B&W image

I do believe in the ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ theory and here is more proof to support it.  Len, my subject and I go way back to the early ‘80’s when we worked on the then award winning Kawasaki Motorcycle campaign.  He was the copywriter and I, the photographer.  Like most working relationships in advertising we lost contact with job and account changes.  It wasn’t until somewhat recently we ran into each other at a mutual friend’s dinner gathering, an event totally unrelated to the industry that we loved.  Little did we know that we had shared this mutual friend separately for 23 of those years.  We now keep up the friendship sharing old memories and names of those we worked with back in the Golden Years of Advertising.  When we got together today to make this image, he confided that he had never had the opportunity all those years ago to be in front of the lens.  Today we changed that.

Yesterday was a wonderful amazing magical day. While the entire population of the United States was fixated on a once in a lifetime Total Solar Eclipse that traversed our country, my daughter gave birth to Ryan Nathan Solloway-Ahrend. The stars were indeed aligned for his arrival to coincide with this historical event. I made the image just hours before Ryan’s birth and didn’t realize until afterwards how meaningful it would be for this more personal occasion. A layer of morning coastal clouds had done a pretty good job of obscuring the sun and softening any hard shadows. The marine layer had precluded any thoughts of photographing it. The sun popped just as the solar eclipse was almost complete and I had a last minute idea for a little different photographic approach using the multiple holes from an old colander to add some interest. Hurriedly looking for a surface to shoot the projected eclipse on I chose a nearby marble patio table. Using my iPhone to make the image it was not till I processed it did I discover the subtle and not so subtle similarities to an astrological landscape. The bowl shape of the colander gave the secondary “star” patterns some perspective and helps to lead the viewers eye around the image as does the shadow of the colander’s outer edge. Another surprise was the soft projected edges of light gave the “stars” a three dimensional feel.

The camera is an amazing tool for the photographer, it can capture a moment in time and tell stories. I have caught here a moment of reflection, so absorbed in thought that for the model the outside world does not exist. So preoccupied in her musings that she may not have been aware that anyone else was in the room.  Or …. is she just doing what I directed her to do, to be pensive and distant. The writer has his pen, paper and computer to influence his reader and we photographers have our cameras so we too can tell our story, to make our point, to influence our viewers, to buy into whatever we are selling ….. deep thoughts and responsibilities.

OK, so here I am following Martin’s charming lady from Ames, Iowa with a stretch, both in concept and in name. It is a stretch in that I’ve changed the direction of the game in everything other than by subject, a woman. From color to B&W, from bundled up to not at all, from outdoors to indoors, from headshot to full length, from standing to sitting, from sunlight to studio lighting, from front to back, the list goes on… So naming it “The Stretch” seemed appropriate.