“marks”
“Scar”
“Dexterity”
The only negative part of the experience is the realization that the singer in question probably doesn’t trust me enough to do the photographs for the cd cover. She knows about my life as a photographer [thought she probably doesn’t understand most of what I do or why] and has even bought my series of coVet books [don’t ask me why], but I don’t think she’ll ever trust my vision or my idea for the CD cover enough to let me do it – and I certainly don’t want to shoot something lame or uninteresting for it…Unless she pays me a lot of money to do so, of course.
The sad thing is that I have a really strong idea that [imo] will make the cd really stand out from the crowd…and give me a chance to shoot something really interesting for myself as well. The singer has a scar on her abdomen from a surgery a few years back that I would love to shoot in black and white – probably for the inside cover [the front cover would be a black and white image of her singing]. I guess the “message” of the images is to show people how the act of singing is like stripping oneself naked in front of an audience, opening oneself up and revealing what’s inside [for better or for worse]. The idea is so strong in my mind that I can totally see it as a finished piece…Alas; I doubt you’ll ever get to see it as I do, because she’s having none of the idea. She has a lot of beauty/weight/age issues in her head [most of them instilled by her parents sadly enough], that will probably keep me from shooting the cover at all, much less shooting it the way I see it.
The whole situation is very strange to me, because one thing I’ve never had to deal with in my work is lack of trust on the part of the subjects I work with. In the last year, I’ve photographed people with scars, missing limbs, people weighing over 200 lbs, women with stretch marks, body hair, bald women, tattoos – the works. I can’t recall any point where there was a moment of mistrust of what I might see [or how I’d see it] on their parts. As far as I know, they’ve always been totally at ease with trusting me with their bodies – a trust I think I’ve earned over the years with the work I’ve done. I’m sure that some have been nervous with the situation I’ve placed them in, they’ve still let me see them in the way I chose to…and they seem happy with the results of what I’ve seen.
I admit it – one of the things I love most about my work is that people trust me so readily and so totally. I think it speaks well of me and my work in a way that written testimonials never could. I also love the fact that people who may think themselves unattractive can look at my work and realize that isn’t necessarily the case – they just have yet to see themselves [or be seen] a beautiful and compelling. I thrill to the idea of being able to instill that sense of possibility in someone through my images.
I guess I’m a bit sad that I probably won’t accomplish this with the singer. What makes me doubly sad is that her self-image is so totally inaccurate. She’s in her early 40s, with the sensuality and instinct that seems to be natural to women that age. Just watching her sing is practically an erotic experience [hence my idea of photographing her face in mid-song]. As for her scars, I have yet to see a scar that wasn’t evocative and beautiful. I’ve always thought of scars as our medals for having survived the world, and have yet to meet someone with a scar who didn’t have a compelling story to tell [whether it related directly to the scar or not]. Maybe that’s what I’m really unhappy about – the fact that the singer has an amazing story to tell that she’s hiding from me…A secret beauty that she’s concealing from me [and herself as well]. I think I need to try talking her into it some more.
