasn’t quite sure the light was quite right where it was sitting on one of the porches. I’d have to think about that one for a bit.
The first thing I saw as we approached the pool area was a wall with rows of square cutouts in it. The sun was still low enough in the sky that the wall threw a perfect pattern of squares on the ground. Claudine stretched out and I walked around her, looking for the best angles of her within the shadows and how they passed over her. Sometimes you have to look at something from multiple vantage points to find the best one.
Then we headed off to the pool to play with reflections and shadows she could cast on the wall. By then the sun was getting close to being 45 degrees up from the horizon, probably about the maximum height I consider to be good light before the shadows start to become unflattering on faces. We worked, reviewed a bit and continued to work around the pool looking for the best angles from a reflection standpoint.
We moved to one of the short ends of the long pool and Claudine posed against a wooden wall at one end. The reflections were good. What I was curious about was how the tone of the wood and her skin tone seemed to be very similar. I usually prefer there to be more contrast between my subject and the background. It was one of those times when I wasn’t exactly sure if my B&W conversion would work the way I was imagining in my head. Hopefully the knots in the wood would be enough of a difference. I wouldn’t know until I could process the images.
After the pool we decided to explore some of the geometry of the Hotelito. There was a beautiful staircase leading up to the one of the rooftops and we found ourselves being pulled toward it. I had her move up the stairs, experimenting with various positions, some sitting, some standing. There were so many intersecting squares and rectangles to compose with. Many textures and varying tones with slices of sunlight cutting through them. Quite amazing really and we laughed as we reviewed a couple of the images. Those bigs laughs again.
Finally we headed back to one of the porch areas and the tubular lounge. We had initially discussed moving it to another location, but when we returned the light had changed and the shade of the porch became a bit of a frame. I just hoped the lounge was not 120 degrees as it baked in the sun. Happily not.
Claudine once again gave me many great poses as we tried to find interesting ways to oppose the square shapes and straight lines with her form and the arc of the lounge. Perfect!
The sun was starting to get high in the sky as noon approached and we decided to stop for the morning. Claudine had great energy and was a valued collaborator, helping me to explore this new location.
It was a great way to end the first shoot of the day. Two Chicagoans playing thousands of miles from home.
Time to take a break and get ready for my second shoot with the lovely St. Merrique.
As always, more to come.
I loved the sunlight streaming into this room at Casa Dracula
This is part nine in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
As I mentioned in the last entry, ZoeFest X 2011 was loaded with talented photographers. Lots of different styles and ways of working. And although we did bump into each other from time to time at the various locations we had been scouting during our trip there, there’s sort of an unspoken rule among photographers that it’s bad form to lurk about at someone else’s shoot, unless you’re invited to.
I would catch a quick glimpse of a lighting setup or perhaps what camera they were using, but then it was a case of a self imposed, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along.”
It’s not to say that we wouldn’t all find ourselves hanging out together in one of the common areas at the various lovely boutique hotels during post-shoot afterglow, talking shop and reviewing a few images here and there. But during the actual photography, everyone needs a bit of distraction free space to create.
Because of that, I, like you, kind readers, have to view their work online and I have provided many links below for us to do so.
First, a couple more exceptional Canadian photographers to get us started today.
Robert Farnham is from Kitchener in Ontario, Canada, a bit south and west from the Toronto area. Robert and I had many discussions about our respective work and the styles of the other photographers at ZoeFest. Robert likes to work in the details. Much tighter framing than subjects in vast landscapes. another photog who shot film, his style is more like my roots in Figure Photography. And I was glad he reminded me of that. Beautiful work.
Ron Chez is great fun to be around. From Sechelt in British Columbia, Canada, near Vancouver. I really need to visit that area some time. I hear it’s really lovely there. Ron seems to be wherever fun is. And there was a lot of fun at ZoeFest this year. Ron was one of the film guys on our Mexican adventure (still jealous), and is incredibly creative with his work. His Series portfolio is especially clever and makes me smile. I look forward to seeing more of his creations once he has time to process everything!
