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artnude travel

Part 24 of 50: Candace, the Cannery and the Bats in My Belfry

This is part twenty-four in a series of blogs on my photography adventures at ZoeFest X, in Todos Santos, Mexico.

I got a lovely email from a lovely model called Candace Nirvana last week. She had been following my periodic blog posts about our time at ZoeFest in 2011 and was wondering why she had never seen an entry featuring my shoot with her.

It was a more than fair question. She has extraordinary patience. I photographed her there in some abandoned ruins more than 15 months ago.

I wrote her back a lengthy email explaining her absence from the blog because, as I told her, she deserved better than the usual photographer, “I’ve been busy,” crap. Yesterday, I actually found

Todos Santos Beach Cove
Todos Santos Beach Cove

the blog post dated late last summer in my drafts folder that I started writing about her shoot, but never finished. She had been the last of 15 model shoots I had in Todos Santos. I had been editing the thousands of photographs I made during that trip in the order that I shot them. Candace’s absence from my ZoeFest blog series was simply because I hadn’t finished editing her shoot.

Billy. Really though. 15 months?

I know. I’m usually much better than that.

The good news is that I did finally finish editing our shoot around the holidays last December. The only good thing I can say about it taking so long for a proper review, is the fresh-eyes thing I occasionally speak about. It’s a luxury to go back to a shoot, years later and discover all kinds of things that I didn’t see during the first hurried editing process.

Plus, my time with Zoe Wiseman (the generous organizer of ZoeFest), the other photographers and brilliant models of that trip was so extraordinary, you can’t blame me for wanting to milk every last memory about that experience for as long as possible. Every time I go back to any of those shoots, I find new previously overlooked gems. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

So, somewhat better late than never, I present the long lost Candace Nirvana ZoeFest blog.

“Oh, it’s so nice to finally meet you! I love your work,” I said to Candace when I found myself next to her at one of our ZoeFest parties.

She was one of the many models that I was aware of before our adventures began in Todos Santos, Mexico. Candace Nirvana was someone whose name and images had been on my radar for years. She was an incredible model and I was thrilled with the idea that we might get to finally collaborate together after years of distant appreciation.

“You know, I’ve met you before,” she offered.

“Really? Where?”

She paused for a moment, with a slight look of disbelief. “In your studio.”

Damn.

“In my studio?… Wait… You were in my studio?… When?!” I was dumbfounded.

She sighed. Sadly, it was a sigh that I had heard too many times before when I disappoint someone by not remembering them. Sometimes my memory bank has some serious deficiencies. Locked up somewhere in a dusty file cabinet in the back of my cranium apparently was the memory of first meeting Candace. In my own studio no less. But even with that clue, she could see by the puzzled look on my face that I was no nearer to remembering.

Jillian Ann was staying with you….”

Wow. Still nothing.

“I came to visit her at your place…,” she trailed off, waiting for my silly head to catch up.

And finally, the file cabinet flew open, showering my nearby brain cells with a mixture of dust and cobwebs and disturbing hundreds of bats in my belfry that had been hanging there undisturbed for years. In an instant, they were all flying toward me as I ducked out of the way.

“Ohhhhhhhhhh! Yes! Now I remember!”

Suddenly I could see her sitting on my sofa next to Jillian, clear as day, having a brief conversation while Jillian and I were taking a break from a day of shooting.

“I’m so sorry. Of course I’ve met you.” Not my best first impression that was really a second impression.

I felt awful. It’s hard to recover with a believable statement about wanting to photograph someone after you’ve just admitted, seconds earlier, that you couldn’t remember meeting them. But I had to try.

“We should try to find some time to shoot in the next few days,” I sheepishly offered.

“Sure,” she said, as she casually turned to walk away. “Just let me know when,” she added, over her shoulder.

Like I said. Not my most smooth moment as a photographer.

Eventually, nearing the end of ZoeFest we did manage to align our schedules on the last day most of us would be at our lovely artists retreat. Candace would be my 15th ZoeFest photoshoot. And my last with the all of the lovely international models of ZoeFest.

A room full of... hopefully... shells.
A room full of… hopefully… shells.

I was a bit intimidated by this point. Even before the forgetting-I-met-her mishap, I had been previously aware of her catalog of beautiful modeling images and I felt under a little more pressure than usual to deliver something equally artistic with our work. And after more than a week of location scouting at the four charming boutique hotels we had taken over for the duration of our stay, drives down countless dusty roads outside of town and hunting for hidden beach locations, I really wanted to find somewhere particularly inspiring for Candace.

In the end, I stole a location that I had been hearing about from Malcom Grant and Cam Attree, two of my brilliant photographer colleagues there, but one I hadn’t been to yet myself. It was an old abandoned cannery complex off in the direction of the lovely Playa las Palmas secluded beach cove.

Let me take a moment to veer off on a slight tangent here as a thanks to Cam for sharing directions to the location by letting you know about a book project he just completed called, Naked in Baja Mexico. Here’s a link to a video about his book and another about how you can get your own copy. It’s just stunning work.

Back to our story. There are a lot of well hidden dirt roads off of Federal Highway 19 as your drive south out of the small town of Todos Santos. I had spent a lot of time punishing my poor rental car, driving down quite a few of them in the last week or so. The roads actually become small narrow rivers when the rains come down from the hills. Even after they dry out like at that time of year, they’re full of interesting obstacles, ruts and ridges to navigate around.

