The Gig Photographer

The stage is set. The rock band are waiting in the wings. The lights come up and the band come on. Now its the job of the photographer to catch the ambience of the scene, the mood of the crowd, and the excitement of the moment.

And so I did my first gig shoot. It was not quite as described above!

The location was a small village hall. Stage lighting was either almost black or lit like a stadium in mid play. The band didn't have any lighting of their own and so opted for the almost black look. The base player opted for it even more with black hair, dark grey shirt, blue jeans and standing in the shadows.

So I set my camera to 1600ISO, lens at f2.8, shutter at 1/60 and prayed that it would work.

Two hours and 209 shots later I was done. The next day I loaded the images into Bridge and took a look. Not too bad at all. A bit dark though. So I opened them up in Camera Raw and increased the exposure and contrast a bit and the results are pretty good I think. It made me very glad to be shooting with a 5D as even at 1600ISO the noise was very low (apart from the Bass players shots that had to be pushed to the limit).

So here is a selection of the shots, any comments on what to do better next time would be greatly appreciated.

other 984

The Venue with stage lights ON

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Lead Guitar

other 986

Vocal

other 987

Drums

other 985

Bass - Pulled from the dark

Kiss my shiny latex ass

To those who actually noticed, apologies for being off-blog for a wee while.

Life has been better. Rich is working through the nights on the day-job software (and I miss him!) plus my head is really playing up and I am wackeroo with PMS. Gah! Get me to the nearest pub. I need alcohol and it’s only 1 p.m.

I'm swamped with day-job work too. It’s our busiest two weeks of the year, so I’m refraining from cruising the blogs (boo hoo!) or posting again until the stress eases off a bit. Lots going on behind the scenes photographically. And I mean lots. Some good, some not so good, some which I definitely can’t post here because it’s too photographically political (now that’s got you wondering eh?)

However Rich did find time at some ungodly hour of the night last night to put in a new groovy feature to the bloggie images, so when you click on them, they swoosh larger, rather than pop up.

Yes I know I’ve posted this image before but it has the dual purpose of accurately describing our week, plus also illustrates the feature perfectly.

Click on my ass and you’ll see what I mean.

L-von-B 457

Ass gets bigger.
Click again.
Ass gets smaller.
Click.
Ass gets bigger…
Etc, etc.

Kinda hypnotic after a while. Or it will put you off your breakfast. Either works for me.

Sex on a stalk (Part 2)

This is what Rich looks at when he looks out of his office window.
Isn’t she beautiful?

If, as Ed Versosky proposed a while back, plants can be portraits of the artist too (see? I pay attention, I learn, I remember) then my magnificent Fritillaria Imperialis is surely a portrait of me.

This is pure photographic plant porn. A spikey fluffy top with full, vibrant luscious lips opened wide underneath, displaying her juicy dangling, sexual organs to the world. This beats my love-ball shot hands-down for explicit erotica. You can’t get much more open-leg than this.

Don't ya just love it?
Mother nature - the original and best pornographic artist.

Now…who wants to stroke my Fritillaria?

Fritillaria Imperialis (Crown Imperial)

(Please do check out Ed’s amazing Mr Bamboo self-portrait at the above link – much more tasteful than mine. Sorry to drag you into this Ed.)

Humour: The Universal Language

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, and the highest form of insult.

You might be surprised to learn this, but after I’ve written a post, I sometimes change it to be more…erm…politically correct for the benefit of our American readers. Sometimes I don’t always succeed of course (and that would be the more offensive posts) but I really do try to be nice. Mostly.

IMO, some degree of language modification is necessary when interacting with other cultures. As part of my day job, I exchange emails with distributors and customers from all over the world, of all nationalities. I’ve discovered a lot about different cultures in that time, and have learned (the hard way) that tact is an essential component of effective communication. I have to “un-British” my language, put on a different persona, in order to make the foreign clients feel warm and fuzzy (and thus spend money with us.) Above all I have to remain serious and avoid being humorous. No doubt this attitude carries over onto the blog to a large extent.

Some commenters, who email me off blog when I relax and am more "British," find they are dealing with someone rather different from the bloggie Lin persona. I am sharper of wit, blunter, more direct, and most importantly, my sense of humour can be very difficult to get used to. Misunderstandings are rife. Australians often think I am nuts and ignore me, and Americans in particular seem to find my sense of humour rather strange, and often think they have offended me when they haven’t, or worse, I offend them when I’m not intending to.

