Turn & Face the Strange

There has been a insanely frustrating amount of hurry-up-and-wait over the last week.  My studio in Georgetown is as packed up as I can get it without actually moving, & I’m headed into Autumn knowing that if I want things to work out at all, I have to let go of a lot & make some pretty major leaps of faith. 

Ch-ch-changes!

 Usually, when I have any big decisions in my immediate future, I keep my mind from spinning out of control by obsessively planning & making lists.  This time, each time I construct the house of cards, something new (and fortunately, usually lucrative or exciting), comes bounding in my door, jumping me & knocking everything I thought I knew about the next 6 months of my life all over the floor.  

That, & that sad, sad fact the True Blood only comes on once per week, means that I’ve had to soothe my OCD self & keep busy by other means (can you tell I'm having a riot with the "link" function on Blogger?  Heh heh)... Really, though, I’ve been scrounging up as much work as humanly possible, & my photo turnaround time has been absolutely unreal.  

Now, normally I like to keep the blog posts focused on a single subject, but I’ve done so much this week, & the need to keep things timely is more important to me... So, while still keeping things in a single vein, here are some of my favorites from shoots this week. 

Heather!  One amazing babe who is always willing to come over & get naked for me in interesting ways, is pictured here with her Navigator ES335.   

Remember Ashley, the fire-breathing, mad scientist, Swedish-swim-team-hotness-status blonde from the Blonde, Brunette, Redhead shoot?  I've been promising y'all more of her for a while now!  

Ashley will be competing in the Seattle Best Remix Model Competition on October 2nd.  Get your tickets & check out how she struts her stuff!  

More Heather!  This girl is a trooper, & a phenomenal rope model (seriously, being tied up with sisal rope?  Now THAT'S a tolerant woman).  I think we're going to work together again next week, in a place where we can have her suspended for more intricate, decorative knots & new angles.  By the way, the ankle & wrist cuffs she's wearing are by Eternity Collars.  

So...  tomorrow is moving day number 1.  I'll be based out of Ellensburg, WA, hanging out with my family for a couple of months before I jump coasts, but will be road tripping a LOT, & in Seattle intermittently for work & fun.  Get in touch if you want to set up a time to shoot between now & mid-October.  I am going to SO miss living in Georgetown, but it's time for something new.  

And Now for Something Completely Different!

Last week I posted wedding work, which is, naturally, intimate & unforgettable.  This week, we're going to go a step further in the intimate portraiture game, behind closed doors (no, not the Achterkirchen honeymoon photos, you perverts!)...

Please note that tonight's post is about hook suspension, contains photographs of consenting adults that are somewhat violent & sexual in nature & NOT work or kid friendly.

BDSM (bondage/discipline-domination/sadism/masochism) is a lifestyle that, is, well, pretty self-explanatory, at least on a surface level.  I'm not qualified to & am therefore not going to go into the mechanics, morals, or philosophy of BDSM here: for more information on BDSM & the sex-positive culture movement, click here, here, or here, or for Seattle-ites, here.  What I can say is that the people I know on "the scene" are some of the most respectful, safety & education-oriented folks I've had the pleasure to meet.

Shooting portraiture is always an intimate thing for me, because I get to gain insight into & (hopefully) capture someone's emotional state-of-mind.  How a subject feels about what they are doing in the photo, their self-image, how they feel about me, etc... it's all encompassed in the final product, & if I fail to make a genuine connection with a subject, it shows in the quality of the image.

The sensitive sometimes controversial nature of BDSM, my clients' preferences & my own professional ethics prevent me from posting any facial shots from this series.  What I will share here tonight will be primarily process-oriented, with regard to how hook suspensions & needle-play unfold.

First things first: The "top" (person inserting the hooks or needles) measures out the locations to ensure the subject's weight will be evenly distributed, & to make the final product as aesthetically pleasing as possible. 

"Wrapture", pictured above, brought crow feathers attached to needles, which were inserted under the skin to create wings.  For her, being suspended is a way for her to participate in the creation of living art. "I have a lot of images that I want to create, & I can't paint," she jokes, "I want to be able to become an object, which for me is different than being 'objectified'".  Wrapture has several more scenes planned around being an "object"; her next project is to create a "suspension bridge".  "I wonder if I could make myself into the Eiffel Tower...", she muses.  

Once the wings were constructed, Wrapture had hooks inserted in her chest, & was roped onto a pulley & suspended.  

The other set of needles that evening were working on a young man I'll call "T".  