Once again, Google Maps came to the rescue. The little dirt road Candace and I guessed might be the way to the abandoned cannery was full of those familiar challenges. The trick is to drive cautiously enough to be able to find the smoothest bit of road as you proceed, without driving so slowly that you get stuck in the sand. Cam had told me just a few days earlier he had to enlist the assistance of some locals to push his car out of a dune in the same area. It’s a tricky needle to thread.

Candace Nirvana at Todos Santos Abandoned Cannery
Candace Nirvana at Todos Santos Abandoned Cannery

And of course, nothing was marked. Every time we came to a fork in the road, which was often, we would slow down and make a quick survey of which choice seemed to be the most vehicle worthy and in the general direction of where our iPhone’s maps told us we should be heading. When in doubt, we chose the path in the direction of the ocean.

Amazingly, it worked. We eventually came upon a large single story crumbling building. The cannery!

I made a quick look around to make sure we were alone as I unpacked the camera gear from the car and followed Candace inside. Immediately we noticed something unusual in the first room we entered. The floor was literally covered with broken… um… shells?

Shells, right? Not skulls… or bones?!

No. Definitely shells. I was happy there was so much light pouring in through the windows. In the dark, it would have been difficult to otherwise make that distinction. There were thousands of them. Everywhere.

It wouldn’t be the only time we’d stumble across something a little unnerving at the cannery. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Candace tossed her thin white slip of a sundress aside and found a place in one of the corners that looked like a good place to start as I began finding my first composition. It was incredible how her poses provided me with such interesting contrasts of her curves to the hard lines of the building. I used the windows and shadows to frame her shape in visually pleasing ways. A few exposures in and I could already tell that collaborating with Candace was going to be exceptional.

Candace Nirvana at Todos Santos Abandoned Cannery
Candace Nirvana at Todos Santos Abandoned Cannery

As is often the case when shooting figure models on location, it was clear that models are at a disadvantage when exploring a space such as this. The fact that I had shoes on and Candace did not was brought into stark relief as she tried to avoid cutting her feet open on the sharp edges of the shells, rocks and stones on the ground. She’s a pro, however and I was seemingly more concerned about it than she was as she gracefully danced from pose to pose in our strange environment.

There were a few smaller abandoned nearby buildings as part of the complex, some no bigger than a tiny room or two and we began to explore those as well. Candace crawled up into one of the window openings of one that had a shape like a baseball home plate. Once again she found interested ways to fill the space with her body with poses that suggested both strength and gracefulness.

Candace Nirvana at Todos Santos Abandoned Cannery Wall
Candace Nirvana at Todos Santos Abandoned Cannery Wall

We headed back into the main building at an end we hadn’t explored yet. Most of the roof had collapsed years earlier allowing for the most gorgeous light to pour in from above. I stood away from her shooting down a long corridor as she used her sundress as a prop. First wearing the dress normally, spinning and dancing and then using it as a headpiece. As I continued to make photos, I knew I was going to have a challenge picking only one from this series.

Candace and I took a break to catch our breath and take a few sips from our water bottles as we considered our next set up. We noticed a small building a short walk off in the distance and decided to see what that was about. As we approached the stairs leading up to the front door, it appeared to be equally as deserted as the cannery building.

We carefully stepped inside and found walls covered with colorful graffiti. But yes, it seemed like no one had been here in a while.

Candace asked if I had any music with me. It made me realize that I rarely shoot models without music of some kind, but the past week I’d been shooting in outdoor locations, some far away from electrical outlets for a boom box or other music source. However, the space we were in was small enough that I wondered if the little speaker on my iPhone might be loud enough to add a little atmosphere to the emptiness.

Candace Nirvana at Todos Santos Abandoned Cannery
Candace Nirvana at Todos Santos Abandoned Cannery

I clicked through my music before settling on Sirens of the Sea by Oceanlab and suddenly the space was filled with wonderful music. Perfect.

While Candace was selecting another piece of clothing to use for our next round, I set off to explore the other rooms. I turned a corner and stared into a darker corridor and stopped as I heard a strange movement ahead and above me. Above me? Hmmmm.

My eyes started to adjust to the darkness just as something suddenly fluttered past my head.

What the….

Bats. Dozens of them, all hanging from the porous ceiling.

More momentarily startled than afraid, I just did what came naturally and raised my camera to my eye. I made a couple of quiet exposures and was surprised when a few more of them flew past my head. I was being really quiet and not moving a muscle. What was spooking them?

Ohhhhhh, maybe my autofocus. I don’t know the exact science of how my camera gauges distance, but at that moment I was pretty sure it was sending something out that was inaudible to my ears, but probably nothing short of yelling to my new winged companions.

Okay then. I took a deep breath and braced myself for what was to come next. I composed my frame on the ceiling, now moving quite a bit more than when I first entered and squeezed the shutter, firing off frames in rapid succession.

It's a bat, man!
It’s a bat, man!

You know that scene in The Dark Knight when all the bats fly past a young Bruce Wayne? Yeah. Exactly.

Amazingly, none of them actually touched me. And I was hoping the small window at the end of the corridor would be enough backlight to create a good image. When I got back to my hotel room a few hours later, I had my answer. Perfect.

