i want to give up on life and hopes of friendship and love. today is becoming one of those days. i just feel especially separate from the world right now, and i feel like a lot of my desire to be a friend with a certain someone is a waste of my time and energy. i’m trying to be so patient and kind and obedient, and serving, but this person shows zero interest in even having a simple conversation with me. the imaginations i explore of them being someone that will spend time with me doing casual buddy things like afternoon outings, why do i pour so much hope into someone that will never be interested or available to me for such things? why do i only find impossible people and can never find anyone that is possible? why do i let myself build up hopes that will only end up crushing my heart, like i feel is happening today. i just want someone to talk to. about books. about movies. about the weather. about cooking. about music. about what hurts. about what feels good. about what we dreamed about the night before. i guess i want a lover. i am such a unique, weird, strange individual though, to sift through the potential lovers in the world and draw a match to myself, it takes so much focus and direct intent of wishing… i am glad that i do not sleep with just anyone that comes my way, that i am exquisitely selective, but i think i am selective to a fault because i probably miss so many potential lovers that i just cannot see. my glasses are too finely tuned. then again, it’s my heart that i look for love with more than my eyes. my heart is only stirred by the loveableness of another being so often. and when i become aware of a resonance in another being, i really, really want to have it. my wanting too much, too badly though i think is my crux. i fail so badly at this life. right now i need a deep, dark hole to crawl into where there is no air so i can suffocate. so the one that i am hurting for now will no longer feel my pangs for her…
this is a bit of a blend over, real life analysis, bleed into dream interpretation type of story. oh god, the weirdness of my life.
i received some cash recently. some money owed to me. some money i thought i’d never receive. i paid for something for someone that, if they paid me back for it like they promised they would, our karma would be clear, but if they didn’t, i wasn’t going to be upset with them worse than feeling bad for them not being able to keep their promise. they are having a difficult go of things and need what i helped them out with the money for… long, weird story. but i did get the money back.
my plans were to use the money to hire a model that is coming to town in a couple of weeks to pose for some photographs for “my project”. a popular, famous model who having photographs of in my portfolio will advance my notoriety. whatever that is worth. i’m of the mind to recede into un-notoriety as it is, anyway. but i have received just enough money to hire this model for a couple of hours of her time. this morning i was feeling indifferent about this though.
because i’m having guilty-father-like emotions about some very close friends, young female friends that are seriously upset with me right now. long story that i do not understand all the ins and outs about, but just as i was falling back asleep this morning, before this dream ensued, my last thoughts were about putting this cash, $180 into an envelope and sending it to one of them with a note, telling them that “i’m sorry”, again… and that they should go treat themselves… then i deliberated about just buying some gift certificates, like at H&M and sending those instead… regardless of what i did with this money, if i sent it to these girls that are upset/angry/hurt by me, i’m acting like a distant father that cannot communicate with his children with words, or his presence, and uses money or gifts to pacify them. enhancing more guilt all around…
then i fell asleep, with one last thought… what if i used the money for something for myself? what do i need? and the first answer that arose from my aching bones was a massage… you idiot, of course!
and i woke up inside my dream in a room inside my friend Brad’s house where he had a massage table. i said, “you never told me you did massage!”
“i just learned it, dude! you know me, always picking up something new. let me know how i do.”
and before i had a chance to resist or get out of there, because in my right mind i would never go to Brad for a massage - he’s a crazy, drug addled madman, i had my shirt off and said “i just want you to massage my back. 30 minutes. that’s all i can afford.”
and the room went into a blur, like i was breathing in a drug from his air and his hands and knuckles sunk into the knots of my back muscles like hot irons and i felt my tension start to melt. and i suddenly realized, i was in “Fight Club” and Brad was Tyler Durden, which is really not far from the truth in a lot of ways in my life. Brad LOOKS like Tyler Durden, in some ways. i always get a feeling from him when we chat that he’s either been in some kind of fight or is soon to be in a fight. but it’s more than that, it’s his robust attitude towards life and the way he gets the shit done that he wants to get done.
there were things going on in the room that kept distracting him, which i think were mainly his own thoughts. he kept talking about things during the massage and he’d need to step away so he could pontificate for a moment or two, but it was okay because i needed the extra moment to let my muscles adopt to the change they were going through from the “fire in his hands”.
the massage ran about 10 minutes overtime and i got up to leave. i don’t remember him asking for the cash, or me offering it. that’s how massages between friends go a lot of the time. i think “the room” was his garage.