Me and my big mouth get me into no end of trouble

To me at least, a culture is defined by its sense of humour, as is the individual. And we are all very different, believe me. Did anyone see the comedy The Office? It was a leading UK T.V. comedy over here. Unfortunately the British version was incomprehensible to Americans, who found it strange and offensive, and it had to be completely re-scripted and re-shot to reflect a modified US sense of humour before it aired in the States.

From the outside Britons are apparently viewed as eccentric and funny. A Mori poll in 2004 asked people from Chicago what they thought of the British. They very tactfully described our “unique British sense of humour” and thought we were overly polite and reserved too (clearly they haven’t met me after my third glass of wine.) It’s true that Britons can seem a bit strange (traditional national pastimes vary from national cheese-rolling competitions to the World Bog Snorkelling Championships, and here in Norfolk we race snails for fun) but I have to say that you shouldn’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Snail racing can get pretty intense and bloody, but it’s surprising how much fun it can be.

Also, our nation’s obsession with sarcasm and self-deprecation can be baffling to the Yanks. Researchers have apparently found that this is genetic rather than cultural in origin. Brits love cruel comedy at the expense of others (e.g. Fawlty Towers, Blackadder and so forth.) Americans don’t get this. I often get comments from distressed readers who tell me to stop running myself down on-blog. They just don’t understand that I do this as a way of cracking a joke. To the American, it is impolite, incomprehensible and insensitive.

Our US brothers and sisters seem to have a much more “positive sense of humour” – they look on the bright side of life, their humour is often zanier and wittier than the British equivalent (Frasier for example was very clever and funny at times, and I love Scrubs.) On the other hand, most Britons think that the Americans can’t do irony. Most Americans simply don’t understand it, as it’s not native to their educational and social upbringing (I’m treading on dangerous ground here, and I suspect I’m causing offense to some of you. Here’s the difference in language – I’m actually teasing you all.)

My personal (very British) sense of humour is mainly based around arrogant sarcasm - think Dr Cox from Scrubs for an American equivalent, or my beloved Canadian David Hewlett (*sigh*) My photographic American friends get a VERY rapid induction off-blog into being teased mercilessly via email (poor souls) whereas on-blog I tend to squash that sense of humour so as to retain the American political correctness which is usually required. Yanks are THE most overly emotional and easily offended people on earth. It can be VERY exhausting, I can tell you that much. Chill out for heaven’s sake!

As Aristophanes understood, the point of humour is to hold a mirror to the world, to reveal deeper motivations and expose the absurdity of both life and fate. I think both nations do this very well, although both think they are better at humour than each other. In actual fact, Yanks and Brits perceive life differently. The same jokes can be funny in both countries, but only if they are re-written for the relevant cultural and historical context.

My own opinion? Give me the dry, grumpy British wit anytime. A good sense of humour is being able to laugh at oneself.

The British Photographer always takes his work terribly seriously

Twenty

Caution: Mushy post alert. Avoid. Avoid.

Well it’s been twenty long and torturous years (Kidding! Kidding! I promise!)

Of course Rich and I didn’t do the traditional “love, honour and obey” English wedding vows (can you ever imagine me obeying any man?) He promised me the adventure of my life, and that our time together would never be boring. I promised to stay with him for as long as the adventure lasted. So far we’ve both kept our promises.

How on earth did we end up here?

Still mushy

When we reach twenty-five, we’ve vowed to “do a Chip” and go get married again in Vegas. I’m gonna wear my red latex cat-suit and embarrass the kids.

Happy Anniversary Wook :-)

(Thus named after Chewy because he pulls people’s arms and legs out when he gets angry with them. Yes, he really does. Not exactly conducive to good customer relations.)

The Great Gonzo Shoot

Surprisingly enough (to me at least) I do actually get requests from photographers to work with them sometimes. But never, ever for payment (this bit isn’t surprising as after all I am an ancient, and I don‘t shoot very much anyway.) So I was a bit boggled to find an email in my inbox this morning, offering me a paid shoot.

The photographer in question was incredibly polite, very professional and he sounded rather nice to work for. Money’s a bit tight at the moment, so I have to say the offer was tempting. As I usually ask Rich for his opinion on each potential shoot, I didn’t accept the offer immediately, but resolved to discuss the issue with him later over our morning coffee expedition.