Oh, and I should mention the irony of my shoot with Candace was that it was taking place on October 31st. Halloween. All kinds of interesting going on that day.

Meanwhile, I walked back out to where Candace was wondering where I’d gone off to and told her we’d probably want to stay away from that part of the building.

“Bats,” I announced.

Candace Nirvana Shrouded
Candace Nirvana Shrouded

Candace had put on a beautiful mesh skirt that looked almost like chainmail. Gorgeous. She moved into one of the doorways and continued to give me the most exquisite poses and then she moved near one of the walls. The graffiti just added another layer to my compositions. Wonderful.

After a few hours of work, we decided to call it a day and we drove down yet another dusty sandy road to the Pacific Ocean. There was a beautiful beach cove nearby and we silently walked along the water just relaxing and enjoying the paradise for a while. I had managed to complete my self challenge of individually photographing every one of the models who had come on the trip. It meant for as many as three shoots a day and lots of location scouting when I wasn’t shooting, but I wouldn’t have done anything differently. Well maybe except crashing the model taxi rental car.

No, it was one of the most artistically rewarding things I’ve ever been a part of. Like I said before, with thousands of photographs, it hasn’t been difficult to milk the memories since then. That walk along the beach with Candace was the first time I wasn’t thinking ahead to the next shoot. I was done. I could simply enjoy the moment.

Candace was incredible to work with. I do now have a faint memory of our first meeting at my studio all those years ago. After she left, I do recall Jillian saying something like, “You should really photograph her.”

Candace Nirvana at Todos Santos Abandoned Building
Candace Nirvana at Todos Santos Abandoned Building

I continued to hear that same suggestion before and during ZoeFest. So I’m glad I managed to overcome my social ineptness with Candace, enough that she agreed to work with this strange man who couldn’t seem to remember meeting her.

Thank you, Candace for the collaboration and more patience than a model should have to endure to see the results of our day in Todos Santos, playing in the abandoned cannery.

You can see Candace’s beautiful photography work on her own websites. Sometimes great models also become great photographers. Her wonderful fine art nude photography is here and her commercial portrait work can be found here and even more photos and thoughts on her blog here.

And you can see more photographs from our collaboration in Todos Santos at the new Billy Sheahan Photography Archive. Just search for “Candace” in the image search box. I’ll be adding even more in the weeks to come.

Thanks, as always for continuing to follow my ZoeFest adventures. Believe it or not, there is still more to come!

Really? More?

Yes. There’s always more.

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artnude fine art nude Hotelito travel

Part 20 of 50: Brooke and the Big Leaf

This is part twenty in a series of blogs on my artistic adventures in Todos Santos, Mexico late last year.

Sorry it’s been a while. Alright. Where were we?

Brooke Lynne sizes up her shooting partner for the day
Brooke Lynne sizes up her shooting partner for the day

I had been photographing the lovely models of ZoeFest X for almost a week and somehow I had managed to photograph all but three in a fairly short amount of time. Sometimes three shoots a day in the hot Todos Santos sun. No complaints from me, however. Every shoot was unique and special in its own way. Creatively very rewarding.

Now it was time for my collaboration with Brooke Lynne . I first spoke with Brooke about shooting at the getting-to-know-you party at Casa Dracula the night we all arrived. Brooke has a reserved quiet quality about her. She’s also got a wicked fun side and she’s a self admitted nerd of the best kind, but if you want to experience it, you have to put your time in and be patient. It’s worth the wait.

I can’t say exactly what caused me to hone in on her that very first night. I’m usually pretty good a sizing people up, especially the ones that aren’t the life of the party. I know there’s something special there. They’re not in the spotlight… yet. But I got a feeling that when it would be her turn in front of my camera, I would experience something unlike I had experienced with other model shoots in my career. I can’t explain why. I don’t understand it myself. I just seem to be good at knowing these things.

I’ve had a long standing rule about shoots. If it’s a commercial shoot, everyone has to show up and put on their game face. Whether they’re under the weather, relationship unpleasantness or other personal mishaps, we’re all professionals and everyone puts aside any issues and we get the job done.

Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito
Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito

However, when we’re creating art, taking something in our imaginations and turning it into a photograph, there is a certain level of being in the right creative space that is very necessary to make something extraordinary. Creativity is not something you turn on like a light switch. It takes a bit of nurturing. If either my model or I happen to be having a bad day, I can see it in the photos. They’re not bad, especially if I’m working with a model at the level of everyone at ZoeFest, but it’s harder to go from great to amazing if we’re not both in the zone.

Brooke and I had originally scheduled our shoot for a few days earlier, after I photographed Meghan at the dam. But when I returned to the Hotelito to drop Meghan off and get ready for Brooke, I found her in the living room, curled up in a chair, looking lovely as always, but I could see in her face she wasn’t feeling it.

So I called an audible. “Hey Brooke, how are you doing?”

“I’m okay,” she softly replied.

Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito
Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito

I thought for a moment.

“Tell you what,” I said, “Sometimes today isn’t the day, you know? And I know everyone is going to see the baby turtles tonight right around the time we were planning to shoot. Do you want to maybe postpone our shoot for another day and just enjoy the baby turtles?”

Immediately her face lit up. “Really?”

“Sure. I have some time open on Sunday if you want to move our shoot.”

She checked her schedule and she had time on Sunday as well. Done.

