“I said, that’s good! Lean forward like that again!”
“What?!”
I held my index finger up to Jessamyne in the international gesture of, “Hold on a sec.”
You see, she was outside on the deck of our Hawaiian oceanfront villa and I was inside, photographing her through a window. And that pesky relentless ocean roar, was making communication beyond hand signals more or less impossible. Such are the hazards of beach living.
We had a quick conference out on the desk and I ran back inside. This was our 12th setup of the day. We needed few words anymore at that point to communicate. We were in a groove.
A few days earlier we had gone through her luggage and picked out several beautiful things to photograph her in. Beautiful lace, sheer and vintage fabrics, so even though Jessa is gorgeous in nothing at all, it would have been a missed opportunity to not photograph her wearing a few of these one of a kind designs.
This day was my first time photographing Jessa, although I had been an admirer of her work for some time. She’s originally from Perth, Australia, but happily, we have both ended up in Los Angeles at the present time. And we’re already planning more collaborations, which I couldn’t be more excited about. Thank you, Jessamyne!
@christianvh and I wandered over to where the fishermen were for these. We scored points for keeping them out of our area. Except there were dead things in our area and I had to cut and run before I puked. Nothing like a dead shark on a black rock being baked by the sun. BLEK. But when you see an image you power through.
“Aw, we lost the sun,” Meluxine said, as she noticed the gorgeous shafts of sunlight that until very recently had been beautifully falling on her through the window, had faded away. I pulled the camera away from my eye and walked over to the window. I had noticed it too, but I was wondering if the sun had dipped behind the clouds for a few seconds or whether it was going to be gone for a bit longer.
That’s the thing about Kauai. It can be sunny one minute, cloudy the next, and then rainy-sunny somehow, or any combination in a period of 20 minutes. But even the cloudiness or the rain is quite lovely. By the end of our 10 days on our island paradise, even we were starting to say, “Look. Another rainbow,” more matter of factly and with a slightly lower amount of surprised enthusiasm than when we first arrived. Funny how you can begin to take even double rainbows for granted on this island. There are just so many! Every day!
Anyway, it was Meluxine who suggested maybe we head out to the beach and just see what we could make in the overcast for a bit. “Just until the sun comes back.”
But as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, even the, this probably won’t work but let’s try it anyway, setups, were turning into magic. And we hadn’t been down there on the beach shooting for more than a few minutes when we both started to feel like the overcast was working like crazy. Beautiful non-directional light. The sky was a giant softbox above.
I had turned the color off on the display of my camera, so we were looking at B&W images when we stopped to review. And what we were seeing was reminding me of images you might see in those great British mod fashion shoots from the 60s. I don’t know if it was the light or what. More likely Meluxine channeling something wonderful in that lovely striped dress we had been shooting inside with a few minutes earlier. She was so on.
And as it always did, after about 20 minutes, the sun began to peek out from the clouds again. But since the clouds were moving in a direction from over my head towards Meluxine, we started to get some great light on her, but with the still brooding clouds behind her along the beach.
And so we had a dilemma. A good dilemma. As we began to review the photos weeks later remotely, me back on the mainland in Los Angeles and she in Sydney, Australia, I had processed this particular image two ways. First in b&w as we had originally intended, but also in color. And there were good qualities about both of them. We really couldn’t decide.
But for me, even though I’m really an artist who loves b&w, I think the color one edges out the b&w in this case. But only very slightly. I think the photos from a few minutes earlier than this one will still look best in b&w. But this particular image, with the sun juuuuuuust starting to peek out, color wins.
What do you think, Gentle Readers? Color or b&w? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
You know when you’re having one of those days when everything you touch turns to gold? They don’t happen often, but when they do, the feeling is extraordinary. Meluxine and I were definitely having one of those days the first time we ever shot together. Even the, this probably won’t work but let’s try it anyway, setups turned out to be magical. Which leads me to the distinct possibility.
Meluxine might well indeed be magic.
I mean, I don’t know that for certain. Just throwing the possibility out there.
Meluxine was one of my beautiful housemates on the island of Kauai. I met her and Anne, who was also staying with me, at the Lihue airport, when I arrived from Los Angeles and they from Australia, to drive us to our lovely resort suite. So even before photographing her, I had a lot of time to get to know her.
