A New Study Begins

I am starting to reconnect with some of the subjects I have shot in the past and this week will begin shooting with them again. It’s always fun to go back and shoot with people I have worked with before, because you already have that instant working relationship. I have a strong desire this week to get back to that Caravaggio lighting style I began working with at the beginning of the year. The staging and set up for this style seems to take the entire studio space to create the balance of light I am looking for. It’s not just lights, but layers of scrim filters upon filters. More goes into blocking and controlling the light to a confined space then actually allowing the light through. I have today off without much distraction. We were supposed to begin putting the web site together and I had scheduled all day to work on it, but we are having a problem loading the templates and are waiting to hear back from the designers, who are in Europe. Most of the information has been gathered and written and is ready to insert once it’s installed. This gives me today to focus on research and looking through old paintings to find that inspiration for the upcoming shoots this week. This is really the favorite part of the process, researching and figuring out what it should or needs to look like. I saw so many paintings in the Louver while I was in Paris that seemed to contain the feeling and essence of where I want to go. It is to touch the core of raw emotions and get to what makes us vulnerable. One of the patrons I have met suggested that I need to begin a series of self-portraits, exposing myself in my own style. The shooting this week will become an exploration of where that self-examination can begin, of looking at how I fit within the structure of my own process. I am hoping to see a more positive image of my physical self begin to emerge. Sometimes this is the hardest thing an artist must do, set aside their preconceived ideas of who they have become and see who they actually are. Mapplethorpe was brilliant at this, to face himself so unafraid without compromise. I began the year and the first blog with a self-portrait of myself and now it’s time to revisit myself once more.

VIEW FULL IMAGE: Robby #122