but i left and went for a walk… can’t remember the exact scenery but there was a large mansion on a hillside that i came to. two scenes are blending in my mind right now… the house from American Horror Story and the place in L.A., near Pasadena (Mt. Washington) where Deirdre used to live, up in the hills… it was like I was walking up the hillside to a house that was both of these houses… and if i had been at Brad’s house i could very well have been in L.A. there was a “feeling” of there being the presence of many people at the house but I didn’t see anyone. i could just feel the energy, thus the sense of haunting, or ghosts… there had been/was a party going on and i brushed past people/ghosts trying to find someone. i had something to deliver, a gift? the money? to who? it wasn’t Deirdre, it seemed like a blonde woman was in my mind’s eye…
yes, that’s all blurring out now. i can’t remember any more now. if it comes back to me later i’ll come back and write more. right now, i’m still undecided about what to do with this cash. i don’t care about hiring that model. i do care about the friends i’ve hurt but i think they would just take the money, spend it, and laugh at me. i could surely do with getting my body massaged but that just sounds so selfish, and like a temporary solution that will only get bad again. maybe i should just take the money to the cemetery and bury it. wait till i get some genuine inspiration about what to do with it…
i’m writing a novel. i’ve been working on it for nearly seven years now. it’s gone through a lot of phases of development. in the first year of it’s inspiration i experienced brilliant bursts of insight and wrote them all down in a journal. i’m going back through that journal now, touching in for remembrances of some of the initial genius that was borne there. here is a sample piece of how i brainstormed then. this entry is simply marked “journal-like entry: 9/26/05”. i recall that i was experimenting with the voice of the narrator of the story. this was a sample of the main character writing in journal-like fashion to tell her story.
“My awareness of voices and dates is becoming more succinct. Night time visits are becoming more and more powerful. Not so much attending just for mood or out of mood any more. Becoming more purposeful.
Last night with Kirsta was very/rather profound. I felt closer to her than… I felt like she actually opened up to me and let me know that she was “feeling”. That she was alone today. That she missed the attention her mother used to attend to her. That she still hurt. That she still cries. And that being dead and buried, though its become normal to her, it is still the most horrible thing in life.
It seems that it was just a couple of months ago when I first sat still next to her grave. On a quiet night like this when I sensed how deep inside the earth her spirit had receded to. How deep of a sleep her soul had fallen into. When I first sensed the depth of death.
When I found her at that place, in that cocoon far beneath her gravestone I couldn’t see any form of a body. Even the essence of her spirit seemed to have faded to a dust. Her sleep throbbed though. Her sleep’s pulse stirred me from my depressed meditation and I awoke, surprised to see where I had sank to.”
yes, this is good work for me to do, going back into my notes, my early research and getting stirred up again by what my original ideas were. this takes me back to the deep and hidden places where i was so buried in my world of imagination - and where i made friends with my characters, who were, for a mad man, a man unable to relate to the living, a very reliable source of companionship.
i was driving somewhere that looked like west oakland. i was in a car typical of what i would drive, old jalopy, beaten up, saggy and creaky. but i it was cruising pretty quickly through the empty streets where the warehouses haunt the old neighborhoods i still enjoy driving around for memories of my dad.
i must have been hungry, though i did not feel it in my dream body, because i dashed the car into a parking space at a fast food joint. it was sloppily parked by other old jalopy-like cars and there were teems of slovenly youths languishing about. One car, in the space next to where i decided to park, had a car with a missing back door and there was a youth sitting half way in, half way out of the car - legs stretched out into the lot. there was enough space plenty for me to park my car, no danger of hitting him, but the aura of my car cut into his aura and he felt like his space was invaded. i could see it in his face. i just laughed, probably because of the music i was playing.
so hungry though, i jumped out of the car and ran to get in line inside the fast food place, which even though i did not see a sign felt like an In-N-Out. there was no one in line. the server came to me and i told her that i did not have money and asked if i could pay with “this” instead - and i held up some copper wiring from my car. it was about 6” long and thick, more like cable than wire.
i knew what i was supposed to do with it, but i had never done it before so asked her to show me how. there was some method of electrically activating this “cable” to the cash register system the store had that would connect with my banking funds. but it was archaic, like the way you would jump the cables trying to hot-wire a car. sparks flew between my cable and hers, but it worked. she said my information was appearing on the screen, but that it didn’t look right. that it was taking too much information and not just transferring funds for my purchase. it was pulling in all the information from my database of my previous transactions instead. i asked her to reverse it, to clear it because i did not want that information shared. she said she’d have to get a manager and it might take a day to get it fixed. i got nervous about that.
i asked, “you’re not going to feed me then, are you.”
“Not if you don’t pay, nope.”
my heart sank. i needed food. at that moment i realized that a crowd had formed behind me. it was the boys from the car i parked next to in the lot. they were looking for trouble. they crowded up against me, without looking at me in the face, as if they were pretending to be doing something else, and if they hurt me, they’d be able to say it was unintentional.
right then a security guard came rushing in from the side of the room and tackled all of the gang. i was left standing, untouched. i just got a fleeting glimpse of the face of the man. it was my Egyptian friend, Khaled. just like something he would actually do in real life!
but i left the room then and went back out to my car, knowing that the “charge” had been taken out of my “cable” and that my car would not be able to start and that i was going to be stuck here in west oakland overnight. i became afraid.