I find that always helps when photographing someone for the first time. Because I’m not only learning the physical characteristics of any new model I’m collaborating with, but also learning her point of view. What’s on her mind. What she’s about. Having a head start on knowing those latter things, always makes for better photographs. Because then I’m not just photographing what she looks like, I’m really photographing her.
But whatever the reason, as Meluxine and I have discussed since then, what we did that day was some of the best most personally satisfying work either of had done in a while. We’ve really enjoyed going over the images since then. Picking out favorites. And there are a lot!
And I’ve queued up another beautiful photo of her for tomorrow. So stay tuned, Gentle Readers!
Carlotta has the most infectious enthusiasm. About whatever she happens to be doing at the moment. She’s good energy.
Carlotta was tagging along the morning Anne and I were discovering the magical tree overlook. Every once in a while, when Anne needed a short breather from climbing all over that tree, I’d turn my camera to Carlotta, who was already mid-pose by the time I got my camera up to my eye. She was in the mood to play, which honestly, is her natural demeanor.
I first met her at the previous Zoefest I was invited to in Todos Santos, Mexico about five years ago. And I photographed her in my old studio in Chicago, before moving to LA. So yeah, we’ve had lots of fun over the years.
Since the island of Kauai was formed by volcanic activity about a thousand years ago, the beaches there are covered with large black lava rocks. A beautiful contrast to Carlotta’s skin. And even though I had rubbery flexible deck shoes on while I was photographing her, I could still feel the sharp edges of the rocks pushing through my soles. I try to always keep sensations like that in mind while I’m shooting models who are experiencing the same sharp edges, except on their bare skin, and often very sensitive areas of bare skin.
Don’t injure the models. A good practice to live by.
Carlotta and I continued to shoot around the beach area, which you Gentle Readers will see more of in the future. But we also had scheduled some additional shoot time the next day and I returned to the same cave with her that I photographed Tara in a few days earlier. Those have a different look, but equally beautiful.
Stay tuned! And thank you as always for your wonderful support!
I’d love to take credit for it, but Anne Duffy is the one who spotted the tree first. A beautiful tree. And like so many trees on the island of Kauai, the erosion from years of the ocean doing what oceans do, left a stunning series of twisted roots in a way that made any onlooker feel they had x-ray vision and could see through the ground. Quite a place to make a photograph of the equally stunning Anne.
Anne and I spent several hours there one morning, and I made so many photographs of her, climbing, posing, arching, contorting, along those roots. It sparked a very interesting conversation.
Anne asked the question, why did I make so many photographs, while other photographers such as Zoe Wiseman, made far fewer exposures of her when they would shoot. Zoe is a brilliant photographer and the reason we were all here in this Hawaiian island paradise to begin with, as part of her nearly annual Zoefest.
I thought about Anne’s question for a moment. Many reasons came to mind. First, the ocean is loud. Communication can be a little difficult trying to shout over the sound of waves. I’m fairly sure my only direction to Anne that morning was the occasional, “Beautiful!”, or, “Yes, that’s perfect! Hold there!”
But as I thought more about it, even without the ocean roar, I do tend to make a lot of photographs during a shoot. So the environment being too loud to direct Anne, wasn’t quite the correct answer, I concluded.
I thought a little more and said, “I don’t know. Maybe Zoe is simply a better photographer than I am.” A little self-deprecating certainly, but I’ve always admired photographers who shoot a very limited number of frames during a shoot. I’ve never been that kind of photographer, even back in the days of shooting film. Even then, I shot many many rolls of film during a shoot.
Anne graciously countered, “I don’t think she’s a better photographer than you because she shoots fewer frames. You just have different styles of shooting.”
Which was true. But I still wanted to come up with a better answer to her question. It was one I had thought about for decades, actually. Why so many images?
I even sat down with Zoe a day later to talk more about it. Zoe likes to work the model’s pose for a while until it’s just what she has in mind before clicking her camera shutter. And Zoe has something else that I don’t have, which is that Zoe used to model herself. So she has a perspective on posing that I’ll very likely never have.
