On the beach at Playa los Palmas…..
Oh, and one non-lensbaby shot 🙂
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Claudine and lensbaby
Tag: Todos Santos
This is part seven in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
A funny thing happened on the way to the shoot concept with Sara Liz. I’m going to write more later about how ZoeFest allowed me to stretch and experiment in a way that I haven’t had the opportunity to in some time, but for now, I’ll simply say I walked into all of my shoots in Todos Santos with an open mind and ready to be inspired in whatever way the muse du jour cared to lead.
Sara Liz is joyful. Sara Liz is exuberant. Sara Liz seems to view the world through her beautifully large wide open eyes in a way that makes you feel fortunate to be experiencing whatever it is that she happens to be experiencing in that specific moment.
When you are photographing Sara Liz, it’s less like work and more like play. She is also the Queen of the Photo Bomb, about which I will, again, explain more in another entry.
I say all of this not only to explain a bit about Sara Liz, but to give a little background on the unexpected conceptual turn that I found myself experiencing once we began our photoshoot.
My booking with Sara Liz was my third shoot of the day after Ella Rose and Carlotta and I was tired, but in the best kind of way. Back in my studio in Chicago, I’ve had the most lovely shoots between the hours of 10pm and 4am. It’s the time when the work or shoot of the day is finished and I can kick back with one of my model friends with a glass of wine and eventually the cameras come back out and we just play.
Our heads are too tired to over think anything. The daytime part of my brain has long since retired and the nighttime part of my brain is fresh and anxious to escape the dreamworld and create something in the real world. That’s usually when the unexpected turn happens.
Sara Liz and I began shooting around the fountain near the veranda at Todos Santos Inn. My daytime brain had decided to call it a day a bit early today and nighttime brain was called in a little earlier than usual. It is in these times when I stop thinking about the photographs I’m making. It’s a bit hard to explain, but it’s a bit like letting someone take your hand and allowing them to lead you somewhere you haven’t been before.
From the first release of the shutter, I could feel the images were going to be more about Sara, the person or maybe a character she was creating, rather than the more abstract concept of a traditional nude figure photograph. My nighttime brain told me to keep going, to continue this journey with my new collaborator without asking too many questions.
We moved to a nearby wall above the gardens where she perched and draped in beautiful ways. What was different is that she was engaging the camera with those big eyes of hers in a way that assumed a sort of gentle control, almost like when I’m viewing a beautiful piece of sculpture that in my imagination may come alive at any minute, possibly in a benign way or maybe something more menacing if I turn my back on it.
Unusual things to be thinking about during a photoshoot? Sure. But that’s exactly why I love when nighttime brain Billy makes an appearance. It’s like my second photographer, very much like me, but with a wonderfully skewed point of view. He’s definitely more the risk taker and explorer. A good partner to have.
Sara Liz and I moved into the library room at the Inn where a gorgeous old doorway opened out onto a small balcony. Lovely soft light was coming through the doorway into the room.
I began to imagine what thoughts were going through the mind of the character she was emoting. It was imposible not to be curious as to what was happening behind those eyes. Something a bit more cinematic than usual. Haunting.
We headed down below to the garden and found some lovely low angle rays of light navigating the leafy obstacle course. I positioned her so the light would fall only on her eyes in a sort of inverted mask.
Finally we head toward my room at the Inn. I had been paying attention to the light coming in the windows during various times of the day. It was late afternoon and as we approached, I noticed the sun had not quite made it to my windows yet.
However, when we opened the door, a thin shaft of brilliant light streaked across the steps up to the bed.
“Wow!”, we both said in unison as we hurried inside. The light was moving. We knew we only had a few minutes.
I positioned Sara Liz on the corner of the bed, directly in the beam of light and turned on a small table lamp behind her to add some background to what would have otherwise been a black hole.
Once again a character emerged and her eyes began to tell a story. I wondered what she had just experienced, or what she was going to experience. It was like watching a movie.
Our little sun beam silently disappeared and we called it a wrap.
Part of the wonderfulness of ZoeFest is being able to make it up as you go. There is no right or wrong, except if you create nothing. That would be wrong. Certainly my time with Sara Liz was not exactly what I had imagined our shoot would be when I woke up that morning, but certainly more interesting than it might have been.
Sara Liz had taken my hand and led me on a little photographic journey that late afternoon in Todos Santos. And I would happily watch that movie again.
