Gypsy

Yesterday, I shot with a Rumanian Gypsy.  Black hair, olive skin, heavy accent.  I'd seen her portfolio pictures.  There was something wild about them.  She had been a gymnast when she was young, she said.  Her body had the remnants though she was in her thirties.  Gypsy skin--it was smoother than any skin I'd ever seen.  I think she produced lanolin.  She had degrees from colleges in both Romania and here.  Forensics.  She said she liked blood.  Jesus, really?  I told her I was glad we were shooting in the daytime.  I would need wolfsbane.

She had brought a lot of dresses.  She kept showing me, though I had little interest in them.  "I don't really do a lot with dresses," I said.  "But we can shoot a few pictures of each."  I am not a girl-in-a-dress kind of photographer because I don't have a concept for that.  I just don't have a reference of meaning.  But I shot those wanting to get her into the costumes for Lonesomeville.  She had some that were going to be spectacular.

As the clothing got smaller, she looked more spectacular.  She was strong with muscles in her shoulders, legs and arms.  But it is crazy how people think about themselves.  She thought only of the things she didn't like about herself.  Small breasts, she said.  She worried about her belly.  "I wish I had your body," I told her.  "I'd have much more fun."

I said something about her European sense of dread, a sort of fatalism that Americans try to erase with up-talking.  But, I thought, maybe it is just the accent.  She had the same cadences and funny phrases as the Russian Jew who cuts my hair.  Was it the accent or did the way she spoke really represent a different world view?

I asked her who the most famous Rumanian was, and she said the gymnast Claudia.  We were listening to the music on her iPhone, though, and a pan flute came on.  "Zamfir?" I asked.  "Yes," she said, "He is Romanian.  Do you know of him?"  I laughed remembering those first cheesy commercials so very long ago selling music I'd never heard of in a way I'd never seen.  Zamfir and Roger Whittaker.  "Oh, yes," I said.  "I know of him."

She was very shy with her body, and it was sometimes a struggle to get her into character.  "Don't be such a prude," I said.  Later, she told me, "I've never shot nude before, so don't call me a prude."  Really?  I hadn't been paying attention, I guess.  Oh, but she was beautiful and strange.  I think she will come back to shoot again.