I've known James for a long time but not very well, until recently. James and his equally talented wife, Karen, were our host on the recent photo safari to Virginia. There's a trip I'll not soon forget. They invited us to visit them on their farm just south of Lexington. If you haven't driven Route 64 east into West Virginia and then into Virginia, you should. You should do it at least once in your lifetime. The National Forests are totally amazing and the drive takes place mostly on a ridge with hundreds of small towns sprinkled below. I commented to my wife that I knew how the Grinch felt looking down on Whoville. It would make a superb motorcycle trip and you must stop along the way to visit some of those burbs.
I digress.
James was an open book and he practically tripped over himself to help me on my journey as best he could. Photography, at least on a Commercial Professional level, was something that he had not experienced and he was all ears and open minded not to mention secretly thrilled at the prospect of the experience. I think at first he took it a bit lightly until he recognized my focus and determination was for real. Once we got on the same plane, his involvement shifted into high gear. I now realize, this story could become very lengthy and a chapter or two in a book, so I'll cut to the chase.
Once we had determined I would take a two day rental on a storefront in Lexington, James and Karen launched into a frenzied mental and physical search for Virginians who might best suit my need as subjects. They made call after call and quizzed others as to who might be best suited for the cause. At one point James and I worked out a system, with a simple unnoticed nod, as to who to ask and who not to ask to sit. We went in and out of local shops and offices until we had more than enough subjects to fill my time there.
An interesting aside came the day I called the number on the building with the storefront for rent. A very nice lady answered the call and I explained my dilemma...would she be amenable to renting her space for just a few days, I asked. Cautiously she deflected answering the question until she consulted her husband. I left my contact info and went on looking for a backup space just in case she deferred to accept my proposal. After I had ended the call, I thought, I should have directed her to my blog as a reference to what it is that I do. It had seemingly only been a few minutes when she returned my call. "Jerry," she said with a certain amount of glee, "I went on-line to check you out and I found your site. I love it," she said. She then said something about did I know that Sally lived there. The cell connection was not the best and I didn't quite grasp her point. The conversation went on through the crackling of the phone and the subject of Sally came up again. I'm sorry, Sally? Sally who? Sally Mann she replied. You mean THE Sally Mann, I responded? At this point, maybe everyone is not familiar with The Family of Mann, it was one of the most successful photo tomes of it's time. A bit of a documentary piece about Sally's family as they grew up. It was a bit controversial then and it reared its head through the decades over and over whenever someone would bring it up again.
Again, I digress.
It became quickly evident that James was more than willing to be my test subject, you know, someone to set up on, to test the lighting so as not to be embarrassed when the time came to shoot for real. Now, James is not a hulking mass of a man, nor is he old enough to wear his life on his face. A phrase which became the the buzz words when approaching prospects. I was concerned, how I would be able to apply my technique to someone not in the mold of my usual subjects. "James," I said, "you're not going to be able to shave for the next several days." I think if he could have sprouted a beard on the spot, he would have. I'm thinking maybe we could combine your farmer look with your concert pianist look. Hence the the Tux shirt and Bow Tie and bib overalls (which got cropped from the shot).
I mulled that proposition over for a while because I try to avoid corny or costumed folks in front of my lens. I think if I would have said I want you to pose naked with your goats walking on your chest, he would have done it. You gotta love a guy like that.
When the time came to begin the James Portrait, the theme quickly emerged. He is a gentle man, an intelligent man and has a likeness to Bruce Willis and in some of the outtakes, he displays a slight essence of Kevin Costner. Karen was thrilled and she assures me that James was equally delighted.
This is a very long written piece for me, I think I'll have James edit it for me. We'll see what comes of it then.
And Voila, the king James version has arrived. My friends have long been eager to assist me in my grammatical quest for putting the correct words in the correct order so as to somehow make my copy seem as competent as my imagery. It's not that I'm a moron, it's just that in my haste to embellish a thousand words to equal the picture, I sometimes skip over the little idiosyncrasies a good writer would never miss.
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1 comment:
Next time you visit I'd like for you to take the picture of the naked James with goats walking on his chest. Baby ones, of course.
Jerry, I LOVE this shot of him. Thank you for using him as your guinea pig.
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