I was up until the wee hours of the morning again thinking about an incident that become a catalyst in my life some time back. It was one of those moments where you know your life will be changed and a new vision of yourself becomes clear.
I was working as a stage manager in a small theater in Spokane, Washington. I had signed on for the season that lasted about a year. Bob and Joan Welch owned and operated this little mom and pop kind of theater called Interplayers that always produced astonishing works. I had seen many productions because my friend Michael Weaver worked at it for years and I was always intrigued to see what he was involved in. He introduced me to Joan and somehow we instantly bonded and became infatuated and know we were destined to collaborate on something. The supposed story behind Bob and Joan running this remarkable theater in such a remote place was even more intriguing. They had been a part of the legendary inner circle of Actor’s Theater in New York, but were blacklisted in the McCarthy Era and fled west to begin life anew, yet still follow their passion, theater. Though I was currently a member of Actors Equity Stage Union, the only way I could work with them at the time, which I was very determined to do, was to change my name to work under a non-union contact. But I know I wanted to work with these extraordinary people. And it was so worth the experience, because they brought theater to a level I only ever imaged it to be, delving into the inner depths of character in such an organic means for the actors to live the characters within the story. Every rehearsal I was awestruck and captivated by their approach and process of discovery the life of the play weather it was farce, comedy or drama.
I loved Spokane, a city built on a river, much like Missoula, that had once been host to a World’s Fair, when I was a kid, but had since been developed the site into a very beautiful park. The theater was near the park and I often wandered down there to have my lunch on the banks of the river, it was fall in paradise. I rented a very small apartment, which had once been part of a larger house divided into several units in an old historical district. Well about a month or two into being there I began to notice a strange odor within the space. Progressively, day-by-day, it became stronger and fouler. We all began to search our apartments to figure out the source of this terrible odor, but could not figure out the source. Finally it got so bad we called the landlord in to investigate. They began to work through each apartment systematically and eventually found that a young man who lived on the bottom floor alone had killed himself and had been there for a week. I had meet him several times and knew he was loner. I suspected he was gay, but of course was caught in my own busy schedule, and since he lived on the backside below me didn’t really get to know him. I eventually found out that he actually was gay and had been rejected by his family and had become infected with HIV and was lead to this desperate act, feeling completely isolated and alone not knowing where to turn. My heart sank deeply when I heard the news because I being a close neighbor, and also gay, had not reached out to him. I was so overwhelmed with regret and remorse that it had taken us a week to realize his isolation. I remember being so disoriented, angry, and hurt that I could barely function at the job I loved so dearly. Of course we could not move back into our apartments for several days as they tried to erase the odor that permeated the space. The next several days as I grappled with coming to terms with the event it become crystal clear in my mind that I would have to dedicate my life to helping other gay men who lived in such fear and isolation. And I began my own campaign to make people aware of HIV and break down the barriers surrounding its then seeming terror it had on others. The reality that the loss of humanity, dignity, and pride was suddenly too great to be ignored any longer. I as a gay man could no longer look the opposite direction or hide. A reality hit my world like a boisterous clap of thunder and I know my world would be irrevocable changed forever.
I saw a video on Facebook that actually moved me and got me thinking about this whole concept of gay marriage. I have been very mixed on the subject, not sure where I stand on either side of the debate. I sense my own security in my own relationship seems to be enough to bind us. Everyone around us on both sides of our families acknowledge and respect our relationship and know what our ultimate desires are if something happens to the other. Being gay and growing up in Montana I had never even considered the possibility of being able to marry someone of my same sex. Working for UPS, they have a strong policy supporting same sex partnerships, and though I only work part time in the evenings for the company they acknowledge Glenn as my partner and give him full benefits along with me. Of course we have had to prove our relationship and actually establish we were in a partnership. But over the years as we have attended the weddings of all our straight friends our age, joining in union, and photographing the marriage of all my nieces, and then to see my father at one of the happiest moments I have seen him in decades remarry after my mother’s death, there is a tug in my heart to unite with a man I have adored for so much of my adult life now that I can’t imagine a life without him. We committed in our early thirty something’s to watch each other grow old and that we have done. This video captures all the stages of our relationships, with warmth and tenderness and told the story of my own life. It reminded me of where I have been and I must say brought a tear to my eye to see the reflection of my life and know in the end I have been loved.
Yesterday I began a discussion about analyzing light in a photograph to use it to your advantage. The discussion began with my looking at a book of rare vintage nudes from the 60’s. And there was a prime example of what I wanted to talk about in one of the images but I can find a decent enough image of it online to show my examples so I am going to take this image of Travis. It’s harder to do on an image that I already know and have created. To me my own lighting techniques are so simplistic that they are hard to describe but here goes. My concept for the image was to show a gritty dirty mechanic sort of guy who had been working in a shop possibly most of his life. Growing up in small towns in Montana there are guys I know well and in high school I was particularly drawn to one kid who really exited me. He was a smart kid from a poorer family and work to help supplement and support his family. I watched him struggle most of the time and often worked instead of having fun with some of the rest of us his own age. He had an alliance to duty and I felt he often felt trapped in that world longing to be out from under its burden. He always seemed to live in a very fractured world. Yet there was something sexy and sensual in his honesty and how humble his work in the garage became. Every time I would visit he would just dirty in his coveralls, grime smeared across his face. The smell of the grease and mechanic dirt somehow become intoxicating to me and I found a strong desire to somehow be closer to him and somehow ease his fractured world.
