Though I’m very happy calling myself a fine art, conceptual photographer, it’s fun now and then to stretch outside of your comfort zone. I would never consider myself a fashion or editorial photographer, but when I started working with Travis Weinand, he had a looked that just screamed “FASHION/EDITORIAL” to me, so I decided to give it a go.
And you know what? It was fun! It was nice to do something different, and something which didn’t require 20+ hours of editing for each image. As I made my editing selections, I just had a gut feeling that they should be black and white.
Travis is so easy to work with and friendly, despite how he can look quite intimidating at 6′ 5″, very muscular, an American Ninja Warrior alumni, and beautifully adorned with tattoos.
He does moody and deeply thoughtful looks well, but I was also pleased to have captured several shots with him being a bit more natural; an easy grin and laughing.
His sheer size (measuring a full 6′ 5″) along with his strength and muscle control which come from hours and hours of training every day make him an ideal model. There are so many things he can do for real which I would have to use Photoshop trickiery for anyone else (including me!)
I’m still working out exactly how to best showcase Travis’ unique skills, but I noticed that he has a really great look for a more editorial kind of shoot… which was something I’d been wanting to do recently. Luckily, Travis came equipped with a couple suits, I gave him a dagger to add an extra element to the “fashion story.” I explained the premise I had in mind; his character was a James Bond-type who went around doing amazing, dangerous things while looking flawless and set him loose. Travis did not disappoint 🙂
I’m happy to present the first part of what will hopefully become an ongoing series, named after Travis’ Tumblr page: Travis Fights Giants.
And lastly, a little behind-the-scenes fun 🙂
I hope you enjoyed this little dip into a different genre! I hope to have more to bring you along the same line soon 🙂
I think it’s fair to say that 2014 has been something of a tumultuous year. A lot of very good things happened! And a lot of rather shitty things have happened to. Let’s touch on the bad first and get that out of the way.
There was a heavy dose of bad this year. Some of this has been discussed on the blog; three months of colds, sinus surgery, sinus surgery having dramatic and frightening complications, etc. A lot of it has not been discussed on the blog, however; this does not feel like the proper forum for a lot of the more personal matters, especially ones which involve people other than myself.
Geoff and I have to move. We are really, really, really not happy about this. I’m not going to discus the reasons for the move here, except to say that no one did anything wrong. We always paid our rent, etc. This is a heartbreaking blow; our neighbors have become like true family to us. And while we won’t live too far apart after we all move to our new homes, it will never be the same as when we all lived together on the Compound, as we called it.
When my first surgery complication began and I started bleeding profusely from my nose to the extent that I was truly concerned that I might need an ambulance, our neighbor John came rushing home to make sure I was ok until Geoff could get there. Once John and I decided an ambulance wasn’t needed, he sat on the floor with me and kept me calm and distracted.
When I found myself suddenly clutching a whole litter of baby opossums and in charge of their safety, Donna came to the rescue and helped me keep them safe. (They were eventually taken to a no-kill shelter which would rehabilitate them then release them into the wild when they were old enough.) These are not your average people. When we all found out that we’d no longer be living together, everyone cried openly.
One of the baby opossums
And good heavens, it’s been so good for Calantha to be there! Having a “pack” next door which she can come and go from as she pleases helped her put on a needed five pounds, which she’s maintained the whole time we’ve been here. Basically, absolutely everyone is extremely unhappy about this for a lot of reasons, but there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
Calantha, modeling the Lady Death bonnet
And of course I’ve been able to do a LOT of shooting there! There are SO MANY trees; it’s very easy to make the background look like a forest if you just frame around the tell-tale signs of human habitation. When you’re dealing with ME, being able to do an entire shoot without leaving your yard, or even getting out of your PJs if you want, can be an incredible boon.
This has also been an extremely tight year financially for us (which a move isn’t going to help). Again, I shouldn’t go into exact details here, but a large part of our income vanished early this year and we’ve been trying to stanch the metaphoric bleeding ever since.
Those are the biggest highlights of the bad, of the things I feel I can talk about here. It’s been a really difficult year and there have been many times when I’ve dissolved into tears over one more bad thing happening. The world has felt completely against us most of the year, no matter what we’re planning or how noble it might be, which of course feels terribly unfair. I’m holding out hope that this is all happening for a reason and that things will change soon. Some days that’s a very difficult hope to hold on to. I’ll talk a little more about this when I discuss this year’s new image.
Let’s move on to happier topics for now. Let’s talk about some of the good things that happened this last year!
I got to work with some really fantastic new models, Dan Donohue and Travis Weinand. They were both wonderful; the kind of models who make you want to come up with new concepts just for them. I’m looking forward to working with both of them again!