More to come.
Categories
Drive Down to Todos Santos Pt2
We were strictly forbidden to drive from San Jose Del Cabo airport to Todos Santos after 4pm because the road was under construction. I think it must have been 4.30pm before we got our car and a slightly nervous two models got in to be told by our driver that it was ok. If you can drive in India you can drive any where. Well Sukumar i´m glad to say you were right but frankly i was too tired to care by that stage. lol A big thank you to Sukumar from Anne and me. Greatly appreciated and to all the guys for hanging about the airport with us to make sure we got our ride. Love you all. =)
The drive down was interesting to say the least but the most memorable parts were the cactus silhouetted in the sunset and the wandering cows and starved horse stunned in the traffic head lights. Only on my return to the airport about one week later did i fully understand why we shouldn’t have driven so late on the road but i for one am glad i did it both ways safe. When hopefully the high way to Todos Santos is finished in May 2012 the drive down will be a nice one. Ocean on one side and mountains on the other.
Above you will find a few photo examples on the ride down and one of what the finished highway will look like. Nice and smooth and long. Photos of the actual road at the minute are censored for being so horribly horrible. Seeing is believing. The other two photos are of the daily bumpy local paths to beach were you have to let the air out of the tyres on your vechile if you want a smoothish drive over 20mph. The other is me beside what i consider a monster truck. Not seen very often on my side of the pond.
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Hotelito
I seriously didn’t want to shoot there because of the heat, however in the end I was so glad I did….. Here’s Anne in one of my trademark “attitude” shots..
This is part five in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
In preparing for ZoeFest, we all would have to find our way up the Pacific Coast of the Baja Penisula to Todos Santos from the Cabo San Lucas International Airport. That meant renting cars. Two days before I was to fly out of Chicago, I was checking all of my paperwork, passport, flights, maps, etc., when I clicked on the email link to my car reservation.
Confirmed, November 23rd, one compact car at Hertz, San Jose, California.
Whoops.
I should never book important things at 3 o’clock in the morning. Scramble, scramble. No Hertz at the Cabo airport. Hmmm.
Avis! They try harder, right? Avis it is!
A few minutes later, I had a new car reservation, this time in the proper country. And since I want my travels to be as drama free as possible, I alway sign up for the insurance. All of the insurance. Insurance for the car, the people in the car. Everything. It would prove to be a wise decision before my adventure was over. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
Having never been to Zoefest before, I was under the impression that I would rent the car, drive myself and my new friends to Todos Santos, park the car and do very little driving until it was time to return to the airport. Perhaps a waste of rental car money to leave a car sitting for days, but I didn’t see any way around it.
Ha!
The reality of it was even though we were all mostly walking distance from each other, walking even a mile or two in the mid-day Mexican heat was a bit too much for most of us. I found that having a car was essential to get where I wanted to be, when I wanted to be there without lugging a backpack full of camera gear along the way.
And even though Todos Santos seemed to be a relatively safe place in Mexico these days, we’d all read the news. You never know.
I became a bit of a model taxi for the rest of the adventure. Any time I would leave one of the hotels, I’d always check to see if anyone needed a ride to their next shoot location or back to their respective hotels. Most of the time I ended up with a carload of lovely models. Another opportunity to get to know everyone a bit better.
Plus there were the runs to the store. Eggs for Brooke, cigarettes for Rebecca, things like that. I was going anyway for myself and it seemed the decent thing to do was to ask, considering how hard everyone was working and I was one of the few with a car. I mean, we were having the best time, but it was work as well. Good art is work. Make no mistake.
Early the following morning on day two after my usual coffee and chat with Mel and Scott, this time punctuated by maneuvering with my coffee cup around several lovely nude models already shooting in the fountain near the veranda (I know, brutal thing to face first thing in the morning), I jumped in my car and drove off to pick up Ella Rose at the Hotelito.
We headed off in the direction of Playa Las Palmas on the Pacific Ocean with vague instructions on actually how to get there. You see, in Todas Santos, most directions include the phrase, “…A few kilometers further, there’s a dirt road off to your right…” I found that actually spotting that little dirt road as you’re doing 60kmph past it, is a bit of an art in itself. It usually only took me three tries to do it.