I used Travis as me subject for this study because he so much reminded me of the person I used to know. So now that you know the history of the image I want you to begin looking that the image and analyze to see if I have indeed captured the properties of my intent tough the use of light. Typically I do this with images I don’t know the story behind and try to discover the artist’s connection to the subject though their use of light and exposure. The first thing I look at is the overall feel of the image. What does it stir or evoke within myself? There is a distance yet longing with in his eyes and a power and a strength in his hands that embrace the chain the bind him around his neck with a sort of comfort while he stands back, distant, yet there is a longing in his bloodshot eyes to connect to something different. Once you have established the over all mood, you must search the image for what supports that feeling. How does the light impact the psychology of the image? How many lights did the photographer use and where were they placed. The first place to begin to look for how a photographer uses light is to look at the catch light in the subject’s eyes. If you can zoom in close it will give you a lot of detail what the shape of the light was and where it was placed. On Travis you will see I used two lights in the front one a very long narrow light with a soft filter almost straight out in front, slightly to the right. You will also see just a faint small secondary light to the left that fills in the shadows on the left side of his face. This is what captures the longing in his eyes. I then used two very strong lights one to the left, not very high to sculpt the right side and a secondary light with little filter over his left shoulder. These are slightly behind him because I wanted there to be shadows on his face that represented and fractured light coming from different angels across his face, enhancing him being pulled in different directions accentuation his own fractured world. To discover the placement of these lights you look at where the highlights hit and the shadows fall. You see dappled patches of highlights across his face that mirrors the dappled grime on his face. Look at how the shadows fall on the veins of his hands and try to visualize where the light would need to be outside of the image to create such an effect. Then the image is slightly underexposed to give it a pervasive darkness that was really the mood I remember about this kid.
It seems far easier to be creative then it is to actually market or sell your creativity. This is becoming the lesson of this week. This is the greatest leap in my creative endeavor so far since this project began. I think back to the beginning of when I was first getting into photography and the greatest hurdle was just getting my self to the creative table. The beginning of a creative existence is filled with self-doubt and anxieties surrounding whether we are good enough or even talented enough to create. It happens in baby steps. For me doing “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity” a 12-week program by Julia Cameron which created that leap in my head that said it was OK to be an artist and the acceptance of myself as a creative being. With each success your confidence grows. The consistence of creating good stuff begins to outweigh the mistakes and, believe me there are lots of mistakes, you reach a tipping point where you become a master of your craft and nearly everything you work on is at least interesting. But it is a long voyage of forcing yourself to the creative process that continually nudged your way to that point of this clarity. The next hurdle seems to be exposing what you create and putting yourself out there for judgment and criticism. Of course this has been my greatest obstacle because of what it is I want to do and the acceptability of it in the culture I live. The first Friday evening of every month all the galleries in Missoula have a gallery walk where everyone is open late and you can wander from shop to shop and see all the new work that is up for the month. It has been a huge success in Missoula because they typically entice you in with wine, beer or some sort of edible treat. But these shows mostly only contain images of western themes or landscapes, the usual sort of paint pealing off the old barn sort of work. If I where to display my sort of imagery I am afraid I would create a scandal sort of thing and my studio would possibly be fire bombed. So this has become a huge leap in my own creative acceptance. The next phase that I feel I am on the verge of overcoming is creating a presence. This is the culmination of the process of this year and the process of search for a place. This phase has been far more creative and certainly more work then the process of creating art where the process of art began. Along each step there is a huge growth and a better understanding of myself and the things that seemed insurmountable in the beginning are now trivial in the end. Why does it take most of us our entire lives to become what it is we desire or aspire to become? Is it that we just don’t know the pathway? Does it become a battle with our own self-doubt? I began this year asking the question from many of my artist friends “Are we born to be artists or is it something we learn?” I now see what a tremendous amount of time and perseverance it takes to create anything. But so many of us put that amount of time and effect into things we are apathetic toward as a means to an end, just to make a living. When the real question becomes what is it that really satisfies and makes us happy. I know most of my life has been lived in uncertainty. But I have had this impulse all of my remembered existence and somehow at this stage it all seems worthwhile.
I have been battling a sinus infection all week and slept in this morning. I think we all have been pushing a bit too hard on the web project to get it up by tomorrow and are running into issues as we have been testing it that need to be resolved. At this moment I am utterly exhausted and need to take a break. We all need a break. I have to take some time off today to recover myself physically, mentally and emotionally. Sorry to announce that we will have to push the launch date back to next weekend. I am a bit disappointed to have to do this because I am generally a person who follows through with something when he says he will do it and bust my butt to make it happen when it needs to happen. But right now with my head I can no longer even think clearly and need the break. It is another wondrous fall day here in Montana and I am getting outside to enjoy the fresh air and clear my head.