I was able to have brushes with both of my favorite authors, Robin McKinley and Peter S. Beagle. Robin McKinley was gracious enough to let me write two guest posts for her blog and talk about DreamWorld! In addition to the ongoing work I’ve been doing with Peter Beagle and Connor Cochran, Peter’s manager/publisher as well as my business manager, they had a special showing of The Last Unicorn in Santa Fe, NM, in a theater George RR Martin has helped restore. Since George RR Martin was going to be at the screening, Connor asked for some of my prints to hang in the theater, which led to this amazing moment caught on camera between the two beloved authors. While I have been credited as taking the photo, I was unable to be there in person although I would have LOVED to have been there!
Peter S. Beagle and George RR Martin with unicorn and dire wolf plushies, in front of my prints!
My dear friend and frequent model Katie Johnson started a video series interviewing some of the wonderful photographers she works with called Artist Profile. Katie was kind enough to start the series interviewing me; you can see the video below! The series has been really interesting to watch grow and I’m very honored to be a part of it!
One of my images was featured on Etsy‘s front page which made me squeal like a little girl. Luckily I got a screen capture of it before it changed to another treasury!
Etsy’s front page 08/08/2014
After I released Where Earth Meets The Sky, it was requested that I make a video showing how I’d created the image. Happy to oblige, I made the following video:
But I think the feature I’m most proud of came from winning a contest from Good Light! Magazine, hosted by Viewbug. The contests’ theme was “People and Water.” My image “A Drop of Blood” was chosen as the winning photo, which of course was just thrilling! But the prizes were really meaningful to me; first, a feature on View Bug’s blog about how I captured the image. Next was a really lovely article in Good Light!’s magazine about why the image was chosen:
And then my very favorite part was watching the short video where you can actually hear from the contest’s judge himself (and hear it in his lovely accent!) about why the winning images were chosen. It was truly thrilling and embarrassing to hear someone say such nice things about my photograph! Although I will gently note that the title came first and the image was built around it, not the other way around, but I can certainly see how it could confuse people!
Now, in less photography-related news, Geoff and I got to see the Breaking Bad House. We also celebrated out 3-year anniversary of being married, which Geoff worked hard to made special despite me being deep in the hell of every-three-week-colds.
Happy anniversary!!!
At the advice from Patti Penn, my Reiki teacher, and Geoff, I started making an important mental shift. I realized that I was looking at my future with ME as written in stone; that it was a pre-determined fate for me to always be sick with it to some degree. Sure, you hear about some people who go into remission, and even more rarely, are cured, but it was too painful to hope for that. I tried to not expect that I would always get progressively worse, even though that seemed to be the direction everything was heading in, regardless of whatever diet or lifestyle changes I made. It was less scary to expect that I’d always be dealing with it to some degree; opening myself up to the idea that I might get better some day was making myself vulnerable to extreme disappointment.
But I slowly started realizing that if I expected to always be sick, it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy and I would always be sick. So as frightening as it might be, I had to start letting the idea of being healthy enter my life. And it was very scary, very difficult. Knowing you’re going to be fucked for the rest of your life is something you can adjust to, prepare for and learn to accept. Having the possibility of healing destroyed the mental plans I’d been preparing myself for, and while it would be a very, very good thing to find myself well, the risk of shattering disappointment was so great, I didn’t want to even entertain the idea.
But I needed to embrace that idea, as terrifying as it might be. Geoff and Patti both brought up the same idea to me, completely independent from each other and without knowing what I’d been thinking through. It seemed like a very clear sign. So I’m taking a deep breath and plunging into the frightening unknown. The unknown where I could get better some day. And if I don’t get better, it certainly will be heartbreaking. But if I don’t allow myself to be vulnerable in this way, then I definitely will not ever get better.
This is one of my big plans for 2015. Every day, instead of dwelling on what I couldn’t or didn’t do, focus on what I did do. Even if 99.9% of me feels like complete shit, focus on that .01% where I felt good. Instead of being frustrated, angry and disappointed with the limitations of my body and mentally say nasty, demoralizing to it, I’ll praise it for the good it did. I’ll tell it that I know it’s working so hard, that it’s trying its best and that I appreciate all the effort it goes to. It will take time to make this mental shift, but it’s worth making it. And I will practice grace with myself, both in what my mental dialogue is and with however long it takes me to heal. I believe this is the only way I have any hope of getting completely better some day… and no matter how painful that hope can be sometimes, I will commit to it.
I’ve got a lot I’ll be working on through 2015. I have big plans for my Glass Walls series, which explores animal rights, along with continuing to build DreamWorld. A couple burners are being kept busy with Peter Beagle/Conlan-related plans. And I’ve got numerous projects at various points of completion which I’ll be sharing with you when I can 🙂
I’ve scattered some of my favorite images taken over the past year throughout this post (many of which you can find in my 2015 calendar, on sale here!), but I wanted to leave you with something to inspire you in your own photo creations! So, in no particular order, here are some of the photographers I recommend you start following right now, if you haven’t already! There may be some nudity, so just keep that in mind.
