Tuesday, October 26, 2010

A Story in Two Parts



I've known Lara since I was a little boy. She was my older sister's best friend, and sometimes during the summer my mother would babysit her during the day, so for those years, she was like an additional sister. I idolized both her and my sister, and they were both surprisingly kind to me, the kid brother who wants to tag along. My actual sister could be a bit domineering and emotionally distant, but Lara and I always clicked. I may have had a little boy crush on her, and I remember a particularly fun afternoon when my sister was away somewhere and I got to play with Lara all to myself.

When I was eight, I think, Lara moved away.

Jump ahead thirty years, and it is a world that we couldn't envision until it happened, a world of social networking websites constantly connecting our present realities to every version of our pasts. In this world, Lara and I have become friends again, completely separate from the glue -- my sister -- that originally bound us. We discussed the idea of doing some photos together, first abstractly and then less so, especially after I moved back to the east coast.

On Sunday we finally shot the pictures, and it turned into a very interesting collaboration for a number of reasons:

1. Lara is not a man. I always shoot men, so this was a big departure for me. Women are allowed to express themselves so much more, just in general, but also through external factors such as hair, makeup, fashion, and even the way they hold their bodies. What I shot with Lara would never have been possible with a man.

2. Lara likes to plan things. Normally when I set up a shoot, the model asks me what the concept is, and I often, quite honestly, reply that there is no concept. I will just just put him in front of the camera and make it up as I go along. Lara wanted a concept which forced me to think about the whole process differently. I gave her two. One would be very feminine, a crazy frilly dress, and the other would be more masculine, or at least less feminine: a tanktop, boxer shorts, and simple studio shots. Both work individually but i'm hoping that people will agree with me that juxtaposing the two tells a new story not evident in either individual series.


This is what I love about using a visual media. By putting these two images, of the same woman, next to one another, I (hopefully) encourage you to evaluate the two of them, not just individually, but in relation to one another. It's a more complex story.

It was a great experience. First I was forced way out of my comfort zone, both creatively and geographically by, walking around with this girl in the crazy lavender ball gown, in some somewhat rough sections of the East Village, and then again, using my friend Richard's studio (and not my own) to suddenly figure out how to adapt my studio style to a woman who is sort of dressed like a guy (and is actually a bit of a tomboy) but is still very much NOT a guy.

Adding the context that all these pictures are of a person that I've known since I was about three years old only makes it more interesting, I hope.

So here's a few more:



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