Myself, when I’m photographing a model of the caliber that Anne is, I first like to leave a little room for discovery. Because I trust her to be thinking as much about what the photograph is going to look like as much as I am. And she knows what she’s doing. All of the models at Zoefest do. They know light. They know angles. They know composition. They are equal collaborators during any shoot, and I’ve come to believe that if I’ve chosen to work with them, I’d be silly to over-direct them. Let them do their thing.
Which explains why my direction during a shoot is fairly basic. Give them a place to start, tell them what my angle of view is, so they can picture where they are in the frame or how much of them I’m photographing, and just begin exploring what happens. I do like to tell them what I’m seeing or if I really like something that’s happening so they are getting feedback throughout the shoot. They always appreciate that and it helps to build the connection and collaborative nature of the shoot. I may have them adjust an arm or a leg if I see a line that needs just a little tweaking, but like I said, when working with models like Anne, she doesn’t need much direction from me to make a beautiful image.
But that’s still not really an answer to Anne’s original question. It wasn’t until I returned to California, that I had an epiphany and finally the answer to my question.
Why do I shoot so many images during a shoot?
For example, on the shoot with Anne pictured above, I made over 1,500 photographs of her up in, below and around that tree. I’m just looking for maybe five or ten really. The few that really stand out. And if any of them look too much like another I’ve picked as a final, then I usually send them into a sort of photographic cage match. Two photos enter. One photo leaves. Gotta pick one of the two.
But the reason, I’ve come to conclude, of why I make so many photographs in a shoot, is because not only am I a photographer and director, but I’m also a film editor. I’ve spent over 25 years in dark little editing suites, pouring over raw footage from too many directors to remember. Looking for moments. The one take that really hits home. The performance that works best in serving the story. The best of the best. Making order from chaos.
A large part of my editing skill set happens after the shooting is done. After the production is completed. And then away from the mayhem and distractions that are part of any healthy shoot, I can take the time in a more chill environment to really look at what we have. Hopefully the director, if it’s not me, has given me lots of coverage. Lots of options to choose from. And then I can look at what we really have. I can forget how difficult it was to get a certain shot. Put away that the client really didn’t like the female actor. All of that on-set noise. Just look at what we have captured with fresh eyes.
Editor eyes.
What’s on the screen. Is it working. If not, why not. Let’s find something else.
And in combining these roles that I might have in any given project, I’ve learned to take the advantages of them all and sort of cross-pollinate them into my own Billy method of workflow.
And that means taking advantage of whatever role I happen to have. If I’m shooting or directing, it’s making sure I have lots of choices for the editor, whether it’s me or someone else. I’m not a spray-and-pray photographer, but there are times when nature is being random with wind-blown hair, waves and what not. And then yes, I’ll shoot rapid fire, hoping to catch the right combination of everything being in place. But mostly the reason that I shoot as many images as I do is because the editor in me craves coverage. Give me as much to work with as possible.
And when everything aligns in the most wonderful, inspiring, breathtaking way, such as with Anne, overlooking the edge of the world here, it’s a truly wonderful moment to realize.
@billysheahan and I were talking and he made the observation that not one model at our retreat was under the age of 30. I’ve never really thought about that before other than to make sure everyone I work with is over 18 because age was never an important factor in my work. Though after it sinking in that every single woman there was over 30 years old it really made me happy. When I tell someone I’m 45 years old they always say, you don’t look 45. Well what is a 45 year old supposed to look like? What is a 30 year old supposed to look like and what is someone 18-25 supposed to look like? Are we supposed to stop being youthful? Does not looking your age give you more power or does it take it away? It’s something interesting to think about. Sometimes I wonder if I looked my age if people would take me more seriously or offer more respect by not treating me like a kid. Is looking timeless a blessing or a curse? And is it really all about looks or is it life experience shining through that exentuates a timelessness? And it isn’t specifically directed towards the female models amongst us since our one lonely male model is also over 30 and doesn’t look it. I’m sure the ravages of time will come for us all, eventually, though will that make any of us less beautiful or less youthful? The only thing we can really do is love ourselves and be patient with ourselves and try not to allow outside influences dictate when we are too old to be beautiful.