And lastly, though she is not a photographer, I highly recommend following Katie Johnson, one of the models I work with most frequently. She writes blogs for several site which cover a variety of subjects and angles. If you’re interested in modeling or pole dancing to gain confidence, you’ll find her a kindred spirit. If you’re a photographer, many of her articles are directed at you and will help you improve your photographer/model relationships. Plus, she’s just the loveliest person and one I am happy to have in my life and call a friend 🙂
So… this new image. As I’ve said, it’s really been a pretty rough year, all around. I watched a movie with my mom recently, on a day she came to visit me after my surgery and make sure I actually laid down all day (something I have trouble doing).
Winter’s Tale ended up being very much a “Sarah movie” as Geoff calls them. Critics weren’t overly taken with it, and I can see their arguments, but at the end of the day, I still really enjoyed the movie. It’s hard to make mythic, hopeful movies which are sweet without being cloying or heavy-handed, and I felt that Winter’s Tale balanced itself well. It’s also very beautiful visually and several of the themes inspired new creations of my own.
One of the movie’s main points is that “everything happens for a reason” (even the bad things). This has been such an incredibly trying year; right now I can’t imagine good reasons for the numerous bad things which have hounded Geoff and me this year. This image is sort of a peace-offering in a way. A symbol to the universe to say I don’t know what the purpose of these things could have been, but I’m going to trust that there is a reason. And not just any reason, but a good one. One I will look back on later and smile, thinking of all the heartache and knowing it had been worth it.
This is the attitude I want to start 2015 off with. A humble admission that I don’t have all the answers, and never will, but that I am continuing my direction of my life in the hope that tremendous good will be found along this path. At the moment it feels a bit like a blind faith, but I have decided this is the mindset I need to start off 2015. I am taking my leap; I hope the universe catches me.
I may have mentioned before that I often have the TV on while I’m editing. It has to be the right kind of show; something I can mostly listen to and just glance at periodically, it has to be interesting without being too engaging. I end up watching a lot of documentaries, nature, science and history shows. I also catch a lot of shows about the paranormal; I love stretching my imagination entertaining the ideas they present whether or not I think they might actually be true. Often these shows have a benefit beyond simply enhancing my editing time; I learn new things, I expose myself to new ideas. And sometimes I learn about problems in the world and I want to do something to try and help fix whatever is wrong.
Details from today’s images
I’ve known for some time about the terrible future the wild lions in Africa are facing. Poaching and habitat loss have killed off about 80% of their population in the last 20 years. Sadly, the traits humans find most beautiful about lions are also the things that make them genetically stronger, which means not only are people driving lions to the edge of extinction, but the lions which are left are weaker and less able to survive.
Can you imagine a world without lions? The fragile ecosystem which would be thrown into chaos by their loss? A world where children would grow up never seeing the majestic animals? Where lions would seem as unreal to them as dinosaurs? Telling your child that yes, these animals all once roamed the land, but now they are gone forever.
And it is because of humans that lions are teetering on the edge of this chasm.
If people are the cause of their destruction, we have a moral obligation to try and save them. As my close, personal friend Rustin Cohle would say, we have a debt to pay.
As is my usual first course of action, I decided to address the problem with photography. As I began building the concept in my head, I realized it would fit in well with DreamWorld. While most of the land is beautiful and verdant, there are less lush areas and also touches of actual evil.
It was at this time that I came across Travis Weinand. Travis is a multi-talented transplant from Philadelphia; he models, of course, acts, sings and plays bass in his really great heavy metal band Burden (seriously, I genuinely like their music! Give it a listen!) illustrates and paints beautiful images, he’s been a tattoo artist and has been competing in the last several seasons of American Ninja Warrior. Travis has promised to show me how to make my voice sound evil like I’m singing in a metal band and I’m going to show him how to levitate… in a photo at least 🙂 ANW isn’t something I’d seen much of; I quickly discovered it’s really physically demanding; here’s a short video from Travis to impress your socks off:
Travis’s physical strength, size (he’s 6′ 5″, so anybody seeing us walking together must have gotten a chuckle since I am all of 4′ 11″) and blond hair made him feel like a perfect lion-man. I decided to make a mane headdress, something more symbolic of a mane rather than something that was trying to perfectly replicate what a lion’s mane looked like. I had some really lovely blue and brown metallic yarn that I’d gotten on sale and wasn’t sure what I was going to do with, which seemed like a good place to start. Since Travis has brilliantly blue eyes, I decided to work some blue into the mane; this was a metaphoric mane, I decided I could bend the color rules a little.