It turned out to be a great decision. We all got to enjoy the turtles and it gave me a little more time to prepare something Brooke had suggested a few days earlier.

As I’ve mentioned before, my room at Todos Santos Inn was in the middle of a lush garden. Palm trees stretching up toward the sky with huge slender leaves that provided such welcome shade on hot days. Brooke had asked me if we might try something with one of the giant banana leaves.

“Do you thing you can get one?”, she wondered.

I was pretty sure I could. I had become friendly with one of the gardeners at the inn and I went about asking him how I might get a big leaf without causing undo damage to the lovely garden. I didn’t think it would be right to cut off a perfectly good leaf on my own. Perhaps he could find me a leaf that was in need of trimming.

Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito
Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito

My Spanish was pretty basic and certainly lacking in gardening vocabulary, so I had to resort to broken Spanish and a lot of hand gesturing.

I raised both of my arms in front of me and made a kind of giant scissors pantomime and said, “Uno palm, por favor?” I didn’t know the word for leaf. I then made the universal taking a photo pantomime of holding both of my hands up to may face in a box shape and clicking the imaginary shutter.

“Oh, sí, sí, señor. Uno momento,” he replied and walked off toward the garden. He returned with a large menacing pair of gardening shears.

I laughed, “No, no, señior. The leaf. Uno leaf.” I grabbed the edge of one of the giant banana leaves, trying desperately to make up for my language inadequacy.

He smiled. “Ah, sí.” And he grabbed the leaf as well.

“Mañana?”, I asked, thinking it might take him a bit of time to find me a leaf that was out of sight or nearing the end of it’s life. I really didn’t want to deforest the lovely garden.

He nodded. “Mañana.”

“Gracias.”

Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito
Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito

Sure enough, when I woke up the next morning, right outside my door was a giant seven foot tall single banana leaf. Perfecto!

I barely managed to get the enormous thing in my rental car without bending it, but I did. It basically was my passenger for the short drive over to the Hotelito to see Brooke.

I knocked on the main door. “Brooke? I have a surprise for you!”

She opened the door and I walked in with the massive leaf.

“Oh! This is wonderful!”, she exclaimed. “Where did you get it?”

I explained my little story with the gardener and we agreed we were going to have fun with this.

“How about we find a bit of shade to shoot in. Brooke was completely on the same page. “Yes, shade would be excellent.”

We found a wall in the outdoor courtyard that the sun hadn’t reached yet and decided it would be perfect. A simple little texture, but Brooke and her new leaf friend would be the focus. Nothing else would be needed. Simplicity in composition.

I should mention at this point that Brooke is a bit of a pretzel. In the best way. She really folds herself into whatever environment she happened to be working in. Boxes, ledges, railings. She becomes part of the scene like a gorgeous chameleon.

Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito
Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito

As I began to take my light readings and select a lens to begin with, Brooke investigated the leaf like it was a piece of haute couture. If there had been a three-way department store mirror, I could have imagined her holding it up in front of her like a designer dress. She rehearsed standing in front of it. Behind it. Wrapping herself up in it. She was playing and it was incredible to watch her figure it out.

We were both in the zone. Well worth the slight postponement from the other day.

We began the shoot working vertically, with the banana leaf and Brooke both standing as she evoked a bit of a fan dance. Limbs springing forth from behind the leaf in surprising ways as I composed my photographs. We were off to a great start.

We took a moment to review of a few of the frames and both wildly happy with our beginnings, we decided to change it up a bit.

“Let’s try some with you on the ground with the leaf,” I suggested. I got on the ground with her, shooting along the cement patio floor at the same level as Brooke and watched her continue to experiment, this time horizontally. Even though she couldn’t see what I was seeing, it was amazing how she was able to contort her body to follow the lines of the leaf with very little direction from me. Occasionally I would tell her to arch or stretch to get her body and the leaf lined up, but only occasionally. She’s just that good.

Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito
Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito

Finally I moved a bit closer and made tighter compositions. And Brooke found more interesting ways to work with her new green friend. All the while balancing on one foot while holding the leaf in position. Not as easy as it looks, I can tell you.

I hadn’t yet exactly given Brooke the opportunity to do her pretzel thing, which she’s so good at. But towards the end of the shoot we decided to have her work in front of the leaf and bend herself forward in her trademark style. She has such beautiful balance and symmetry when she does that. A real joy to see as a photographer.

After a few hours we both knew what we had accomplished what we had set out to do. It’s such a great feeling when you see an idea make its way from a fuzzy vague vision in your head to a photograph. We reviewed a few more images from our collaboration and then took some time to unwind in the beautiful Mexican sun.

We talked about art and life and travel. All of those wonderful things I love to discuss with anyone I’m working with. Brooke has such a soulful quality about her. Sometimes quiet, always observing. Really taking in her world at any given moment.

She told me she was preparing for a two month stay in Paris for a few months, working as an art model. I was at the same time both jealous and thrilled for her. She’d be perfect in Paris. Finding inspiration in a city full of inspiration.

Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito
Brooke Lynn with Banana Leaf at the Hotelito

Our post shoot conversation was a wonderful afterglow to an inspiring shoot. I always find my photographs of people who I have spent some time with always have a little extra special sauce in them. It’s not that I can’t simply appreciate the external beauty of my subjects, because I do, certainly with all of the ZoeFest models I had the pleasure of photographing. But I really believe that if I understand a model’s point of view, where she’s coming from, what she’s about, that always helps me capture a more meaningful representation of who she is.

