So much to write about and so little time...

Where do I start? I am about to leave for Italy to spend some time with my mother who is a lot better - what a scare she gave us! She is 88 years old and it is absolutely remarkable how she manages to hang on to life, as if she is feeling that she has to finish something before letting go. Although she has reverted to a baby like state she has moments of lucidity and physically she is coping. I am relieved as this was really weighing so much on my mind, I could not think of anything else. So this means that this new blog will have to stop for a little while I am away but I am not going until Tuesday so that's all right.

Photographer: David J. Green

I am also in the middle of a major office move, following some re-allocation of rooms to new staff and old staff alike at the college where I teach and I find it most traumatic as I have stuff that goes back to the late 1990s and obviously needs to be sorted and chucked in the bin. In places such as this there is the issue of confidential waste i.e. students work and records that go back a few years which need to be shredded, so the move is a complete nightmare. I am going in tomorrow specially to pack , even though it is the weekend.

Photographer: David J. Green

Then there is my recent  modelling experience with a photographer who comes from fashion with whom I worked for several hours yesterday, first in a large park in his South London district and then at his studio.Vijay Jethwa pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me reconnect with my dancing self. He also shot a lot of me with clothes on which is absolutely exhilarating - much as I love doing nude shoots there is a special pleasure in doing lifestyle/fashion work and we are planning more shoots exploring edgy fashion.  But I will pick up this thread once I get the shots.

 Photographer: David J. Green

I  put up on deviantArt a series of  photographs which mark my foray into photography - I have a Bronica GS-1 and have this deal with photographer Marc Wainwright , that I model for him and in exchange for that he teaches me how to shoot.  The film with the self portraits done under his direction has been lost by the company I gave it to for developing it. Grrr, don't ask me about that, I can hardly believe they have not yet given me a refund of the money I  spent for the processing, apparently they are still looking, so this will go on for some more weeks.  But the ones taken by Marc with me going back and forth to see what setting he was using with my Bronica  and also how he would position me and compose the shot  are all fine. I have posted them already in a previous blog entry and I am so proud of them, I see myself being involved not only as model but also as assistant photographer, if you like,  and it is intoxicating.

 Photographer: Marc Wainwright

I also posted on deviantArt  the two  photographs taken at Fairlight Glen by Tomas Januska  and found myself bang in the middle of a controversy. I submitted them to a group which accepts large format, a contributing member of that group asked me to. One of the admins of the group left a comment  copying for me what he had said to his colleagues about the photograph of me wrapped in a shawl at the beach. He believes it is a very good picture but apparently within the group, apart from a member who systematically declines any work featuring me because of some personal history, there is a belief in eschewing technical perfection and on that basis Tomas Januska's photography would be regarded as anathema. The group admin who felt the need to write all this in a comment accessible to the general deviantArt membership who stumbles upon this particular photograph was clearly making the  point of dissenting publicly and in so doing made everyone aware of what is going on within the group. Whereas the nude was turned down because it did not speak to the admins who are entitled to vote, this particular one is still awaiting a decision. So I was about to start a post about the issue of technical perfection in photography - should one strive for it or not? but then something else happened.

Photographer: Tomas Januska

Unbearable Lightness posted a fantastic piece in her blog What We Saw Today, of which I remain a faithful follower. It is about crotch shots and I contributed a couple of comments as the discussion over there is so engaging, how can one ignore it? So I will end this post with another, longer comment which I think is necessary . In my other two comments I touched upon the need for a model not to feel constrained  to keep her legs glued together if the context of the shot requires and enhances a good hip turn out, which inevitably will put "everything" on show. I will not repeat the comments here, you can go and have a look at what has been said and the thoughtful answers given by Unbearable Lightness. What I want to add is that the  Trust and Respect which have been invoked by so many commentators are fundamental to the relationship between model and photographer. Apart from not showing crotch shots if the model asks the photographer not to - and sometimes they may occur because of the way one moves and because if you the model do a movement involving a turn out   inevitably your crotch will be exposed, the photographer should be respectful of the model as a person and know when to stop in his probing of the model's emotions.  And yes I say 'he' because , I am sorry, but female photographers always show such a remarkable sensitivity, so it is an issue informed by gender difference, don't you think?

 Photographer: David Nuttall

Even a model is entitled to privacy and there are intensely personal  moments which she will not be willing to share. If she asks you, the photographer , to stop, you should. Let me give you a hypothetical example. You have a model working in your studio. Suddenly she receives a call, she takes it and it is very bad news. She bursts into tears and you shoot away because the moment is so real, there is real emotion there and the shots are extremely poignant. She is not even aware of the fact you are shooting. Later she sees the pictures and she asks you not to show them because she does not want anyone to see her like that. Yet the pictures are SOOO good, they show a real person , real emotion...

Photographer: David J. Green

If you respect your model you will not use them unless and until  she agrees to it. Similarly, if a crotch shot happens accidentally  and the model is unhappy, you should not show it, even if for you that is a fantastic shot.

"Tears" Photographer: Neil Huxtable

(All photos modelled by Alex B. )