March 03

Camera tragedy, our camera sustained a head injury.  Last night, just about to undertake a photo shoot, Wolfe accidentally kicked the camera off the loft edge.  We had been careless with it, and had been leaving it on the floor, and had left it on the floor close to the edge of the loft upstairs.  Well, getting up from the computer desk, Wolfe accidentally sent it flying over the edge, 8 feet down onto the kitchen tile.  Badly dented and cracked,  we desperately tested it out.  It worked still, but all the pictures came out slightly out of focus.  The photo shoot we had planned to do last night was a black and white grainy style shoot, so we could actually use the pictures we took on it, the fuzziness was within the range of what we could get away with, but for other shoots... no way.  For instance the big important shoot for Aya's head shave this Friday where crisp detail is pretty critical, and then the photo shoot play party I have set up for this Saturday night.  I struggled hard not to become completely hysterical and despondent.  As a possible solution had presented itself, in fact, earlier, before the incident even happened. I had been corresponding and talking on the phone with an amazing photographer friend (new friend) down in San Diego, and had asked him just the other day about suggestions on camera models to buy, as we were hoping to pick up a new camera in the months to come.  Well, turns out, he was thinking of selling his.  Now, I'm also doing some web work for this fellow, and, he also happens to be an extremely nice guy. I wrote him after we uncovered the extent of the damage to the camera and explained the situation to him, and he's going to try and get me his camera up here before the weeks end.  Unbelievably, all is not lost.  I can pay him off in work, and I can probably, if no customs problems are encountered be back in the game for my photo shoots.  Even if customs problem arise, he offered to help secure a rental.  Wolfe just asked what I was doing on the computer, and when I replied 'writing a journal entry', he replied 'post apocalyptic camera journal entry?' and we both laughed.  Sometimes I feel extraordinarily blessed by the people that come into my life.  Now, if it weren't for what I do here on the web, I would never have connected with people like the San Diego photographer.  Is the fact that he's getting me a camera in my moment of need the real saving grace?  No.  It's simply the fact that there are people out there who are that trusting and caring to extend trust and aide to someone they have only met through this magical realm of distant communications.  Somehow, through the tech we manage to connect with other people on a really deep and meaningful level, touching other peoples lives in ways that are concrete, substantial and meaningful, and again, I'm not talking the camera here, I'm talking about the movement behind it, and what it represents.

Here's one of the pics from last night, now, before you start thinking, 'hey, that doesn't look too bad...'  Keep in mind that this image has been shrunk down to half the size it would normally be shown at, at the full size, it's not as crisp.  Also it's been 'sharpened' up with software quite a bit, which means that it's created a very rough grainy texture, which works with what I did with this set of images, but I can't function limited to that style of photography based on a camera with warped focus.  What the camera seems to do now, is take some mid point in the distance in the image, say my nipple or a bead, and make it the most focused part (still not totally in focus) and then make everything beyond or in front of that mid point blurry, the farther away, the blurrier.  It's an effect that was a bit charming with this shoot, but would be a nightmare in other circumstances.

Here you have a better idea.  Somewhere along my stocking top is the mid point the camera has decided it will make... crispier, everything else is pretty soggy.  The slightest motion of my head, where normally this camera would catch a slight blur, has become a ghostly featureless face.  Can I still create erotic art with it?  you bet!  In fact, it may lend itself to some very interesting work, and I work very well with limitations.  When I was doing my fine arts degree and was a starving student, I ran out of money for paper and other critical art supplies.  It was then that I started doing some of my best work.  Forced to become creative with limitations, I appropriated the rotting ceiling tiles of the portables they housed our studios in to use as canvases and took inspiration from their texture and form.  It's like the adage if you can't be with the one you love, love the one your with.  You may have a plan to create certain types of images, but the reality, is based on whatever limitations present themselves, you have to find the best and bring it out in the images that you do capture.  I try and do that with every photograph I have in front of me, regardless.   Since this camera is now probably worth squat if we tried to sell it (which was the original plan in trying to finance a new camera) I suppose it will stay with us, and occasionally even in use, and will probably lend itself to some creative photographic endeavors. 

But come hell or high water... those pictures for Friday's and Saturday's shoot, they better damn well be crispy crispy crispy!