Our favourite coffee shop was crowded as usual. Our local town is known as the “Gateway to Heaven” because there are so many old people living there, so we had to fight amongst the (surprisingly nimble) old age pensioners for a table. The coffee there is seriously good. I’m not exaggerating - I always suck the creamy bits off Rich’s cappuccino too (it annoys him no end.) As usual we chatted about photography (day-job conversation is avoided at all costs, this is “our time”) and I mentioned the modeling offer. Rich was very encouraging (as a dutiful partner should be) and said I should go for it if I wanted to, not for the money, but only if I liked the photographer’s work.

“I think I’d like to try it,” I said, “although the photographer did mention that there was gonzo work involved, and posing with a cuddly toy seems a bit of a strange request for a model my age, don’t you think?”

Cue violent explosion. Lots of loud cursing and ranting. And I mean LOTS. Both me and the rest of the old biddies thought he’d lost his mind. I’m surprised he wasn’t clubbed with walking sticks and evicted to be honest. Needless to say once he had recovered his inner poise and decorum, he calmed down enough to explain (to me, not the biddies, who would have no doubt suffered heart failure.)

It turns out that a gonzo shoot is not after all posing with my favourite cuddly muppet (I’m a huge fan of Gonzo the Great, I mean, who isn’t?) but in fact actually involves being photographed having sex with the photographer.

Immediate thoughts:

1. How do I stop Rich getting in the car, driving up to “location X” and inflicting serious harm on said photographer?
2. Why would anyone want to have sex with me anyway? (I’m guessing this blog and the love-ball shot in particular have a lot to answer for.)
3. Why is it called a “gonzo shoot?”
4. What does this have to do with muppets?
5. How is it that I’ve been modeling and writing this blog for nearly two years and I didn’t know what a gonzo shoot was?
6. Am I a forty-one-year-old naïve idiot? (I suspect I already know the answer to that one)
7.What else have I missed?

So, for the sake of my sanity, please can everyone let me know what other peculiar modeling terms and pervy-photographic-jargon I might be unaware of, so that I can become more…um…worldly?

Would you have sex with this muppet?

The Quest for Knowledge

Hello. My name is Lin, and I’m addicted to studying.

My behaviour is derived from the Master Workaholic, my father, who had two businesses and worked 24/7. He never learned to play. Work absorbed his every waking moment, and as I grew up, I learned the same thing from him. In my case “work” came in the form of study. I studied because I knew nothing else. I was a dedicated student from the age of about nine onwards, and by the age of thirteen I was doing four hours homework a night. I worked and obsessed through many qualifications, two degrees and beyond, and nowadays it's just become a habit, a hobby, a compulsion, who I am. It’s not money that’s the lure, it’s knowledge. I crave it to the exclusion of all else. And I mean ALL.

In our house, it’s well known that Mum doesn’t play computer or other games. Mum works during the day, and she studies for fun. And yes, learning is fun for me as well as an addiction. I’ve realised that I really do love what I do the vast majority of the time. I can't really explain how much of a rush it can all be, and yet how much it can drain and exhaust you as well.

And yet…there’s a nagging doubt that something isn’t quite right with this life-study-work ethic. My kids tell me to “get a life,” they think that learning is a form of work not play, that it’s weird that their mother gets “obsessions” with studying particular subjects, and that the quest to know everything about them absorbs every waking moment. My friends sigh and half-heartedly tell me to teach myself to play, and I’ll kill myself eventually if I keep up this pace forever. And I’d like to be able to take holidays too, and enjoy them (I endure vacations, I do try to enjoy them I promise, but I get so bloody bored lying by the pool, I usually want to shoot myself by the end of day two.)

Culturally, we Britons study all our childhoods, and work very long hours in our adult lives. It is both expected and encouraged to do so. Unfortunately, like alcoholism, workaholism is bad for you. Subjecting your body to that level of stress for many years will definitely have consequences for your body (yup!) It makes people neglect families, relationships and their health, and workaholics are usually in a state of denial about the impact of their behaviour (guilty on every count.)

So what do I do? I don’t want to end up like my father, who retired at 55, but was dead by 57 because his life was suddenly empty without work. I can see my brother (who at 60 is still working 80 hour weeks) going the same way. Even though I know it is bad for me and those around me, changing my behaviour (yes I’ve tried) makes me wholly miserable. I have become my father. I’ve spent a lifetime addicted to the drug “workahol” and I must change before the burning quest for acquiring knowledge eventually wrecks me.