After a few passes of kilometer marker 57 and a couple of U-turns, we finally found ourselves on the dirt road we agreed was the correct one. Ella and I took our best guesses as to which of the various forks in the road to continue down until the road just sort of stopped and we got out to walk the rest of the way.
The area of Todos Santos is a bit of an oasis in the Baja desert. It can be dry and desolate one minute and lush and green the next. Ella and I continued our walk that we hoped would eventually lead to the Pacific Ocean, through a large shady palm forest with giant trunks and tall branches above.
We continued to talk about life and art as we meandered down what seemed to be a path. Ella has a lovely voice as well, being from the U.K. and it occured to me that one phrase you never ever hear is, “I just LOVE your American accent.” It’s true. The Aussies have beautiful accents. Ditto for the Irish, French and Spanish. Lyrical. Pleasing to the ears. Not so much with the Americans.
Meanwhile, I was trying desperately to make mental notes of various things along our path so we could find our way back to the car. I’ll remember that tree stump, right? That little spiky plant in the middle of the path before we have to make a left? Sure, we’ll remember!
A bit more walking and we reached the edge of the palm forest and… there it was! One of those views you usually only see in pictures and never with your own eyes. We stopped for a moment, jaws unhinged to take it in. There were little rocky cliffs off to either side of the beautiful, long, curving beach cove. And we were the only people there. Completely stunning.
Ella and I walked carefully into a little stream that spilled into the ocean, she reminding me to be careful not to leave footprints on the pristine sand where we might want to make our first photographs. Good call. I have mentioned before that all of the models were very intelligent and exceptional at what they did, right?
I spent the next few hours with Ella jumping, standing, spinning into so many graceful and beautiful poses in such a lovely environment that it was really beyond what I could have hoped for. I got into the water, carefully laying down in the stream or on my knees in the ocean, desperately trying to make sure my camera never submerged.
A couple of times with the waves rolling in behind me, shooting Ella near the shoreline, she would occasionally yell out, “WAVE!”, just in time for me to raise my camera over my head as the waves knocked me over. It’s fun to play with nature as long as you keep your camera dry. Cameras and lenses simply hate salt water.
After a few hours, covered in sand, we happily walked back to the car, past the little spiky plant in the middle of the path and past that tree stump. It had been a wonderful morning of creating.
As always, more to come.
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!
Categories
The trio
Three beauties in one room…..bonus! Second image shot with my home made bendy lens
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Part 3 of 50: “Hi, I’m Billy”
This is part three in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico.
My home base for ZoeFest X was a charming boutique hotel called, most appropriately, Todos Santos Inn. Like many historic buildings in town, it had once been the home of one of the local sugarcane barons in the 19th century. Now, it had been beautifully restored into a little paradise. I walked into the main airy foyer and then into the office to the left. It did almost feel like I was walking into 1850s Mexico. Beautiful, luxurious 1850s Mexico.
I was led back out through the foyer again, through a large beautiful brick arched patio area and down a few steps to a lush green garden with palms and huge elephant leaves reaching from the stone paths up to the blue sky. We walked past the curves of a beautiful little pool and down another path to my garden apartment.
I opened the door, stepped through and was stunned to see such a beautiful room. A roomy living room area and then three steps up to the bedroom with a beautifully appointed king-sized bed, with sheer white mosquito netting covering the large canopy above. Even if I never left this room, I could probably make some lovely photographs in here, I thought to myself.
I took a quick shower to wash two airports and the dusty drive off of me and headed back out to the patio where a few members of our group who had started to assemble there.
For our first night, Zoe had set up a welcome party at one of the other hotel locations, a huge 150-year-old house that was once the mansion of a wealthy sugarcane plantation owner in the 1800s. There was beginning to be a definite sugarcane theme here. The locals now called the mansion Casa Dracula. Rex, the proprietor, welcomed us all in and began to weave a tale about the origin of the mansion’s nickname having something to do with the plantation owner being bloodthirsty or the arches windows on the facade or something like that, I don’t really remember. Too much cerveza, vodka, tequila and meeting lovely people by then.
The party was a chance to officially meet each other and put names with faces. Over the course of the evening there were many, “Oh, you’re Billy!,” and other similar exclamations. Many in our group had worked together in the past either at previous ZoeFests or other shoots around the world, so it was a great reunion for them. And even though I was a ZoeFest rookie, we all knew each others’ work and I was welcomed in like family. Even though we had all been in contact with each other through email, it was great fun to meet all of these talented photographers and models whose work I had been studying since July.
