Portrait session for musician bq Mackintosh, of Modulo Mundi.

So, the above photo is from a quick new-camera test shoot with Laurel R. Dodge, with whom I’d love to work again. And tonight I shoot bq Mackintosh for his project, Modulo Mundi.

And that ties into the other projects I’m working on lately: bq is an artist – a techno musician, actually – who needed all of the crazy skills I’ve collected all these years, and we’re working hard to get his debut EP released late this summer. There are other tentative clients who are interested in getting their work out there, too. Now is an awesome time for self-publishing; we are creating – not just following – the models by which that happens, and new tools are becoming available all the time.

I’m interested in seeing what sort of through-line there is between all of the art that inspires me, so I’ve started a Tumblr account just for gathering the things that strike me – including work by my friends, clients, and myself. It’ll be interesting to see what it looks like in a month, six months, a year…

As part of Naomi Faith Smith’s senior thesis, I took photos of the wearable art that was featured in her exhibition. She used the full color shots, so I decided to try a different style…

There are more updates coming – There is a new camera involved, and I am waiting for my software to update so I can see the files. It’s hard to wait!

First Thursday Artwalk in Pioneer Square
619 Western Avenue
Fourth Floor South
6 – 10pm
Prints available for sale.

Over the weekend we did our very last photo shoot, printed photos, and Cyra made several sets of (mini) mini blinds out of tiny strips of balsa wood, and I am just delighted with these wonderful details.

We had issues with lighting – some bulbs were too warm, some were too cold. Most of them made the photos look too washed out after we had worked so hard to make them clean and crisp. We settled on tiny halogen floods, and it’s juuuust right.

Tomorrow the piece is unveiled in a private reception for the models and friends who stood by through this whole process. Sunday, we deliver it to the festival.

Won’t you attend?

We’d love to see you there.

I’ve done more shoots in the last two months than my total from 2009, yet I am still confounded with Artwalk comes along because the shoots are all for other publications, family portraits, or the dollhouse, and aren’t really gallery material. It’s still nice to have the opportunity dig around and find a few hidden gems from the past to share.

I’m very much looking forward to May’s Artwalk – it’s my turn as studio curator, and our focus will be fashion editorial, and we’re featuring a guest artist who does some clever collage work that will complement the theme perfectly. Yes, it’s four days after SEAF, so no sleep for the wicked! There will be an announcement with all of the dirty details in a couple of weeks.

This is the fifth in a series exploring the making of “Behind Closed Doors,” a 3-dimensional art installation that will debut at the 2010 Seattle Erotic Arts Festival. The first entry is here.

It was mentioned last night that all of the shots I have for the dollhouse are, at most, rated ‘R’, and that I need to make sure I make some rooms rated ‘X’ by the time it’s done.

That raised a flurry of other questions for me: Does it not make enough of a point if it isn’t more explicit? Can I demand more explicit scenes from people who aren’t models, don’t work in the sex industry, or may be concerned about their privacy and reputations? Am I rejecting more explicit ideas because I simply don’t care for them, or am I exercising valid creative control by having strict demands on how contrived the scenes are? Should I contrive more graphic scenes if they don’t happen naturally, and would that be gratuitous?

When I approach someone to be a subject, I offer a few things that boilerplate model releases don’t:

• the freedom to be as explicit or nude (or not) as the subject prefers
• the freedom to choose their scene partners and the subject of the scene, and to make the actions either real or simulated
• the ability to be as anonymous as the subject prefers (covering faces and other identifying marks, and being credited by a pseudonym)
• and the opportunity to approve of each individual file that may be used in the project (including associated 2-dimensional displays, merchandise, and promotional/portfolio materials)

It is my hope that these concessions are broad enough to give my subjects a sense of ownership as they attempt something that may fall a little beyond their comfort zone. But it does mean that the shots I get may exhibit a certain modesty, or even timidity about them that they might not have if I were more demanding.

The answer is, for me, somewhere in the middle. It is unwise of me not to shoot something that might not fit. It’s better to have too many to choose from than not enough, and there’s always a chance of being surprised by the results. But I won’t demand explicit just for the shock factor, and I may not entertain ideas that are too avant garde, if only because any grand idea may have too much to say to be confined to this project when it should be a work in itself. I don’t want any one room violently upstaging all the others. (And we come full circle to the theatre, where upstaging is a sin.)

While I still have no concrete rules, the conversation did give me one certainty: that I should have the confidence to make each decision with all of the scrutiny that these questions deserve.

This is the fourth in a series exploring the making of “Behind Closed Doors,” a 3-dimensional art installation that will debut at the 2010 Seattle Erotic Arts Festival. The first entry is here.

Keeping up this shooting schedule is exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. I’m averaging two to three per week, and that’s a lot to juggle with the rest of life, but the only complaint you’ll get from me is the occasional disco nap when I can steal it. I can say that the experience has done a lot to quiet my jangly nerves before a shoot. No time to be nervous!

Through a window, darkly...

It doesn’t work well to put the images right up against the window on the inside of the house. They must be set back a few inches to coax the viewer to get closer and put their eye up to the window in order to see inside. It forces blatant voyeurism instead of allowing you to glance casually from a distance. It has to be a deliberate act that cannot be disguised by a shuffle or a cough. In this way, it offers something a little different than a two-dimensional piece on the wall.

There will be panes on the windows, and I’m even contemplating curtains or blinds on a few, just because the openings are large – and we just can’t have it be too easy, can we?