The grand irony is of course, that the answer to life’s ultimate questions, “Is that all that I am? Is there nothing more?” almost certainly can’t be found through study, or books or rusty academia, but by learning to play and actually living life rather than observing it.

So if I know this already, then why the hell can’t I quit?



Roswell Ivory, from last year.

Relative Embarrassments

Apologies for the lack of posts. I haven’t felt much like blogging this week, due to the kids being afflicted with winter vomiting bug, which isn’t exactly conducive to creativity. Oh and we’ve had one of our closest relatives visiting too. Now this chap knows about Rich’s photography and my modelling, and he has always maintained he was completely cool with the whole thing. This was incorrect. He is in actual fact totally appalled and ashamed of us.

Apparently what we do could never be classified as Art. Rich’s photography is some sort of silly mid-life joke, which he will grow out of in the next few months. And as for me, I am a total embarrassment, a floozy and clearly experiencing some sort of sad personal crisis, otherwise why on earth would I be modelling nude and posting my pictures on the internet? And at my age too. I should be ashamed of myself.

Relatives suck.

Now if you’ll please excuse me, I need to go and hit something.



This is Lynx of course. However you’ll notice that she is wearing…gasp…clothes. This was during Rich’s very brief ten-minute foray into fashion photography. This is not art. However, it appears that this is the preferred level of nudity for our more morally constipated viewers.

“I hate art….”

…announced my oldest son last week.

“Hmm…well how come you spend so much time doing it then?” I enquired innocently. It’s true. He spends most of his available spare time buried in some sort of drawing or CGI.

“Dunno really. I always seem to end up doing it,” he replied.

He got the scholarship of course. I would have been extremely surprised if he hadn’t, considering the sheer number of hours he has put in. And of course, we reserve the right to be VERY proud parents. To put this in context, Hogwarts is one of the top five rated schools in the U.K. for art. The scholarship awards are not just for school pupils, but are awarded for art exhibitions from all parts of the country. There were two, possibly three art scholarships awarded by Hogwarts this year. Thus, as I pointed out to him, this means that he is in an extremely small minority of some of the best young artists in the country.

Suddenly it appears he does not hate art quite so much after all.

He asked me to thank you all for your encouragement and support (I read him the bloggie comments you leave for him), in particular Mr Wood for his excellent lesson in how to impress the judges (which came in very handy) and to Mr Iksodas for assisting with the assignment of drawing an “ugly old naked black guy” (my son’s words, not those of his art professor’s nor Mr Iksodas.) Elijah is of course neither old nor ugly, and the judges were exceedingly impressed with my son’s rendition of Mr Iksodas’s photograph. Alas I can’t show the finished sketch here, because it appears to have been mysteriously retained by the judges, who are (by sheer coincidence) predominantly female.

Full reports on “Le Grande Hogwarts Robing Ceremony” in due course. No I wasn’t kidding about that, although I’m not sure if the robes are black or red. He‘s hoping for black robes (a.k.a. Batman) because red robes are apparently “naff.” We also get to meet the gasp…revered Hogwarts headmistress (long flowing blue robes) at whose feet we must apparently worship over a champagne, strawberries and cream tea in the summer. And he gets listed in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Scholars, and he gets to go on future art trips to New York/Paris/Barcelona/Venice, and he goes into Gryffindor House next year and……the last time I saw him in the art room at school, he was closely surrounded by at least eight very pretty and adoring girls who were drooling over his …um…artistic ability.…

Life never changes.

All art is about the chix.

But you know that already.



This is where Le Grande Robing Ceremony will take place. I’m gonna be a pathetic weepy and embarrassing mother, I know it.

The Halo

In which our intrepid model spends waaay too much time in bed with a certain Mr Brooks Jensen

I had a sneaking suspicion that it was all going to go horribly wrong from the moment I stepped off the Tube at my new (supposedly) state-of-the-art London hospital. I expected a beacon of shining light. I expected it to positively glow with hope, promise and millions of taxpayers hard-earned pounds. I expected the road to said- hospital to be paved with gold. What I did not expect was armed police (yes this might be normal in the US, but this is the UK, remember?), BIG signs saying “Caution, muggings operate in this area. Do not carry bags. Do not go out unescorted after dark. Park your car at your own peril. If in doubt, run for your life” and so forth. At that point I was VERY glad I had strongly insisted Rich had stayed at home to look after the kids. (With hindsight this was probably not one of the wisest decisions I ever made.)