I packed up my camera gear, wished Brooke a pleasant day and walked out of the Hotelito courtyard with the biggest smile on my face. My collaboration with Brooke and the Big Leaf was so well worth the brief wait. It certainly was better than showing up with a large pair of garden shears, although I’m sure she would have found something creative to do with those as well!

My next shoot was scheduled in a few hours with the lovely Anne Duffy and I was in the perfect creative space and looking forward to finding another round of inspiration with her. I drove off down the dusty road toward Casa Bentley.

Categories
artnude fine art nude Hotelito

10 Ten X

My tenth shoot! In year 10! In the 10th month of the year! On the 30th day of the month! 3’s. 333. I made a wish for good photos. Brooke Lynne is awesome so wishing was kind of silly. Enjoy.

© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman - model: Brooke Lynne
© 2011 Zoe Wiseman – model: Brooke Lynne

Looking forward to seeing all the rest of everyone’s images! I have two more shoots to post then my fun posting is over. Kind of sad about that. I need a commune somewhere so this can continue all year round. ho hum.

Categories
artnude fine art nude Hotelito

Beginnings. . .

I was really grateful for the opportunity to briefly steal away a few of the models during my stay in Todos Santos.
I have been meaning for some time to force myself back into taking photos and this was the perfect opportunity.
Model-photography is something entirely new for me and I have much to learn. I’m certainly not sure of in which direction I am headed with it all but I’ve certainly been feeling inspired since returning from Mexico and now I can’t wait to shoot so visit Melbourne soon please all of you!!
Here are a few shots, there are more to come but I’m taking my sweet time choosing so I wanted to make my first post before y’all loose interest!
Very much looking forward to working with you all again in the future 🙂
xoxo

Categories
artnude fine art nude travel

Part 13 of 50: Prohibido el Paso with Meghan Claire

This is part thirteen in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.

On the fourth day of ZoeFest, my true love gave to me….

Sorry, my brain is saturated to the point of insanity with holiday music this week.

But yes, it was the fourth day of ZoeFest in Todos Santos, Mexico. With the slightly mad portion of my shooting schedule behind me, there was time to do a bit more thinking. And a bit more exploring.

Everyone had been sharing what they found and where they had been and what amazing spots they had heard might be somewhere. You see, with a group like this, all the photographers knew that even if they had “discovered” an amazing location, there was no need to keep the details to themselves for fear someone would go there and make a better photograph. Someone might go to the same location and make a different photograph, but this group of photographers had the experience and self confidence enough to not fear someone would steal their thunder. And so new locations were shared with little haggling… except maybe for the cost of a cerveza frío o dos in return.

I had heard some of the photographers talking about a dam outside of Todos Santos that might be an interesting location. Like most location finds during our stay in Todos Santos, exactly how to get to the dam was a series of vague directions involving many unmarked dirt roads.

Google Maps to the rescue! (What in the world did we do before Google Maps? As a kid I seem to remember an oversized dog-eared Rand McNally World Atlas. Now the entire universe fits in your iPhone in your pocket.)

Over morning coffee, hudled over a laptop under the veranda at Todos Santos Inn, we knew the dam was north of Todos Santos toward La Paz. Somewhere near the Santa Gertudis mountains perhaps. We began heading down virtual unnamed dirt roads on the satellite imagery until we saw a shape that looked a bit like a flattened grey football… or maybe a Brontosaurus. (My more scientific friends have informed me that the preferred nomenclature for Brontosaurus is now, Apatosaurus. I stand humbly corrected.)

“That could be a dam.”

“Can you zoom in more?”

“It’s getting pretty blurry.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a dam. That’s gotta be it.”

Satisfied that there was at least a 50-50 chance I could find the dam, I drove over to the Hotelito to pick up Meghan Claire for our photographic dam adventure.

Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam
Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam

Meghan has a very calming way about her. Completely lovely combined with intelligence that only comes from being extremely well traveled. This may sound a bit crazy, but whenever I spoke with Meghan I felt like I might be speaking to the Earth. She seems to be very in tune with her surroundings. And that’s only a few of the many reasons she’s an excellent artistic collaborator.

Meghan agreed that trying to find the dam might be a creative location idea and so we headed north on Federal Highway 19 toward La Paz, leaving Todos Santos behind us.

I had heard about the police roadblocks that were randomly placed on major roads and I was about to experience my first one. A large thick rope is placed across the road, a wee speed bump, if you will, indicating the need to slow down.

“Sometimes they’ll just wave you through,” Meghan offered as we approached.

Not this time. The militarily dressed man with the machine gun motioned for us to stop as he walked over to Meghan’s door. I was all ready to volunteer, “Tourista… La Paz… vacaciones…,” when Meghan began to have an actual conversation with our well armed interrogator. It was here that I learned how good Meghan’s spanish was. Very good.

“Estoy el vacaciones de Los Ángeles,” she offered.

“Sí… Chicago,” I added, as if I was comprehending more than the few words here and there that I understood.

So I just sat there with a goofy tourist smile on my face as Meghan tried to explain what we were up to without saying exactly what we were up to.