Ron was also one of those many behind the scenes heros. He managed to be a bit of a Land Traffic Controller by making sure everyone who rented a car for the drive from Cabo San Lucas Airport to Todos Santos had people in it and everyone who didn’t rent a car had a seat in someone’s car who did. Again. Hero.
Now, a few more of the Yanks to round things out. For my country mates who may not be aware, yes, we in the U.S. are sometimes referred to as Yanks out there in the wide world. Short for Yankees. It’s not about the baseball team and it’s not derogatory. To the rest of the world, it’s not about our Civil War unpleasantness either. Nothing to do with the North or the South. It’s a general term of endearment, which for us these days, is not only sometimes rare, it’s quite welcome.
Mitch Rice, from Santa Rosa, California near San Francisco, is a genuinely nice guy. I only had a few brief conversations with Mitch during ZoeFest, but you know how you can just tell someone is decent even though you just met them? Mitch is that guy. And he makes beautiful inspiring photographs too. I look forward to seeing more from our trip.
David! David is my city mate from Chicago, Illinois. I mentioned that we happened to be on the same flight from Chicago to Cabo, sitting right next to each other yet, but we didn’t realize we were going to the same place until we were half way there. Very funny.
First, a bit about my home town. When I used to travel abroad in the early 1990s and I mentioned I was from Chicago, the usual response was something like, “Ah, yes, Chicago! Al Capone, Bang! Bang!”
Later it was, “Ah, yes, Chicago! Michael Jordan!” Better. Slightly less sinister.
These days it’s, “Ah, yes, Chicago! Barack Obama!” Better still. So much better to travel abroad these days and not have to pretend I’m Canadian. Thank you Canada for being a reasonable place to pretend to be from when it was less than pleasant to travel as an American not so long ago.
But I digress. Back to David. He’s a former Ad Guy, and as I also work in the same industry, I can relate to his path. Sometimes it’s nice to create something that won’t end up in a focus group.
Gerry Oar‘s home base is in Olympia, Washington. I spent a lot of time with Gerry near the Todos Santos Inn veranda. Gerry is another great human. Always willing to answer a question. He’s also an amazing photographic craftsman. I could learn a few things from this Gerry guy.
And he made some lovely photos of Todos Santos Inn, which was home for many of us for an all to brief time.
Steven Billups is from Lewes, Delaware. Just between you and me, you should immediately move your mouse back to his name and click. Steven is great with composition. There is an amazing flow about how the components in his images go together. And I love his work with water as well. And yes, a film guy. More jealous.
Joel Belmont has the good fortune of living in Aspen, Colorado. Lovely place, that Aspen, Colorado. And Joel shoots with view cameras. I have mad respect for that. Nothing like a giant negative to soak up every little light particle. Joel has some images up from our Todos Santos get together, but I suspect those are just digital polaroids and the real large format work won’t be up for a while. Something to look forward to though!
And Joel is a conscientious humanitarian as well. His projects usually involve helping to right a devastating wrong out there in the world. He really is a good egg.
And there we have it. The Photographers of ZoeFest X 2011. An amazing group of talented, passionate image makers. I’m going to write more about what I learned about my own work being a part of this inspiring group a bit later.
For now, the images you see here are more from my shoot with the stunning Sara Liz at Todos Santos Inn.
Coming up, it’s back to stories of lovely, intelligent and creative models on day 3 (can you believe we’re only on day 3?), and shoots with Claudine, St. Merrique and Rebecca!
Much more to come!
This is part four in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
Waking up at Todos Santos Inn my first morning was a lovely experience. I managed to sleep in until about 8:30am. I threw on some clothes and stepped outside into the glorious daylight. We Chicagoans have a special appreciation for glorious daylight. It’s not that we don’t have beautiful sunny days in Chicago, it’s just that we only get about three months of them, four if we haven’t angered the sun gods that particular year. Chicago, as the old saying goes, has two seasons: Winter and Construction. And Winter can be a cruel mistress, with weeks and weeks without seeing a patch of blue sky, or sun for that matter.
In Todos Santos, there was nothing but blue sky. Walking down my little garden path with the sun on my face, the giant palm leaves politely grabbed at me like autograph seekers on a red carpet walk. Delightful.