The hospital is situated in an area of London known as Tower Hamlets. Once upon a time this used to be a quaint ol’ cockney area, not dissimilar to the London you see in Charles Dickens movies. Today it looks like an overpopulated version of an American Gangsta movie. I’m not kidding. Now I normally live somewhere so rural that the highlight of the day is a tractor going past, so you will appreciate that being deposited in the middle of one of the roughest parts of London was a bit of a culture shock, not only for me, but also for the scores of would-be muggers who took one look at my Italian designer wool-and-cashmere-blend coat, and moved in for the kill.

I fled, in a rather undignified manner, to the hospital, whereupon I was instructed in no uncertain terms that I should NEVER go out on my own. Apparently I could go out to get food (hospital food not supplied the night before treatment), but only with a security escort. Of course, me being me, I took absolutely no notice at all, and sneaked out to mingle with the evening crowd (in which I blended in perfectly, one designer-clad white woman amongst 20,000 Muslims, no I did not stick out at all) and I managed to take some perfectly awful photos with my little instant-camera (why don’t the magnificent images I saw in my viewfinder look the same as those that came back from the developers? Why? Why? So don’t blame me for the photos accompanying this post. I’m blaming the equipment.)



Anyhoo, talented as I am in the ways of sniffing out the highest quality restaurant in the area, I was grateful to the above salubrious establishment for my quality evening meal of some very strange and unidentifiable vegetables. In the interests of worldly research, I was rather tempted by the advertisements on the wall to remain for the evening Pole-dancing Show, but instead fled back to my bed and curled up with Brooks Jensen for the night, figuratively speaking of course.

And there I spent the next two days. With Brooks. Just him ‘n’ me. Despite all the horror and crap going on around me, I lost myself in his photographic and artistic world. I listened to his arguments, thought him sometimes a genius, sometimes flawed, always honest. I smiled, I laughed, I learned a heck of a lot. Photography as therapy. Instant calm. I carried that book everywhere, and read it continually.



Brooks was there the next morning when they bolted a metal frame (a.k.a “The Halo”) to my skull. He was there when I was transported to a second hospital (nicer than the first, methinks) and waited for four hours with the weight of the metal pressing into my skull, whilst they mapped my brain. Brooks was there when I couldn’t eat, drink, blow my nose or wipe the tears from my eyes for nine very long hours. He was there when the docs came and told me that they couldn’t get all of the tumour after all, only most of it, and I would probably need to go through additional radiation in a year’s time to get the rest of it. He was there when they came and told me the machine had broken and they couldn’t treat me. And I even returned to those (by now) very tear-stained and soggy pages when I finally came out from that dratted machine in the evening, after they had finally hot-wired a temporary solution so they could nuke me.

The sheer fact that I held it together for that length of time, was largely down to the persuasive writing skills of Mr Jensen, and if he were here now, I would hurl myself upon him and give him the biggest hug imaginable. I don’t always “get” his photos, but by God, that guy can write. I owe that man my sanity.



It’s now a week later.

I am recovering, very slowly. The radiation sickness is going. I no longer resemble the Elephant Man, and I am eating again. And hello weight loss! Hurrah! I can report that my colossal ass has now reduced to the scrawny butt it used to be! Not the best dieting-programme I would recommend, but very effective.

And as for photography? It saved me. No exaggeration.

I’m reading my second Brooks Jensen book at the moment.
So much, MUCH more about photography to come.

Now, let’s get back to business of talking about art, shall we?

The sun has gone to bed and so must I

Do you know I’ve seen that movie twenty-six times? It was my mother’s favourite. My father could never make it through the Nazi occupation at the end of the movie, as he was captured by the Germans during WWII, and the film brought back too many memories. So two thirds of the movie I know off by heart, but I’m distinctly hazy as to what happens after the Salzburg Festival.

Anyway, this inane waffle is simply by way of saying “So long, farewell.”

I’ll be off blog for a while, at the Grand London Shopping and Nuking Trip. I’m apparently visiting at least four hospitals on my travels, one of which is conveniently located next door to the UK’s best foobies clinic (that's "fake boobies" for those unaware of the lingo.) Maybe I can get me some gorgeous humongously large foobies in my lunchtime, inbetween zaps. You know, kill one bit, enhance a couple of others. I have to say, this is an immensely appealing thought. I really could use a new body, as since I embraced Vista a while back, my CPU keeps crashing randomly, I keep leaking memory and parts of me are in serious need of an expensive upgrade.

