I have done a few posed photo sessions, primarily as portraiture.
In all instances I knew the persons and that is essential to trying capture the
character of that person as one knows it.
I always mention to them that whatever I capture is there – my lens will
not alter or “create” a smile or a capricious look. Often, the person who asked for a portrait will
look at the product of my darkroom and say “Hmm, I did not think I tilt my head
like that” or “funny, I look just like my mother!”
When I can unveil a side of them they may not know, I feel
like I accomplished what I had in mind.
… Recently a friend and well known Native American painter
asked me to take photos of a woman she wanted to paint. I had not met the model
before and did not know what to expect. The idea was that I would take photos
of her with a buffalo hide around her shoulders with the hope that one of my
photos may help my friend have a constant model in her studio to paint from.
After all, the buffalo hide weighed more than the model and
one cannot expect her to stay still for more than a few minutes under that
weight in a studio!
So, decided to shoot a roll of medium format film with my
Mamiya 1000s from the 1970s.
We spend a short time talking before the shoot. I could see
certain postures that seemed to define who she is. A Native American artist from the Yaqui
Tribe, she is a photographer who still uses film!! I could not recall the last
time I met someone who still does so on a professional level… I thought I was
the last one left standing….
Her name is Night, and given her dark hair, I could not
resist mentioning to her that “Night” would be the equivalent to “Layla” in
Arabic as a woman’s name. That made her smile very discretely, and I wanted to
capture that smile.
Therefore, by the time I started taking photos, I knew what
I was looking for. Interestingly when looking at the negative strip in my
darkroom, I realized that the shot I wanted was the 12th frame out
of the total 15 shot. Perhaps it took me that many clicks before anticipating
the look I wanted. That is why it is so important to know the person before
doing portraiture.
…So, here is the frame I chose. I printed it in two ways:
First by blurring the background using the traditional
dodging method under the enlarger’s light. I have discussed this simple method
here: https://liveingray.blogspot.com/2014/01/dodging-and-burning.html.
I find the dreamy aspect of this photo quite charming.
Second, I wanted to somehow give texture to the plainness of
the buffalo hide (the smooth hide was around her neck and the fur on the
outside) which gave too much of “empty space” around her. I like contrast in
B&W photography. Well, I like contrast in all aspects of existence …. So,
wanted to do something creative, but in traditional darkroom printing one has
one sheet of paper, one exposure to light through one frame of film. So, I
stopped exposure (with a dark purple filter in front of the light bulb) at 12
seconds of exposure, and moved the paper around hoping to get it right. Then I
exposed the negative again, on the same paper, for 7 seconds.
I was pretty close. I wanted a shadow of her face in that
empty space of the hide and the paper rotation was spot on.
… The most delightful part of this experience was that I had
a chance to learn more about her around a cup of coffee we all had after the session.
But not just any coffee – my friend had a pound of Lebanese ground cardamom coffee
and a hand hammered solid copper coffee pot! I made 5 cups of coffee, one for
everyone in the room.
Night is a very talented photographer – some of her photos
can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/Night.Hush.Photography/
April 19, 2017
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017
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