"T"'s hooks were decorative (this is an understatement!).  He sat patiently & painfully while the Top & his assistant drew out the pattern in pen, then carefully inserted the hooks & wove a sun pattern.  

"Getting involved with the BDSM community saved my life", "Once you try it, you're hooked.  Wait, is that too cheesy?", "The 'community' is it's own subculture.  It's truly a lifestyle, not a hobby."  These are all things I've heard from subjects on "the scene".  What do you think?  I think creative, intelligent, open-minded people doing interesting things makes for excellent imagery.  

Why I haven't Called Anyone Back All Week

When I tell people that I'm a professional photographer, 9 times out of 10, the next thing out of their mouths is: "that sounds so fun!  I have always wanted to be a photographer!".   When this happens, I try to be modest, saying things like "oh, well, you know... It's a lot of work, being self-employed..." or "I only work for myself because I'm too petulant to work for anyone else" or "Yeah, it's wonderful, but doing it for a living can really take the fun out of it".  

The first two are true (especially the one about me being petulant).  But folks, I'll say it here:  My job rocks!  Last week, I had the honor of shooting a wedding at the Thornewood Castle in Tacoma, WA.  Rose Red was shot there... Wicked cool, right?!  Here are a few shots of the grounds: 

Weddings are one of the most physical, stressful, tedious kinds of events to shoot, & the post-production is a nightmare.  Picture this: Blair in her pajamas, in front of the computer for hours & hours, with only cigarettes & waffles to talk to.  After a full day of this, Blair has been known to talk about herself in the 3rd person & try to make her cats do the Safety Dance.  Glamourous, right (y'all are lucky I don't do video blogging)?  But all that aside, I love shooting weddings for a handful of reasons:

1.  I'm a weirdo & thrive under extreme pressure.  

2.  I get paid (very well) to hang out at places like the one shown above & I always get fed.

3.  Hanging out with the other contractors (catering, DJ) is SO AWESOME.  

4.  My wedding slideshows always make me cry, thereby reminding me that I'm Human & female, even when I have to download terrible music (I don't want to talk about it/don't judge me).  Here's the slideshow from last week's wedding...  I got through most of it without being all girly (because I did not use Donovan's "Catch the Wind" this time).  

For the record, this is a very low-resolution upload... My multimedia slideshow DVDs are much higher quality & come standard with all of my wedding packages.  Tell your friends.  ;-)

5.  This email, received last year from a bride: 

"Happy Holidays, I hope you and your family are doing well. I wanted to send a quick note and let you know your photos made a difference in a family this Christmas. At our wedding, you shot an amazing photo of a family friend with her sister. "Friend" was suffering from terminal cancer, and soon after the wedding, went to be taken care of in a hospice for her cancer. The photo you captured was one of the last photos the family had while she was living with this, just weeks later- she quickly went to 80 pounds and recently passed away December 15th. I wanted to send a personal thank you for capturing her at her best, all smiles, and celebrating my wedding." 

When people hire me to shoot their events, they are entrusting me with their memories, which is intensely intimidating & humbling.  So, all that said, I love my job.  Even the most difficult, eye-strain-headache-creating, waffle-and-coffee-binge-inducing, no-potty-break-having events (Oktoberfest, anyone?) are a joy & a privilege.  I hope to never have to do anything else for any meaningful period of time ever again.

HDR NYC

Last week, I shared some of my snapshots from my 5 weeks in New York, including this shot of a building near the movie set in Brooklyn. 

The photos I'm going to share with you this week are all high dynamic range; I've spent a lot of time practicing HDR shooting & editing technique, & I think I've pretty well gotten the hang of it.  Now I'm working on developing a personal style of HDR shooting.  For more information on shooting in HDR, check out this blog.

My goal in shooting HDR is not to make things look cartoony or over-saturated; I want to create an image that's a close to what the eye sees as possible.  So many times I've attempted to photograph scenes with highly-varying levels of light & shadow, or tried to capture the intensity & diversity of blues in the sky & water, & come up tragically short.  

When I shoot in HDR, I frequently am able to preserve the subject in a way that expresses the magnitude of my visual experience with it. 

 

These four photos were taken from Brooklyn Bridge Park, & are prime examples of scenes that I wouldn't have felt were adequately represented by even a perfectly-exposed, well-edited single exposure (I just wish I had managed to take more shots downtown!).  

Here are a few shots from a rooftop near our production office in Long Island City:

All right; that's all for now!  Later this week, I'll be putting up some photos from the wedding I just shot at the Thornewood Castle in Tacoma, WA.