Richard has bought me a couple of Brooks Jensen books for my birthday, and I’ll be reading those over the next few weeks, along with various sleazy novels. So heaven only knows what sort of blog posts I’ll be churning out when I return.

In the meantime, enjoy yourselves, and I’m leaving you in Rich’s very capable hands.

The future is inevitable The form it takes is not.
Michael Shallis

What better picture to leave you with, other than an unfortunately unforgettable image of my colossal ass. Rich reassures me that it’s just a camera angle trick, and it really doesn’t look as big as this in real life. Husbands are rather good like that. They always know the right time to lie through their teeth.

The Art of Bullshit

Long term readers will recall that my oldest son is studying for an art scholarship at the esteemed Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is only awarded if they can detect that he is “truly gifted” (whatever that means) and that he “spends the majority of his leisure time creating art.”

Please note that photography doesn’t count as art, according to the Hogwarts examiners (don’t get me started!), although <10% of his portfolio as computer graphic design is apparently acceptable. Considering he spends 90% of his free time doing graphic art, at least some of his play-time can be used. He really shines at CGI stuff, that’s where his talent lies, but he needs this scholarship to prove to himself he can do it, and he quite rightly thinks that formal art training will help him on his future quest to be the world’s greatest graphic artist. (He’s only twelve. I bet you had big aspirations at twelve, if you remember that long ago.)

Anyhoo, next week is the week it all happens. He has an exam of course, comprising drawing still-life art under time constraint, and then he has to explain and critique a random painting which is given to by the examiners. In addition, he has to present his portfolio next week to the external examination board, and after they have judged it, he has to spend fifteen minutes speaking about his own work and critiquing five of his best images. According to his art teacher, the tea-addicted-and-very-vague Professor Trelawney, whether or not he succeeds in his quest for ultimate glory depends largely on how many times he uses the word “inspired” in his speech. Big help. Thanks for that, Professor.

If he gets the scholarship, he will of course get major kudos within the school, plus a special red cloak and presentation ceremony in the magnificent city cathedral, the award of “a scholar,” adoration from practically every female in his year (chix dig the scholars, and the red cloak, AND especially they dig blond-haired-blue-eyed-teenage artists…this, I suspect, presents strong motivation in his quest for ultimate glory.) Oh and I’ve promised him a new graphics card for his computer too, if he gets it. (Bribery works wonders - we get a not-insignificant discount on his astronomical school fees if he succeeds.)

The poor lad is completely terrified, to be honest. He’s only twelve, and this is the scariest thing he’s ever done in his entire life. He’s worked his little ass off for the last six months, producing some very fine art for his age (all things considered) and I am praying he gets this, not for the money (which in the end, is unimportant), but because he wants this so badly that he can taste it. Can you remember how fragile your ego was at twelve?

His work is pretty good for his age, I think. His technique is excellent, but his oral presentation needs a miracle.

We have one solitary weekend left to prepare for the big speech on his port on Monday.

"What are you going to say?" I asked him tonight.
“Mum,” he said, “I’ve got nothing. Is it too late to quit?”

So this weekend appears to be a crash course in the Art of Artistic Bullshit. He needs to learn how to analyse his own work. They want to know why he produces the surrealist-style art he does. He hasn’t got a clue to be honest. When I’ve asked him he says, “It just spurts out of me. I don’t know why. I just sit down with a pencil, and two hours later I have a picture.”

“Well, say that then,” I said.

But according to Hogwarts, honesty will not get him the prize. He needs self-awareness, psychoanalysis, arty-speak. He needs to fake inspiration from somewhere. When asked how he feels about his art, he looks like a startled rabbit. Complete blank. No clue at all. Nada.

How do you learn how to pimp your art in a weekend? How can a twelve year-old learn to sell himself to a big, scary examination board?

Can you fake a description of inspiration? Why isn’t the truth enough? Why can’t he stand up and say “I have no idea why I draw this stuff. Judge me on my results, not what I say?”

Why does bullshit matter more than the art itself?

All advice and tips, gratefully received. We need help, folks.

Panicking, we definitely are.

Ten Random Things Game

Well, I’ve dreading this for nearly two years, and it’s finally happened. One of my (non-photographic and thus anonymous) bloggie friends D. has tagged me for the ten random things game.