After a few hours of discussions of art and life, we all began to pull out our calendars to start booking times and places to shoot for the ten days we would all be there. Some of the photographers had already planned shoots with a few of the models. I had planned to do the same, but my schedule right up to the trip was too full for me to do much more than make a few email introductions in advance.
Happily, it really didn’t seem to matter. I was not the only one whose goal was to just get to ZoeFest and sort out the details once I arrived.
I recognized a few of the faces from the photographs I had seen. I had actually known the work of some of the models for a few years, although this was my first time meeting them in person.
“Hi, I’m Billy.”
It was just that simple. There were fifteen incredibly smart, lovely and creative models that I could arrange to photograph during the course of ZoeFest. An embarrassment of riches, as I like to say. Many of them were familiar with my work as well, so it was great to discuss shooting with them. If I was going to make plans to shoot with all fifteen of them, it would mean multiple shoots on most of the days and location scouting to go with them all. I decided it would be best to just begin booking the time and sort out exactly where we would shoot a bit later. I had only been in Todos Santos for a few hours and not seen much of the town and other hotels yet. There would be time for that later.
Since Ella Rose and I had already gotten to know each other on the drive in, I decided it would be a good idea to book some time with her to start. I thought I would relax and maybe do a bit of exploring for my first full day there and start shooting on day two. We picked a time for early that second morning when the light would be lovely. Perfect. Now I could start thinking of some photographic ideas!
As the party progressed, I began to discuss photography with so many talented photographers and models. In short order I had shoots booked with Carlotta, Sara Liz and Rebecca.
If I may back up for a moment, there were actually three Chicagoans at Zoefest this year among the very international group. At one point during the flight to Cabo, the man sitting next to me got up to use the restroom and since I was in the window seat, it seemed like it would be a good time to do the same.
“Are you staying in Cabo?,” I asked him, as we waited in line.
“No, I’m actually headed up to a little town called Todos Santos,” was his reply.
I smiled. “Are you a photographer?”
He chuckled back, “Yes!”
“ZoeFest?”
“You too?!”
It was very funny. David had been sitting next to me for half of the flight. We had no idea we were on the same mission.
What we also didn’t know was that Claudine, another Chicagoan and one of the models we were now having tequila with at Casa Dracula, had also been on the same flight. The three of us had landed, got into three separate pre-arranged cars with other photographers and models and now found ourselves together once again. It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it, as Steven Wright used to say.
Claudine was, of course, added to my shooting calendar in short order. I was inadvertently starting to create an ambitious shooting schedule for myself. But really. How could I not? Anything less would have been very un-Billy.
A few local artists were on hand at the party as well and they supplied us with ideas for potential places to shoot outside of town near the ocean and various nearby ruins. Perfect!
As I mentioned a few paragraphs back, I had originally planned on taking the day off on my first full day in Todos Santos. It had been an extremely busy summer into fall for me and I was still not fully unwound from a day of international travel. However, Samantha Grace, also a ZoeFest first timer, and I had started taking about what we each might be doing for our first full day. I told her I was planning to just take it easy. She said she was thinking the same thing.
However, as the words were coming out of my mouth, a little voice inside me gave me a good slap and told me in a sarcastic tone that only your inner voice can truly pull off, “Yeah, great plan Billy. Fifteen models and you’re going to waste a day when you could be making art? Brilliant.”
The voice had a point. Another few sips of tequila and Samantha and I both convinced ourselves that we would probably regret not shooting together the first day. We would officially begin ZoeFest tomorrow. On day one. But at noon. At least we could sleep in a bit.
A few toasts, more laughs and we all headed back to our respective homes for the night.
Today’s photograph features the lovely Carlotta, who I photographed in the beautiful pool at Todos Santos Inn. As I was beginning to discover as the days progressed, shooting at mid-day in the Todos Santos heat was grueling. It’s true that her eyes had inspired me to make some photographs of her from water level. And the practical side of me decided that it might be good to shoot from in the pool to cool off a bit. I carefully brought my camera to within an inch of the surface of water as I happily bobbed closer to get the right composition. It turned out to be a very relaxing way to shoot.
As always, more to come.
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Levitation
Tara in the office….. 😀