The trick to the roadside questioning is to give them just enough information for them to believe you’re not trafficking anything or coming or going somewhere you shouldn’t be. Anything more only opens the door to suspicion and more pointed questioning.

She was doing a great job and the officer began to lean back from the window to perhaps wave us on when I heard Meghan say, “Vamos al río.”

We’re going to the river.

He leaned back in the window, machine gun ever present, now with a raised eyebrow and slightly confused look.

“¿El río?”

Whoops.

Sure, we’re silly tourists trying to fish in a river bed that hasn’t seen a drop of water in years. Nothing suspicious about that!

Meghan quickly clarified her story to one where we were sightseeing on our way to La Paz.

Then, a pause that seemed like a minute but was probably only a second or two and we were waved through.

“I probably shouldn’t have said we were going to the river,” Meghan laughed as we drove off from the roadblock. “The river with no water in it!”

“Well, better than telling him we were going to shoot photographs at the dam. That would have been even more suspicious!”

We agreed to leave the going to the river part of the story out of our answers if we got stopped on the way back.

As usual, I only sped past the turnoff to the dirt road twice before we managed to make the turn and we headed roughly in the direction I thought the dam might be. We came to many forks in the dirt road and I decided to turn on the crazy-expensive-out-of-the-country-data on my iPhone so we could have some idea if we had made a wrong turn somewhere. That was if we could get service way out away from everything.

Amazingly, I got a few bars and between GPS and Google Maps, we had confirmation we were actually on the correct unmarked dirt road and were half way to the dam. Yay for us!

Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam
Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam

 

Finally we arrived at La Presa de Santa Inés, a huge majestic structure in the valley below us. We parked near a observation deck, I grabbed my camera gear out of the trunk and Meghan and I walked over to the edge of observation area to see what we could see.

The first thing we saw was a large sign near a service staircase that led down to the dam itself.

Prohibido el Paso in large lettering. No entry.

So we did what any other photographer and model would do in a situation like this. We took a quick look around to make sure we were alone, ignored the sign and started our descent to the dam.

Now that I could see the dam as an actual dam and less of a blurry dinosaur from 800 miles above in space, it was time to consider how to photograph Meghan on it. Should it be a model on a dam or more of a model on some interesting surface? I opted for the latter.

We climbed down as far as the service walk would go, basically right up to where the water would be pouring down if there had been any water there. It was still mid morning and the sun had not peeked over the top of the dam wall yet, so we could work in the shade for a bit. Always a plus in the Mexican heat!

Meghan reclined against the near vertical wall as I composed the my first frame. I looked through the lens and… wow…

Graceful, softness against a giant, stark, sterile, cold, immovable force. Yet all my eye was drawn to was the curves of her pose as if she were floating on air instead of pressed up against concrete. Two completely opposing concepts, hard and soft. And soft was winning.

Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam
Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam

As we continued, Meghan found tiny little ledges in the seams of the cement wall to stand on, moving up the side of the wall. One of the amazing things about Meghan was that even though she was supporting herself entirely with only her toes or a very small part of her foot, her expressions were always blissful. It made me forget in the moment that her poses and the shapes she was creating, balancing on a small cement lip, were most likely fairly difficult if not a bit painful. You would never be able to tell from the photographs. A very generous collaborator.

I was very happy with what we had created so far and was thinking about another section of the dam to explore as I began to put my camera in my bag, when once again, I heard the familiar sound of a model who has just noticed some amazing light before I had. It was becoming downright commonplace on this adventure.

“Oh, wait! Look at this!”

I turned to see what she was talking about as the sun had started to make it’s way over the top of the dam wall. (I know, it sounds funny to me too.)

I normally prefer not to shoot with such direct, harsh overhead light, even though my lovely fellow photographer colleague Zoe Wiseman has caused me to reconsider that stance after seeing some of her own noon sunlight work. But what Meghan had spotted was that the sun was almost in perfect alignment with the slant of the wall, amplifying the subtle textures that made every seam and rough surface so much more interesting. It was no longer just a flat cement wall.

Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam
Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam

Ah, intelligent models and their impeccable eyes for good light. I was getting spoiled by all of this top shelf collaboration.

We switched vantage points as I stayed near the bottom of the dam and Meghan began the climb up the cement stairs that too, had become so much more interesting in the current light.

“Yes, go up a few more. Perfect!”, I yelled, as Meghan moved into a spot high above me.

Once again the dichotomy of such a harsh surface and the opposing curves of Meghan were quite spectacular. As I was shooting, I noticed that there was really no reference point that might indicate which way was up. I made a mental note to remember to look at some of these compositions rotated 90 degrees during post processing. Might be interesting, I thought to myself.

Moving on, Meghan and I decided there might be something if I photographed her from the top of the dam wall with her remaining at the bottom. I find I have to be careful with that extreme point of view, as it can tend to condense a model’s body in unflattering ways if the pose isn’t exactly right. In short order we had something composed that was very pleasing and since there really was no up or down from my shooting straight down at her, again, I made a note to experiment with some post rotation on a few of the frames.

Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam
Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam

That’s one of my favorite little tricks when shooting nudes. Depending on the environment and the composition, rotating an abstract image can yield a completely different experience of the subject. If the image can sustain rotation, either 90 or 180 degrees without feeling obviously upside down, it pushes any subtle visual movement inherent in the frame in surprising directions. Sometimes I don’t even notice the subject pushing or pulling in one direction or another until I begin to rotate it from its original orientation.

