It’s so beautiful out already this morning; the leaves on my giant willow trees in the back yard are beginning to yellow and slowly falling creating a carpet of yellow along the ditch banks. I see the skies begin to clear with some patches of blue. If the sun comes out it’s going to create a brilliant glow that will radiate through out the house. This would be a perfect morning for some beautiful photographs, but I have no one lined up. Thor and I a have been putting so much time into the website that I we have neglected shooting anything new in the past couple of weeks. I am writing early today, even before coffee, because I want to get out and work on the yard today. I have the new deer fence about half way done on the other side of the house, so today’s goal is to get out and finish the fence and start thinking about how to design a gate. For those of you who know me, you know I don’t do anything simple and every element of my life is personally designed.
For those who have been to the studio you know exactly what I mean. The whole house is completely off center, with so many angles and pitches and textures. Everything is about function and has been created for a specific purpose. The pitch in the main room, where I shoot, was set up so that I would have beautiful natural light that would face to the north at a specific angle exposing the sky without ever allowing direct light into the actual room. With the vaulted ceilings, needing the height for lighting equipment to be raised on stands and booms, the whole pitch of the room had to be offset to thirds. See the rule of thirds I use for photography even plays into my design of the house. Because the pitch of the room is offset to the lesser third on the northern side, it creates that effect with the northern skylights. As I was designing the space, I hired a draftsman who could do the drawings of what I envisioned in my head. I defied his rules of logic and he kept moving the lines back to center. Then we hired a structural engineer who told us how to make it happen. The house is very unique and totally matches my personality. It has the balance and flow of a beautiful painting. I design from my heart and often defy what is logical, it becomes more about an expression of emotion and feelings the space evokes. My yard is becoming the same way. The fence is designed for the practical purpose of keeping the deer out, but allowing the small critters that inhabit the yard like my kitties a freedom and flexibility to move through it, and since one of them is deaf, a quick escape from dogs that come upon her unaware. The yard is small so it needs to have a feeling of being open and not restricted. The fence is becoming like these beautiful little trellises that I will also be able to plant and grow climbing flowering vines. And the rough-cut cedar gives it a weight and texture. This year was about creating a rough outline of the garden, next year will be about sculpting it. So since I have no models lined up for this beautiful Sunday morning I am heading out the garden to enjoy another fall day.
I feel like I am becoming a bit tapped out and have talked about everything possible. Have been working on this website so much that I actually can’t seem to think or function anymore. It’s a time for a diversion! The site is coming along beautifully, but it has grown beyond what I thought it would become. With some minor set backs shutting the process down most of last week, things are back to normal again and it’s almost finished. I don’t think I have ever worked on anything as hard and long as I have this. The rain seems to have passed and the last couple of days have been totally Montana gorgeous as the leaves are now starting to change and vibrant color fills the air. The warm sun feels great after all that cold rain. I have begun my fencing project on the other side of the house so I am going to get out and work on that today. I really need to work with my body and hands, instead of so much with my brain. I am going to put on my work clothes, play some jazz music and head outside.
It feels like Montana is heading into fall already. The nights are getting very cold, though we have not had a major frost yet. This is typically my favorite time of the year, when I actually get out and begin cleaning my gardens out for the season, but this year I feel like I have become oblivious to what’s happening in my outside environment. This morning as the sun is streaming through the studio windows I realize what a shut-in I have become this fall. My focus and energy has completely shifted to The Naked Man Project, 24/7. In many ways I have become obsessive about it. The website is completely taking shape and the overall structure is set. Stephen and I are working through the massive naked catalogues I have amassed over the past 14 years since I took up photography and doing a massive sweep of housekeeping elements I should have established early, but never quite kept up on. I did it for my photography business, but never really for the nude portfolios. The catalog is so massive that we needed to begin copywriting, rating, sorting and key wording all the images so it becomes searchable and manageable. The galleries are built in the website, now we just need to import the images into those galleries. To do a web site of this nature I really cannot just turn it over to someone else and have them build it, because it is my personal connection to each of these shoots and collection of images that will make the project and site interesting. So it really needs to maintain the integrity and vision of what I conceived from the beginning. And the way the Joomla platform, on which the site will operate has already been designed, so the look and feel have already been established; now the content just needs to be inserted, most of the content, here of course, being the images. Stephen is becoming very good at recognizing what I see and am looking for in my own style, but he is still not quite up to speed, so the final selection and elimination needs to remain mine. I had no idea I had such a massive collection of images. One of the reasons I have neglected this kind of housekeeping on my collections was, I never really intended them to be used for anything. So my lesson and advice to artist is to come up with a filing system that you can grow into. Take the time after a shoot, once you have created the images to do some housekeeping on them, make it a part of your workflow, even if you never intend to use the images. Believe me it has taken me years to figure out a filing system that makes for easy access. I use the Adobe Lightroom Program because it has so much depth to the possibility and it one of the most powerful cataloging software programs available.
I have a new kid coming to work with me this afternoon who wants to work as an apprentice. I met with him yesterday and we are on the same page. He has a history of working in male nude photography on actual film. I am still looking for others that want to become involved in getting The Naked Man Project up and running. I see how powerful it can become with others bringing their talents to the table. I have been feeling so overwhelmed for some time. I realized part of my greatest talent as a stage manager was coordinating large theatrical productions on the road and that I am actually quite a great manager and proficient at the delegation of projects. My vision is big and I realize that I can no longer create it alone. Plus I have a lot to teach others so the insight gained would be a great experience. I believe this will eventually become a community project, but first of all I need to get it up and running for myself.
Something in the air changes and it suddenly feels like fall. Labor Day is somehow that turning point weekend in the United States where the day after summer seems to disappear. It was the first football game of the season, the final family campout, and the last days of the rodeo. This morning I began putting together my fall schedule that will take me through to the end of the year. The University in back in session and I begin a new season of working on their shows tomorrow night. It is also the season when all the new students are back in town and I can begin my process of recruiting some new subjects. I need to get back into my studio again and begin shooting. It feels like I have been distracted the past month or so getting ready and going on the trip that I have not had much time to work on my imagery. I spent most of my spare time throughout the weekend pulling things together for the upcoming new website. It is progressing very well and we should begin putting it up on the server the next couple of days and then begin refining it. I am hoping to have something running by the end of next week, well at least the initial home pages and some of the galleries.
