I mean....c'mon. We got to our space for the next couple days and there was a damned SADDLE (as well as other comfy and amazingly lush white-themed accessories in a converted barn!). I think we would have been remiss not to attempt it. Lucy.Artmodel is the epitome of...well, in MY mind at least, pretty much everything. A "girl next door" beauty that goes upscale at the first opportunity, it's her unflagging "get 'er done" attitude and charm that makes her the heroine of every group. I cannot even imagine what circumstance would cause her to lose her cool but I'd be against it. She's got the type of leadership that makes people WANT to do good work. What I've found in looking across our archive is that I learn even more in retrospect than I did in the moment. Minus the enthusiasm and "ohmigod" of being around her, I start noticing how she moves to the best light, arranges herself to support the environment....it's a damned masterclass in modeling. And she does it while some goofball (me) blathers ridiculous ideas like "it's a rodeo, only dark to get rid of the clutter!" I've certainly had this thought before. The boundless enthusiasm required to meet a new person in a new city and hear what probably amounts to the same idea as yesterday WITHOUT rolling your eyes is a skill that would probably be beyond me. That thought really drives me to try to figure out something weird and entertaining enough that a traveling model might at least chuckle at the idea and remember it fondly when coming back through.
Honestly, if I looked this good naked I doubt I'd ever wear clothes. At the time of this trip I was definitely trying to explore how dark we could get and still pull a person back out of it. I had brought along a couple small lights and we spent an hour playing with some battery-bulbs that Lucy could wave around herself to change the shadowing. There's just enough here to suggest a story without showing off the clutter of the space. The only downside to a converted barn (or almost any other antique building) is that it was FREEEEEZING and making use of morning light was an exercise in "cold cold COLD" and I am a total wuss about cold. LOL. Cowboy on!
My art model friends appear to have an endless capacity to humor really stupid ideas on the part of their photographers. I am humbled and amazed by their grace. More in the alt-text. #pdxphotographer #favorites #badideatheater #dowhat? #cowgirl #western #highdesertadventure #roadtrip
