Whoever gets to the pasture gate first gets a kiss from Chloe, our pony. Sometimes the flies come along, but if you get there early, there are not too many. Maria taught Chloe how to kiss, and it is not a regular part of my morning routine. The world looks good when you are kissed by a pony.
I suppose it’s somewhat helpful to be sleeping with the curator of my first ever portrait show. You just have to look across the room to talk to the curator, or maybe even whisper in bed. But it has its downsides. She is tough, experienced, and unyielding. She knows what is good and she knows what she wants. She might occasionally be insecure or decisive about some elements of life, but not about art.
She has come along on some of the shots, and I have discovered that most people would much prefer to talk to her rather than to me. Its kind of an unspoken bait-and-switch, she talks to them while I take their picture.
Only the best photos make it past her demanding eye, and some of those will not make the final cut.
I have something to say about that, but not a lot. The curator loves to curate, and she takes no prisoners and gives no quarter. I am just another pain-in-the-ass artist.
This weekend we will spread all of the photos across the table, and some will die. She said lovely things about my photos on her blog.
Maria has done an amazing job of finding inexpensive frames and mats, I believe I will actually be able to price these photos between $100 and $120, remarkable for a black and white portrait. The photos themselves are printed on the best archival paper.
The thing I have most disliked about photo shows is the price the photographer has to charge to make up framing and matting costs. I couldn’t bear to sell photos that cost $400 and very few people wanted to buy them. So mostly, I give my photos away.
The show will be open at the Round House Cafe in Cambridge during the first week of September and will still be up during the October Open House, which will occur on Columbus Day Weekend. There will be a reception for the photographer, the curator and the people on the walls and families of the subjects. There is a nice range of people – a farm stand worker, a brush hogger, Kelly, farm workers, a grandmother and her granddaughter, an animal rescuer, hardware store women, a hair dresser, among others.
I think Maria found a way around the cost of photo shows. People who wish to buy them may actually be able to afford them, a long-time goal of mine. All of the proceeds will go towards her trip to India in February to teach the victims of the sex trafficking trade how to make potholders and other art.
I would love to do a Kelly Nolan show one day, Kelly inspired my portrait show and hers was the first serious portrait I took in Cambridge. Kelly’s radiant smile attracted me at first, and then her radiant soul, which the smile revealed. They say that if you wish to capture the soul of a human being, you have to shoot in black and white. I am seeing the truth of this.
The portraits were challenging to me, a reminder that I must keep challenging myself, trying new things, taking risks, learning new ideas. It would never have occurred to me to take weekly photos of the bartender/ waitress at a local tavern, but something drew me to Kelly’s poise and openness. She never once blinked at being photographed, primped, or even asked me what I was doing. She loaned me her magnificent smile.
Portraits are hard to do, they very much reflect the relationship between the subject and the photographer. It is not enough to catch a face looking at the camera, the challenge is to find a way to capture the spirit of the person. Kelly was brave enough to show me her spirit, I had to work to get it out of some others. I didn’t ask to shoot anyone I didn’t like, or who didn’t like me.
That was a good start. I have learned so much taking these portraits, I want to keep on taking them, I believe I do have a gift for it. And I also finally have a lens for it, a used Zeiss. For reasons I don’t want to know, the Germans made the best glass.
The response to the Kelly photos has been swift and intense and very revealing to me. When she needed $1,300 to pay vet bills for her dog and sick puppies, I wrote about it on the blog, she got the money in two days, all of it from readers of my blog, people who looked into those smiles and saw what I see – a person of strength, character and goodness.
Kelly is not the kind of person you would normally see photographed in a magazine or on TV. Yet her face is both beautiful and uplifting. That was an important lesson for me.
In my portrait work, I sought out faces that revealed character, love, generosity of spirit, and sometimes, hard work. I’m calling the show “Faces Of Cambridge,” and I’m dedicating it to Kelly Nolan, who trusted me enough to let me, a stranger, take her photo. Kelly and I are bonded now, we trust one another.
When I first wandered around the Bog Tavern with my big black camera, I thought I might get tossed out, some of the customers there are know to get rowdy with outlanders. Now, I am often patted on the back and applauded, encouraged with shouts and cheers. I am the guy taking photos of Kelly, people move out of the way.
I love every photo I’ve taken of Kelly and I love the photos in my upcoming portrait show, including the ones the curator will nix. I am grateful for the doors that open to me. We are excited about the portrait show, I open doors are sacred to me. Maybe my next show will be a Kelly show.
I have two wonderful dogs, both border collies, but they could hardly be more different than they are. Both came from the most wonderful breeder of dogs I can imagine, Karen Thompson of Thompson’s Border Collies.
Both come from the British Isles, have powerful instincts around sheep. Both use their instincts very differently. Red is the picture of calm and measured authority, he sits up on the rise and keeps a close eye on the sheep, if they stay still and grave, he will not move or disturb him.
The sheep have enormous respect for Red, the do not challenge him and they respond to his direction the moment he stands up. Red will sit there all day (and night) until told otherwise.
Fate, on the other hand, is also brimming with instinct, but the similarity ends there. She is explosive, she loves to run and lives to run. While Red sits majestically watching over his flock, Fate is tearing around them in ever widening-circles. She will run forever, I wait until she has some long tongue an make her lie down.
I think her new favorite thing is to be on the far side of the pasture. When I release her with a hand signal, she begins her circling of the sheep, who pay absolutely no attention to her. She could not move the sheep any more than I could fly over them. Yet she has the most fun of any dog I have known.
Dogs teach us to listen, to be patient. And to accept.
The Nasturtium is a flower with heart and soul. Infrared photography is the photography of the unseen, and I think it captured the unseen soul of this flower.
Last year I fell in love with Dahlia’s, this year I have fallen for Nasturtiums and Cosmos, I love the way they hold and reflect the light, I love their transparency and grace. Perhaps a Nasturtium and Cosmos garden next year.