(via mothtales)
i blogged this image because i wanted to comment on my ideas about this style of photography that exemplifies the female form. i cannot deny that i find the female form to be a very beautiful sight. i am rather bewitched by the mystique of her. but in my life, she is a thing only of mystery. i do not really know women. i think i would love women if i knew any, but i don’t. i am surrendered to just being an admirer of their form, and the whimsy of the spirit they represent in the world. this image though, for me as a man lucky enough to be a photographer of women, excites me in the pleasure established by the model being free and comfortable enough with her own being to wear a garment that exposes the sight and shape of her breasts. there are times when the sight of a bra is enticing in a photograph of a woman, but if this woman were to be wearing a bra beneath this flimsy, see-thru garment it would, in my opinion, ruin the effect. unless it were constructed of equally gauze-like material.
i’m frustrated sometimes on photo shoots when a model is burdened by a bra that bulges through her clothes and straps are exposed. it ruins the esoteric smoothness of the potential beauty of the image. i’m getting more comfortable with talking to my models about this. asking if they would be comfortable to pose without a bra. like a alluded to above, i am not knowledgeable of women’s ways though. i’m not always sure why a woman chooses to wear a bra. if it gives them a sense of security, or comfort. if they are shy of letting their natural shape be shown. it’s something that seems like enough of an issue to me that i’m considering having an open discussion about it with a model before we schedule a shoot. if she states that she will not pose without a bra, maybe i’ll choose not to work with her. models that pose nude, well this is not an issue with them at all.
just thinking out loud… ;)
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Cam Damage is a very popular, alt-nude model in the Model Mayhem community. She’s 22 years old and just graduated from college with a degree in anthropology. She’s developed a reputation for herself as a lively and adventurous young woman willing to explore challenging artistic opportunities.
I contacted her about two months ago and proposed the idea to her of participating in my Cemetery Girls project when she was next going to visit California. She charges a pretty standard fee for her time; $100 an hour for posing nude. I now accept this as the industry standard and do not balk at paying this amount of money to a model that is comfortable with undressing for the creation of artistic imagery.
I photographed a model this autumn who did not have such firm ideas about her worth established and stated that her fees for nude modeling were “negotiable”. I worked with her for 90 minutes, fed her a light lunch and gave her $70 ($20 more than the $50 we had agreed upon and $15 gas in her car’s tank). In my opinion, she was worth every penny and I encouraged her to believe more strongly in herself because she was very professional and is extremely beautiful.
There have been other experiences with nude models that have also been exemplary. It’s like these models that have come to terms of accepting their own sexuality and their bodies have been able to elevate their sense of ego and self respect to a higher level that enables them to perform unabashedly and shamelessly.
I have not taken the time to pointedly interview these models to ask them about earlier stages in their lives, that have formed their positive attitudes that they have now - albeit, most of them are younger than 25 years old. Most of them seem to be in relationships too. Not all of them, but most. Cam brought her boyfriend to our shoot.
Taking my thoughts further, there are models that I have worked with, who to my knowledge have not posed nude - that I would gladly pay $100 an hour if they would consider posing nude/semi-nude for me. It’s an interesting thing to consider, being in this position as an artist. The relationship one has with their potential models. I know that if I were among art students, where the human form were being studied for drawing and painting, there would probably be many people that would be willing to volunteer to model nude for photographs.
No, what I’m finding intriguing is the possibility of drawing someone out of a position that they may have stated that they would never pose nude, into getting them to become open to the idea and trying it. What is most interesting to me is seeing where I am as a person and how I am developing the communication skills and trust with a model to be able to breach the topic. I have one model friend that I’ve known for about 4 years now. We’ve had a friendship that has gone through good times and bad times. (She’s pretty mad at me right now about something.) But we started talking last summer about her posing nude. I just said it out straight. That she is so beautiful. The one thought in the back of my mind that I’m afraid to say to a young woman, is that “you are not going to be this young and beautiful forever, and you may not have an opportunity to pose for an artist like myself again”. Not someone that you have a comfortable, safe friendship with. Not with someone that you know is not out to objectify you.
Cam’s photos, I’m putting up for public viewing just because she’s very public. The model I photographed in the autumn (who’s name I’m not even mentioning), no one but she and I have seen those images. Except for one that I posted in Model Mayhem and any that she has shared. I crossed a line about 6 months ago where I no longer care that all of my work is seen by the world. I thank Grace Robertson partly for that attitude adjustment.
Anyway, this turned out to be more of a rant than I expected. Thanks for listening…
this may turn out to be bit lengthy. see how it feels to write a blog-like entry here. saw this image float by in my tumblr stream about 3 hours ago and a torrent of ideas, memories, feelings - i’m not sure exactly what, submerged, buried things, stirred. she’s not someone i know. not exactly. she looks enough like someone i used to know. in 1994 when i moved to Santa Cruz i met a woman that looked an awful lot like this woman. long blonde hair, tall, robust and healthy body with a very positive attitude towards life. we were both starting our term at UCSC as returning students. we were both single parents of 12 year old boys.
i was the most holy and centered, emotionally and mentally, that i had been in the majority of my life. i was healthy physically. i was excited about the new life that laid before me as a college student that believed he could change the world this late in his life (i was 35 yrs old).
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