2 posts tagged “lee caligiuri”
This past Sunday was my scheduled shoot with my friend (and fabulous director of my old chorus The Women of Note) Holly, and though I'd thought to do some indoor studio work as well as going outdoors, I decided to stick with outdoors. I'd asked her to bring along something that was meaningful for her, and she did this in spades, making things easy for me.
We set up in a tiny fragment of a field next to our Wellington Mall, and I chose to use my 85mm 1.8 lens, known to be one of the best portrait lenses around, but one I've not had a chance to use as much as I would like to have done because it's a fixed focal length. Inspired by the work I've seen others do with it, I shot mostly wide open in RAW. Because it's been way too long since I've done this, I felt quite rusty and even awkward. The rusty part I understand, but the awkward always puzzles me a bit. I'm a people lover, and yet when I have to direct them photographically I get a knot in the pit of my stomach that interferes with both my techical as well as my creative self. This keeps me from doing my best, from producing work I'm completely happy with. Or is this even possible?
Don't misunderstand me. We had a GREAT time. Holly was fun and totally cooperative, and it was great to have time to catch up with her a bit. And I got some images I was very happy with (hopefully she will feel the same way). It's just that I would like to get to the point where I'm truly in the moment and firing on all cylinders, thinking of all those little technical things, thinking composition, waiting for the right moment, and capturing it.
Guess that will come if I'm able to continue to have subjects to shoot...
This is what I said to myself a few minutes ago, as I waited at a stoplight near my home, feeling somewhat bloated from having just consumed my Friday night treat, a yummy burger and Nathan's fries, as I listened to This American Life on my iPhone, thankful to have had a good week at work at a job I honestly really enjoy.
The reason for this outburst on my part was that twice in the past ten minutes I had been accosted by people who stand at intersections and either sell flowers or wear signs saying, "Homeless. Please help. God bless." The first one, a middle aged, grizzled man very confidently selling roses, and being very persistent at trying to sell them to me, saying "You're gorgeous! You need flowers! Look at my roses!", that though I smiled and drove on, I thought, "Yeah, right! Gorgeous my ass. He says that to every woman to sell flowers!"
Two lights down was the second one, a woman who looked about 70, in mid-calf length green pants, missing teeth, asking for a donation, and doing her level best to make eye contact with me, which of course I wouldn't do. But after she gave up on me, she moved down the line and I watched her in my rearview mirror, saying the title of this entry sotto voce, believing it, then thinking..."Well, maybe I am a bit."
And this has prompted some self examination to determine to what degree I have become too calloused, cynical and yes, heartless over the years. Why I've done it takes little thought at all. No one likes to be thought a rube, a pushover, gullible, and yet...I find that I still am that at times, so this armour of cynicism has its chinks and isn't infallible. So I suppose I use it when and where I choose to and blindly believe things at other times.
I'm not quite sure how to adjust myself here. I don't want my heart to shrivel up like a raisin and have no compassion for people who, perhaps due to a run of extraordinary bad luck, have ended up where they are, pleading for a few dollars. With what I've been through in my recent history, you'd think I'd be so happy to be working that I'd happily hand over a few dollars to a homeless person.
I'm open to suggestions here. Somewhere in my life I was taught to "rarely resist a generous impulse". I've also been told that giving to a homeless person in this way really doesn't help them in the long run. But maybe next time, I'll be a bit different, and be a little bit better for it.
