Feeding the Beast

It only lasts a minute, this sort of fame, for 591 is a blog, not a museum, and blogs must be fed or die, so my image gets moved through the system until you would have to know what you were looking for to find it. Here, too. But I will extend my "famous again again" moment like a nine year old who got an "A" on from his art teacher for a drawing he did of a bunny and a bear. Here is the equivalent of putting it up on the refrigerator door (which I hadn't thought of but could certainly do). I especially like it because the archive image is from my surfer series--a double!

I've shot more since this photo on Tuesday and can't wait to show the goodies to you. Again, like a nine year old, I want to put them all up now. But I will wait. They will go quickly enough and when there are no more to show, I will be depressed again. Here is one, though, of my Bellocq/Storyville homage. Many of Bellocq's plates had been marred, usually having the face of the model scratched away. Nobody knows who did this, whether it was the model or Bellocq's sister, or Bellocq himself.

To make for future mysteries, I will not tell you whose idea it was to scratch away the image of the face. And it was scratched, not drawn.

I was fearful of shooting this week, afraid that I had not prepared enough. It is difficult for one person to be everything, and I am not a skilled set designer. I have scoured the local antique stores and vintage clothing shops, but that has taken hours, and I really don't know much about that, either. I clean the studio, set up walls and backdrops, all alone. Not enough hours. Not ready. When it came time to shoot, I was desolate. But then the magic kicked in and I realized that these minimal sets were what I really wanted and started with like a 1950's existentialist play. Simplicity and repetition.

The rain stopped in the night and now the world begins to respond to sunrise. Spring has wonderful light here, but slowly, then quickly, it gives way to the dullness of too much sun and too many clouds. I'll have to try to make the most of this.