2:2 artists and holograms, that last stage - one as librarian, one as meditation on tripartite: then the nearly plausible, and contemptuous "troll" - of the tripartite artworks, one synthesises, but other is subverted, b/c there is no 4th - there is only "touching grass" #deepnature #HAU #disruption
I met Lucy not a full decade ago and her enthusiasm and chipper good humor sorta jumped out at me. Her voice rings through written communication and I can no longer see a message without hearing it. At the time, I was pretty much a newb behind a camera and I am pretty sure the referral was simply because I had fed someone. That's a life lesson, for sure! Lucy and I met in the Columbia Gorge and had an absolutely AMAZING shoot from start to finish. To this day I return to that material and am blown away by her immediate connection to the landscape....and by my bare minimum of knowledge as I shot. These days I would have made very different decisions and it's a bit frustrating. But here's the thing -- the location was somewhere that I've shot repeatedly and in all of it Lucy's interaction rises above my limitations and all subsequent attempts to recreate that moment. Yeah, it's a bummer that I was in the throes of a huge misunderstanding of the Nikon focus system which resulted in a full 50% missed focus rate. But what we did get? Golden. Absolutely golden. Over the intervening years, with a big break during the pandemic, we've had opportunity to work together regularly. Lucy straddles the line between a "pose model" and a more natural flow or "emotional" model. These are, of course, made-up categories in my own head. But they sorta work and you probably grok my meaning. Anyone reading this probably understand my position in the ecosystem -- I'd describe it as "Advanced Guy With Camera". I think I do a better job than some and not as formal as others, more in the personal therapy vein than trying to be a professional photographer. This has all tied together with a lifelong love of road trips and exploring the Pacific NW and the High Desert......oh, look, I'm out of space...on to the next photo!
So as a camp cook, road trip aficionado, car-camping Burner and newbie photographer, it just made sense to roll this all up into environmental nude photography. I'm skeptical of the "lingerie in the woods" theme (although, to be clear, I've done it and thought it hilarious or just plain awesome) and for the most part it seems to me that tossing a scrap of clothing into a scene actually ramps up the "sexy" quotient in a way that just being nude does not. Is there an underlying male gaze bullshit that shapes the entire scene? Probably. I will certainly admit that I have preferences in human beauty and happily cater to them. It's my obsession, after all. I might argue that it's what we DO with our fascinations that makes a difference. Do we just shoot the most obvious crap? Is there a Starbucks cup clearly visible in the background? LOL - a few winters back I gave myself a birthday present and subscribed to an online nude photography "magazine" that had over a thousand photographers in its archive. What. Absolute. Crap. At the risk of having someone point out all the crap I've done, I'll just say that this was the best $20 I've ever spent because I am damned certain that I do better and more thoughtful work than 990 of the photographers that this site had featured, including the so-called editor and perennial featured artist. It was a huge ego boost and an affirmation that I was headed in the right direction. And I owe a lot of that to Lucy. As a newb photographer, I was trying to figure out what I even wanted to DO with a camera. My initial impetus had been patterning on aerial dancers during an event, coupled with a breakup from a former model who suggested that we divide the city between us on basis of our involvement in art. SHE was an artist and I clearly was not. That sorta threw down the gauntlet.
Here in Portland there are the usual denominations of model but fortified by a robust stripper-model community. And let me be clear: the strippers here are extraordinary. It's a stereotype for a reason -- the Portland stripper with a graduate degree and a serious side-hustle, a lot of ink and even more attitude. A vast majority of the strippers I've known here are simply formidable humans. So if you live somewhere else with different stereotypes, just know that I don't mean to disparage these gals in any way. They are NOT, however, my thing. Remember, I started by imposing patterning on bodies. Tattoos really interfere with that and it is downright challenging to find open-minded and maybe kinda wild gals in Oregon who do not have an inordinate number of tattoos. To some degree this forced me toward the traditional art model tribe and there are certainly plenty of those that have minor tattoos but MOST are not dominated by them. Within that tribe you get a range of models that fall into fashion-oriented, pose-oriented, most-comfortable-on-a-cliff and a variety of other sub-categories. Meeting any of them is pretty much a starting point to figure out their natural environment and get to know them enough to hand them something that inspires them to really connect. My experience is that ALL of them can nail the basic points of their job but if you can approach them with something that is challenging and invigorating and CONNECTIVE for the day they will go above and beyond, allowing themselves to stop run at a full emotional output. I'm not saying I manage this all the time....just saying that I know it can happen!
And perhaps here's the thing with people like Lucy. Knowing that I get to work with her is an inspiration for me long before she jumps aboard. I scout locations, evaluate gear, think about setting and timing and snacks and food and overall experience. That doesn't guarantee that I'm going to be any good at MY end of things but at least it shows her that I value what she's bringing to the table and gives her the space to stretch out emotionally. And that HAS to come through in the photographs, no matter how dumb I am. Last, a thought on an archive. My time with Lucy doesn't end when we part. She moves on to another challenge and another photographer and ohmigod I think that's an amazing task and I have a ton of respect for it because I'm also a business owner and contractor and have a lot of client interaction so I know what that's like. But when she leaves, I still have all of the work to process. My first run through a shoot is probably just to look at composition. Did I place the person and the environment correctly? Did I remember to leave a bit of space for a crop? I do a lot of shooting-through-things (burned glass, grasses, whatever) so that tends to ruin a lot of shots. Is there enough left to make sense as an arc or are there just good single shots? How many photos of my left foot are there? '- ) The initial look gets shared and then I tend to put it away. There's work or other trips or something coming up and I'll get back to it later. Give it three months and I can usually come back to a shoot with a clean palate and really rethink it. SOME shoots, like almost anything with Lucy, I come back to over and over for YEARS and learn from each time. As I've grown, I've begun to understand her interaction with the camera better and when I look photo to photo I see it as she saw it in the moment. Every revisit is a new lesson and I am better for each.
@lucyartmodel.bsky.social is one of the mainstays of the touring art model scene and one of the most beloved by everyone I've ever met who has had the good fortune of working with her. More in the alt-text. #artmodel #naturalexpression #deepnature #roadtrip #pdxphotographer