One of the daft little bloggie games that is going around the internet at the moment is where bloggers tag each other with memes. Now I don’t mean “tag” as in assigning categories to a photograph or in the MM sense, I mean “tag” as in the kiddie game of “Tag ! You’re it!”

Bloggers tag other bloggers to write ten random but very personal things about themselves in the form of a list. Although I've been writing a blog for quite a while, no one's ever done this to me - until now.

So here goes:

1. When I was about twenty, I had OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) pretty bad. To the extent that it seriously interfered with my daily life e.g. I used to spend hours lining up shoes, and had to turn the light on and off twenty two times before I could get into bed. I managed to eventually crush it without medication. My father had it. My middle son has it. Damn genetics.

2. The most erotic thing about a guy is his hands. Long tapered fingers really turn me on. Artists’ hands. Yummy….

3. Conventional good looks are completely irrelevant to me. (One of the reasons I’d make a terrible photographer.) I find a guy irresistible because he makes me laugh, because he is profound, because he is incredibly intelligent, and brilliant at whatever he does.

4. I am addicted to brussel sprouts. Unsexy, I know. Boy did that kill the mood.

5. Ten years ago I thought Anne Geddes was pretty good art. Well, there goes my artistic street cred. Yup …I can see it…..there it goes, toddling off down the street….bye, bye. (Melvin you have my permission to shoot me now, and I don’t mean photographically.)

6. I gave up being a criminal lawyer after devoting two weeks of my life to helping defend a crazed loon who wore a black cloak, thought he was Jesus, and was prosecuted for buggering a donkey. I mean, life’s too short, right?

7. I have a laundry fetish. Despite being a feminist for most of my life, a high-brow, power-hungry, fast-track career girl with two degrees who is a complete workaholic, I just lurve to wash and iron clothes. I sniff all the fabric softeners in the supermarket. No really, I do.

8. My most erogenous zone is the back of my neck.

9. If I hadn’t taken up nude modelling, I would have gone on to be a judge this year (I've had a long time to get used to dealing with loons)

10. I have a modelling alter-ego called Caroline (which is my middle name). Caroline wears a long blond wig, and does more….um….adventurous modelling, shall we say. I think I’ve only posted one of Caroline’s photos on here, ever. And that’s probably one too many.

Now, I'm supposed to inflict this on five other bloggers. Hmm, kinda difficult to choose because many of my online bloggie buddies wouldn’t want to play this, because they prefer to keep their private lives, well, private. So I’m going to hazard a guess as to five folks I really want to know more about, and hopefully won’t mind too much: Jimmy D (glamour photographer to the stars) and Dave Levingston (amazing dance, landscape nudes and some rather fetching nekkid kitchen photos.)

And as for the girls, I’m going with three great writer/models: Lela Rae, Orixx and Unbearable Lightness.

So folks …wanna play? Or “are ya chicken, McFly?"....

Jenvy and Diablo, horsing around last year.

Good news for a change!

Off-topic post. Do excuse me. Normal arty-topic-posting to be resumed shortly.

Rich is pretty stressed out today. He’s putting out a software release, dealing with lots of customers at once, and both his parents. Plus he is also babysitting a tiny pink teddy bear with a plastic bottle of milk. If he doesn’t feed the bear, it glows bright red, cries pitifully like a baby and gets increasingly loud until you shove a bottle in its mouth. The bear does this at completely random moments throughout the day (and has the useful side-effect of scaring the customers too.)

When you feed the bear, it gurgles happily and goes back to sleep. This is apparently to teach little girls the responsibilities of having babies. Unfortunately my three year old is so stressed out by this bear, that she has absolved herself of all responsibility and given it to her Dad to look after. I am not allowed to look after the bear, only her Dad. Rich hates the bear. The customers hate the bear. My daughter hates the bear. I guess that the manufacturer’s goal of cutting the teenage pregnancy rate by “real baby simulation” is definitely successful, but boy do they start young nowadays.

Life seems pretty surreal at certain times, and this is one of them.

On the other hand, I am deliriously happy! (Or just delirious, I’m not completely sure which.) And I’m especially happy to report that I was wrong. I take it all back.

I love the UK National Health Service.