I walked up to the shady veranda where coffee and tea was set out on a beautiful antique table. I would grow to love that table every morning.
Mmmm. Delicious coffee.
But coffee would only become one of my favorite morning rituals during my stay. There was also Mel and Scott.
Mel Brackstone is an incredible photographer. Looking at her work, you’d never know she hasn’t been shooting for decades. Mel, like many late blooming artists, decided she needed to stretch her creative frontiers and began to photograph male nudes. She had joined the ZoeFest community a few years back and in a short time had a stunning array of work with female models as well.
She and her husband Scott were two of about a half a dozen Australians who were attending ZoeFest. They were always up early and having coffee under the veranda. They became my quick catch-up guides to all things ZoeFest. Mel raised one eyebrow when I started to tell her about my ambitious shooting schedule, sometimes three shoots in one day. Days later, I would have to admit, she was correct in her assessment of my over-ambitiousness.
After a leisurely breakfast at Landi’s, the restaurant attached to Todos Santos Inn, I had decided to start my first day by continuing something I like to do in Chicago when I feel the need for a little creative inspiration. I decided to take a visit to one of the local galleries, a brief walk up the road from the inn. Michael Cope was one of the local artists that had been part of the welcoming celebration at Casa Dracula the night before and invited me to come by his gallery.
I walked through the doors at Galeria de Todos Santos and there was Michael, seated with local painter Erick Ochoa, who both greeted me with big welcoming smiles. Michael took me on a tour, showing me Erick’s beautiful work, and I was taken by his use of light in his painting. It really spoke to me. We continued through the various rooms looking at other artists he was showing and I could feel my breathing slow to the pace of my new temporary Todos Santos home. I was finally beginning to relax as I took in the work around me. Exactly what I needed.
After the tour Michael asked to see some of my work and I brought out my iPad portfolio and let he and Erick swipe through it. I love sharing work with other artists. Even when we work in different mediums, there is something about the language of art that we all understand and appreciate. It’s a very familiar and joyful language.
A bit more discussion, including an invitation from Michael to visit his new restaurant which was opening that Friday in the rear of the gallery, which sadly I could not attend due to other ZoeFest commitments, and we said our goodbyes and I headed back to the inn to get my gear for my shoot with Samantha.
Samantha was staying at the Hotelito, where many of the models were staying. It was another of the beautiful boutique hotels we had taken over. No sugarcane history here. Just a beautiful compound of little buildings with bursts of vibrant color on the walls. A completely different shooting environment I would take advantage of in the coming days.
I picked up Samantha and we headed up the road back to Casa Dracula. Samantha and I spent hours exploring the compound grounds finding interesting areas to make photographs. She was great to work with and it didn’t take long for either of us to get into a good groove in the hot Mexican sun. Samantha has wonderful curves. All woman, lovely, creative and great fun to collaborate with. She has a happy spirit and her enthusiasm was inspiring.
As we explored outside we found ourselves discussing what we were seeing as potential places to shoot. Our mantra was to try to not shoot the obvious. Yes, that was a beautiful window in the stone wall of the fire pit, but putting her in it would have been the easy choice. We decided to use the window as a compositional element instead and have her pose off to the side of it. Better.
We continued to shoot for about two hours before we agreed to head inside into Casa Dracula to explore for a bit longer with more great results out of the heat and sun. At one point I noticed a sliver of light coming from the main front doors into the main entrance hall. I had Samantha pose near it for a few minutes before we figured we’d better stop before a local passerby got an eyeful.
Samantha had great ideas and like all of the models I’d be working with the next 10 days, she had great eye for light and composition. All the women were excellent models who had been in front of the cameras of some very world class photographers from all over the globe. From the first release of the shutter, you could tell something wonderful was about to happen.
That evening, we all were invited to a delicious dinner at Hotel California (yes, that Hotel California, and yes, we had pink champagne on ice with lots of pretty, pretty girls, that we call friends). It was there I had a chance to continue getting to know everyone over a great meal. I more shoots for the next few days with St. Merrique, Meghan Claire and Tara. No rest for the wicked as they say.
Much 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.