Various amounts of blue yarn and other colors braided together
It happened that, of course, I got sick again while I was getting ready for the shoot – I think I’ve told you guys this but apparently my body has decided that it’s going to have a cold every 2-3 weeks until I have sinus surgery to stop its evil plan. My surgery is November 4th (wish me luck!) and I am so eager to have it done with. I’m really looking forward to a time when I can go more than a few weeks without getting sick on top of already being chronically sick.
That has, of course, been very draining, but knitting is one of those activities that you can do (if you’re making up your own pattern anyway) without engaging very much of your brain. It’s also quite soothing, the repetitive motions over and over again, and once I got through the really feverish first couple days of the cold it was a relief to have something I could work on and feel a little bit productive about. So a lot of braiding and arm-knitting happened while I was well enough to be bored but not well enough to do much of anything else. Above, you see the braided loops I made with varying amounts of a brighter blue yarn worked into the rest.
The under-mane, loops attached
Lion’s manes are typically darker close to the skin with the hair lightening as it gets longer. I made the “under-mane” from the original blue and brown yard that had started the whole idea, arm-knitting a general idea of the shape I wanted. I hand-tacked some of the braided pieces around the bottom to hang down decoratively.
The… main… mane
The, uh, main mane was also arm-knitted, into a similar shape, but fuller and more expanded toward the bottom. I love this brand of yarn. I want to arm-knit everything right now. It has such a beautifully organic look when it’s finished, even if you’re making it up as you go!
Ruffs
Lion manes are often majestically full right over the center of their chests, so I quickly knit up a couple filler-pieces to give extra fullness to Travis’ mane. You’ll notice that one is a little bigger than the other. The official reason is because it’s natural for there to be a slight asymmetry to any kind of animal markings or fur. The real reason is because I’d run out of yarn and didn’t have money to go buy another skein. Plus, I didn’t think it would really show in the final images, so I didn’t worry about it too much.
The beginning of a mock-up
I’m including this photo because for one, Aly gave me the unicorn-on-a-stick toy so I wanted her to see it is being used and loved, and also because it just really looks ridiculous 🙂 I needed to build up a shape that was going to let me see how the mane would actually be hanging and my regular foam head wouldn’t nearly do the job. Not only because it’s far too short and becomes unstable if I pile it high on a lot of other objects (I know this from experience) but I needed the mane to spread out so I could really see it. So this is the unicorn-on-a-stick sandwiched between the end of my bed and the blue dresser at the end of my bed, wrapped up with a very fluffy pink bathrobe which is so long that I use it as a blanket. In the next photo you’ll see another bathrobe draped over the unicorn’s head to give it more a human-head shape. There’s a method to all the madness.
And if anyone is wondering, the cardboard box is there for the cats (mostly Maynard) to lay in and the big pile in the background is my Costume/Fabric/Backdrop Pile. I’m working on a better way to store it all. There are only so many hours in a day.
First draping
I’d been planning to braid the mane into Travis’ actual hair, which is cut in a very cool undercut style which makes me think of Jimmy from Boardwalk Empire. I seem to be leaving a hole in the middle of the mane; that’s on purpose to allow for Travis’ hair. You can see the under-mane some and I’d started adding extra braided bits which just hung down.
Finished!
And here it is all done! Braided loops, hanging braids, front ruffs; it’s all there. It’s probably hard to picture how it will eventually look, but don’t worry, you’ll see very soon 🙂
I had come across some boulders in one of my walks (my doctor’s suggestion of a safe exercise for me right now, which makes me sad when I think about all the yoga, Pilates and ballet I used to do. I like to do the walks in nature since that makes it much more interesting and enjoyable).
The plants around it, which had been brilliantly green in spring were now brown and dying, so it felt like the perfect setting for my Last Lion, as I am calling this new DreamWorld character.
I imagine that the Last Lion had a vast kingdom once where his people thrived. During the Yellow King’s grab for power, his people and land suffered greatly when they stood up against the Yellow King. They are fighters. And though the Yellow King is now banished, he did real harm to the land and its people before he left.
They are fighters. They have been greatly wounded and they could vanish forever and be a mere memory in DreamWorld as the lions could be in our world… but I think they’ll prevail. They have not been beaten yet.
And if you would like to help our world’s lions, look into the Big Cat Initiative. They have a really solid plan of how to get the lions back on their feet while still keeping the farmers and cattle in the region safe, promoting harmony between them. Another very quick, simple yet effective way is to add your name to any or all of the petitions below, all working toward protecting lions from extinction:
You can look forward to seeing more of Travis soon! I’m very excited about using his incredible physicality strategically in images; he can do things for real which I’d normally have to rely on Photoshop for. Should be fun! Thanks, Travis! And thanks to all my readers 🙂
Mythic Pictures 