I feel like I'm turning some corners in my photo stuff lately. The work is showing the growing pains of transition, but I have an idea where I'm going. Sunday's shoot with model Manfred Louis was great. There's something that happens when learning to ride a bike, making pots on a wheel, or snow boarding, where suddenly, you just get it. You find that balance; the center, and then that thing never leaves you. You can't figure out how you suddenly got it, or remember what it was like not to have, but once you do, it's there; you're there. That's what happened with me and my studio lighting this weekend. Suddenly, the geometry made sense and I got balanced. I've been winging it up till now; hit or miss; working like a fool to get the lighting right. A few shots will be okay and many will be bad; wrong. This shoot was different. I spent most of the afternoon the day before practicing and set up a scenario. When the model was there on Sunday, the scenario worked fine, so all I had to do was small tweaks and I could focus on the model more....

Manfred brought a make up artist who I ended up loving. He's from the Bronx who went to Art and Design High School. He's really good; easy to work with. He was very helpful throughout the shoot and had a great manner with the model. We will work together again for sure. I did the styling for the shoot myself, and let the makeup artist do his own concepts for some close ups so he could experiment with some artistic ideas for his book. We had a blast and everyone left happy. Yay.