I remember discussing image orientation at one of my gallery openings a few years ago. A would be buyer and I were looking at one of my large prints of a nude figure in water. She was close to buying, but was hesitating about something.

“What are you seeing?”, I asked her.

“I’m just wondering what it would look like… turned on its side,” as she gestured a 90 degrees clockwise motion.

I probably broke gallery protocol as I walked up to the huge mounted print in front of a gallery full of onlookers and pulled it off the wall and set it on the floor on its side.

“Better?”

A smile began to form on her face. “Yes. It’s perfect that way.”

And then she caught herself, “I mean, if that’s okay with you.”

Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam
Meghan Claire at Baja California Sur Dam

“Absolutely! If you buy it, it’s yours and  you can rotate it any way you wish. I think this photograph in particular lens itself to several orientations. It changes the feeling of the image, but not in a bad way. It’s just different. It works either way.”

I’ve always believed that art is a mirror. Every viewer looking at my work sees something different reflected back at themselves. It’s one of the things I love about showing in galleries. Seeing in person what people respond to, good or bad. I’ve always said, if 100 random people are in a gallery of my photography and all of them like my work, I probably haven’t gone far enough.

Meghan and I climbed the stairs out of the valley, walked back to the car, hydrated ourselves with one of the many bottles of water I was now always keeping in inventory back there and congratulated ourselves on a fun creating experience.

We headed back along the dirt roads to the main highway. We laughed about our first check point experience as we were waved through the second time.

“Never tell them you’re going to the river.”

Next up… the turtles!

More to come.

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Straight up

I love the direct gazes here 🙂

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Casa Dracula

A couple of shots from Casa Dracula with Meghan

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Part 12 of 50: Playing in the Light with Rebecca Lawrence

This is part twelve in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.

I was nearing the end of my experiment of two days in a row of having booked three shoots in one day. Looking back, I’m glad I did what I did for two reasons. First, it would have been nearly impossible to decide which of the 15 models I would skip on this, my first ZoeFest. They were all brilliant in completely wonderfully diverse ways. And second, by loading up my schedule to the brim at the beginning of the adventure, as the Fest progressed, it got easier as the shoot schedule lightened up.

Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito
Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito

I did have one of those Aha! moments when I saw some of my photographer colleagues doubling and even tripling up with some of the models on their shoots. Brilliant. Photographing models together creates an opportunity to match up models that would work well together visually, combined with lessening the number of shoots required to photograph everyone!

Note to self: For the next ZoeFest, remember to book some shoots with more than one model at a time.

Live and learn.

The one thing I will give myself credit for was that on this day, day 3 of ZoeFest, I did arrange to photograph Claudine, St. Merrique and now Rebecca Lawrence all at the same location at the Hotelito compound. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, you know?

For me, the challenge of three shoots wasn’t being tired or anything like that. It was coming up with fresh ideas and new locations for each shoot. Since I hadn’t really built in any real downtime since the first shoot with Samantha (even the nights were full of the group of us getting together for dinner or a party or one of the slideshows), most of my mental shoot preparation was the few minutes in bed before I drifted off to sleep, the few minutes while having my morning coffee, or the hour or so in between the actual shoots.

 

Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito
Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito

But to be honest, I’ve always been a guy who likes to think on my feet. Go in with a rough idea, an open mind and use the energy of the moment to find the muse of creation. Sometimes I fall flat on my face, but more often than not, especially when I’m working with intelligent, creative collaborators, the empty head space I’ve left available until the last minute yields something unexpected and wonderful. Something much more special than if I had gone in with a finely tuned plan.

Which brings us now to the lovely and talented Rebecca Lawrence. Rebecca is a model who was on my radar for the past few years even though I had never met her in person. It’s not uncommon for me to have someone catch my eye and take a year or more before we’re in the same city and our schedules manage to mesh at the same time. I recently found an email thread between us from 2008 when we had just missed each other in Chicago.

But now, here we were finally, in Todos Santos, Mexico. The compound and buildings around the Hotelito really change from a photographic standpoint as the sun moves from morning to evening. The same area can have a completely different look in eight hours.

I walked into the living room of one of the main houses at Hotelito to meet Rebecca and almost before I had a chance to unpack my camera bags, she had moved over to a small space between two windows. It was a very simple environment to shoot her in. Basic and beautiful.

Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito
Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito

Rebecca has a very soft and expressive face. A stunning figure as well, but I found that I was more drawn to the mood she was creating with her expressions and what she was emoting with subtle changes in her gaze. Definitely, “What is going on in her head? What is she thinking about?”, kinds of images. Really classic and lovely.

After shooting near the windows for a bit more, we moved toward a tall black staircase with really strong textures. The contrast of her skin against the dark stairs was really stunning and she continued to give me poses that were at the same time powerful and graceful. Really the essence of the dichotomy of what the beauty of a woman is to me in my own head. The goddess as muse.

Following those stairs, we walked to the outdoor staircase that leads up to the roof. It was the same area I had photographed Claudine the morning before, but this afternoon light with Rebecca created a completely different look. And unlike the strong contrast of her on the black stairs a few moments before, I composed these pictures to be more about the lines and angles of the architecture and how Rebecca’s human poses seemed to both mimic and oppose the man-made geometry. It’s that lovely dichotomy of a woman once again.

