You know when you get up and you have a plan for the way the day is going to go (or at least a fairly good idea)... and then the day takes a total and complete U-turn that you totally were not expecting, but ends up turning out pretty well....That would be today!
And it was all caused by one of those "the Universe is messing with me" moments too. I fired up the computer this morning, opened up all the sites I usually check first thing and for whatever reason the computer just had a feeling and/or a panic attack and kept freezing up and just would not play ball. So in the end I just had hit the reset button and start over... you know, less fun.
But if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have been logged into my "other" Gaydar profile which I hardly ever use, but still check every morning just in case. And this guy messaged me about a photoshoot while I was logged in.
So we chatted, this and that, back and forth, and while it wasn't the kind of arrangement I would normally have gone for, it's been basically forever since I did a one-on-one photoshoot with a model... and by forever, I mean July 2005...
And, you know something... there really are only so many buildings, flowers, plants and graffiti you can photograph before you kind of start to crave photographing people again. Or that could just be me...
Anyway I didn't want to just dismiss Fox (yes, again with the animal themed pseudonyms) out of hand, especially since a) it was a glorious day outside and b) he'd made a vague reference to inviting me over for a beer and a chat/look through my portfolio if nothing else. So I went and had a shower (since we all know that that is where I do ALL my best thinking), and figured, what the hell... following the road less travelled has served me well in the recent past...
Plus as I was getting out of the shower it seemed like the rest of my apartment building had just woken up and were starting to make far too much random noise for that early in the morning, which, while it didn't totally make up my mind, certainly put a check in the "this is a good plan" column.
So I packed up my camera (actually cameras, both the SLR and the digital), my portfolio and my tripod and toddled off into town. And it wasn't even 9:30am yet!
I gotta say Fox's apartment is just damn stylish. The total opposite to mine (although not really all that larger... maybe a bit though)... all clean lines and surfaces and minimal decor, but damn it was nice. Renovated too, which turned a boring 1960's flat into quite sexy inner city living.
We had coffee, we chatted some more, we looked at my portfolio (which he was quite impressed with) and then we agreed on appropriate Terms and Conditions for said photoshoot. And to be perfectly honest, I really didn't particularly care what the hell those T&C ended up being, I was just happy to be photographing people again.
I'm not sure (yet anyway... until I get the actual photos back) whether it will turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing that I only had black and white film in the fridge (although I kinda wish now that I'd actually paid attention to the fact that I picked up a 36 roll and a 24 roll instead of two 36 rolls like I thought)... Fox was happy with b&w, but his place had a lot of colour going on (okay, green mostly, but a bright vivid green) and I think some of the shots could have turned out well in colour too. We'll see I guess.
Fox was good for the most part as far as posing went... although I started to realise I was rusty about not only communicating posing adjustments, but just generally when it came to ideas (not to mention simply working with the SLR again after all this time)... although I did want to do the maximum amount of set ups and different looking images as I could for him... so I was always grateful when he started a sentence with "another shot I've always wanted is..."
We won't even discuss the fact that I screwed up the end of the first roll because I was using my cable release and tripod, and I don't even know how the hell it happened, but I flicked the cable release from "unlocked" (ie single shots) to "locked" (continual shutter release)... and it didn't help because I had no idea what the hell I had done. Thank god there were only like four or five shots left on the roll, otherwise that could have been one big fat disaster.
Anyway once we were done (about 12:30 or so... so maybe two and a half hours of shoot, half an hour of chat) we sat around for a while, had a beer and more chat... it was nice. I don't want to jump the gun and say that I've found a new friend... but you never know.
And it was a hell of an enjoyable way to spend a Sunday morning. Unexpected as all hell, but highly enjoyable.
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