I always find staircases fascinating to photograph, with or without a human subject. Like a doorway, a staircase suggests a certain unknown. An opportunity. Change. Moving upward. Ascension. For me, something more positive than foreboding.

Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito
Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito

When we were done on the stairs, Rebecca and I walked over to the same beautiful pink wall that St. Merrique and I had started our shoot earlier that morning. Except this time the wall was brightly light by the sun and the shadows were completely different.

I began by having Rebecca work from the doorway a few feet over from where I photographed Merrique. This time, Rebecca was framed by the dark doorway and could interact with a shaft of sunlight that was creeping into the entrance.

And then she jumped. Oh wow! Do that again!

We tried a few more until we got her hands, arms, head and body exactly in the right place. All in the hot, hot sun. She was incredible.

But time for some shade now and the ever beckoning Hotelito pool. I should repeat again that Zoe really creates an amazing opportunity to create art during ZoeFest. At the Hotelito and all the other little boutique hotels we were all living in, you could shoot anywhere, anytime and in complete privacy. That is usually not possible when traveling somewhere with one model because you have civilians everywhere who may not take kindly on the art we were creating.

I’ve traveled to many countries all over the world, always with the frustration that a location that I discovered would be great to shoot, if it weren’t for all these damn people who would raise their eyebrows or call the authorities. This trip was very special for that reason.

Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito
Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito

The light at the pool was perfect at that moment to work with reflections in the water. We worked with Rebecca both in and out of the water, with her creating lovely shapes with every click of my shutter.

At one point we switched sides of the pool to see if the reflections would be usable from the reverse angle when I realized with my back up against the tiled wall, that the lens on my camera was too long to compose both her and the reflection into my frame. Something interesting here maybe if I just shot into the water’s reflection perhaps.

I give Rebecca credit for going along with me on this one. With the water rippling her shape in unusual ways, constantly changing, I had to resort to what we photographers sometimes refer to as, spray and pray. That means you just rapidly fire the shutter because the changing reflections are varying too much to really wait and look for something you like. By the time you see it and it registers in your brain box, it’s too late to fire the shutter. The reflection has changed already.

Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito
Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito

So you spray and pray. Maybe you get something and maybe you don’t. I remember being very enthusiastic that we might have gotten something, but Rebecca was a bit more skeptical. And rightly so. When we reviewed the images, we realized that we had turned her shape into a series of funhouse mirror body warps that were not exactly flattering. To say they were interesting would be the kindest way to put it. I’m pretty sure most of those will never see the light of day. I certainly won’t be posting any of them here for now. maybe later.

Oh well, you have to experiment and fail once in a while on the journey to incredible.

We were both getting a bit tired by that point and we took a break near the hammock area to catch out breath. But as soon as Rebecca laid down in one, I could see that my break was going to be a short one. The low afternoon sun was casting strong shadows across her and the hammock and although there were a bit harsh, I thought there might be something there anyway. Once again, she was a great sport, staring into the blinding sun while I moved and composed. One of the more difficult occupational hazards of being a model is staring for minutes at a time into the blinding light while keeping your eyes wide open. Try it sometime. No squinting! It’s not easy.

I packed up my gear and as we began to head back to the main house, very happy with what we had created, the funhouse images not withstanding, when Rebecca suddenly stopped.

“Wait! Look at the wall.”

As I have mentioned many times before, Rebecca and the other models were incredibly smart and knew good light when they saw it, sometimes before I even noticed it. Yes, the low angled sunlight on the colorful blue and purple walls, with shadows from the nearby trees. Really spectacular.

Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito
Rebecca Lawrence at the Hotelito

I put my bag on the ground and pulled out my camera as Rebecca began to interact with the shadows. Sometimes reaching for an unseen glow just out of frame. Again, a case of a talented model being very aware of the light and environment she was creating in. And more than a little sure these images would have to be in color. I would come back to Chicago and play a bit with B&W conversions, but really, these needed to be in color and I began to compose accordingly.

As with so many of these found light situations, we knew we only had a few minutes before the sun would set too low to cast those incredible shadows and so we began to work quickly. Composing, posing, turning, composing. Soon the light was gone, but we knew we had something. No spray and pray this time!

Rebecca was wonderful to work with. A joyful creative spirit. It was worth the three year wait for her in a lovely part of the world.

And Rebecca is as talented behind the camera as she is in front. She is a genius photographer in her own right and I’ll talk more about that in a future entry.

But for now, as always,

More to come.

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Part 11 of 50: St. Merrique, Made in the Shade

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.

St. Merrique at the Hotelito
St. Merrique at the Hotelito

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.

St. Merrique at the Hotelito
St. Merrique at the Hotelito

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!

St. Merrique at the Hotelito
St. Merrique at the Hotelito

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!

St. Merrique at the Hotelito
St. Merrique at the Hotelito

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!

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Part 10 of 50: 2,500 Miles to Chicago

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?”

Claudine at the Hotelito
Claudine at the Hotelito

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.

Claudine at the Hotelito
Claudine at the Hotelito

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 at the Hotelito
Claudine at the Hotelito

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.

Claudine at the Hotelito
Claudine at the Hotelito

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.

Claudine at the Hotelito
Claudine at the Hotelito

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.