Not only am I NOT leaking brain fluid after all (that constant worry kind of ruined Christmas, but the tests eventually came back negative) but the local funding for my super-dooper-nuke-it-and-see-radiation came back almost straight away, and now I’m pencilled in for treatment in early February, PLUS I’ve found out that my treatment is not at el-grotty hospital that I went to before Christmas, but instead the NHS are paying for it to be done at a privately funded very posh hospital (not too far from Harrods, very handy if I get bored.) Yee-ha! I am so happy I could burst right now. I LOVE FREE HEALTHCARE!!! They came through in the end! I’ve never been so glad to be wrong. I insist you all move to the U.K. immediately.

Combined with the fact that other nice things are happening (hubby not only fixed his poorly computer, but also bought me a new point-and-shoot camera, a Fuji FinePix S5800 to cheer me up, and…highlight of my Christmas….David Hewlett actually grew a beard….did I mention I have a thing about beards?), I am actually tentatively daring to hope that 2008 might be a much better year than the last one!?!



I don't think this actually counts as a trophy shot, but some poor deluded souls have actually asked to see what we look like "normally" (whatever that is.) Please note Rich doesn't grab the boobs of all his models, only the ones he sleeps with.

See what I have to put up with?!

Off Topic: Why Free Healthcare is Not Better

Yanks usually hold the opinion that a free national healthcare system is better than their privately-funded one. In his movie “Sicko,” Michael Moore championed the UK as a beacon of light of how healthcare should be run. Today, I’m going to set the record straight.

Make no bones about it, the modern UK health system is crappy. Not universally, but often. Some local hospitals are actually run very well, the staff are caring and efficient, and I feel very fortunate to be treated there. Alas, they are not all like that. The “leading UK hospital” I went to in London last week was an example of our National Health Service at its worst.

The reason I went there was to be assessed for cancer treatment, since this hospital is one of only three places in the UK that has the correct machine to treat me, as my tumour is very rare (I told you before I was special.)

Glossing over the dreadful four hour trip on public transport to get there, we arrived exhausted in the most godforsaken place imaginable. The hospital is actually a conveyor belt to hell. The place was cold, filthy, with rows upon rows of nondescript chairs, no amenities, no children’s facilities (and this is trumped as the UK’s leading children’s hospital!), peeling paint, vomit-coloured walls, and nurses who spoke little English.

After insisting that I was in fact, male, with a different address and a different name and after much argument to persuade them otherwise, the nurses finally agreed to let me see "the specialist-otherwise-known-as-God” who would be considering my application for the high-density “nuke-it-and-see” treatment. We were crammed into a six foot square smelly cell and told to wait to see the great man himself. When he finally deigned to see us, he was extremely rude, concentrated largely on unrelated calls from his mobile, and generally treated me like animal excrement. After much grovelling on my part, he did however agree my case met the requisite criteria, and he is now going to “put my case before the hospital’s governing committee.” If this is granted, then we have to follow the lengthy process of trying to obtain funding for the £20K ($40K) treatment from my local Health Authority.

God said the local authority would initially refuse funding, so the matter would certainly go to appeal. He is somewhat optimistic about victory in the end, but the process will undoubtedly take a long time, and there is no guarantee of success. As my local health authority is currently £43m ($86m dollars) in debt, I’m not holding my breath here.

If our free National Healthcare system worked properly, patients shouldn’t have to spend sleepless nights wondering if they can get life-saving treatment. So to Michael Moore who thinks the UK health system is wonderful and the answer to everyone’s prayers, let me tell him that it is actually like any large public state system which is massively overloaded and badly run. Parts of it run splendidly, and parts of it are so mired in debt and bureaucracy that it sucks beyond belief. In other words, it suffers from the same flaws as any other large corporation.

Right now I’d give my right arm for private healthcare. Rather literally I’m afraid.

I know there are at least two bloggie readers out there whose bodies are more ravaged by this crappy disease than I am, and I am genuinely hoping that they have good private healthcare, and that they get treated with the respect and kindness that they need.

Because no-one deserves to be treated like a number.

"Every human being, of whatever origin, of whatever station, deserves respect. We must each respect others even as we respect ourselves.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson




I don't feel Christmassy today, O.K? I do, however, feel like posting an image of the fabulous Lynx.

Two grumpy posts in a row? This is unsatisfactory bloggie service. Now I really can’t keep depressing everyone like this.
*makes mental note to keep to the happy stuff over the Yuletide season*

Naked chicks should be happy chicks.

Property Porn

I don’t know about in the States, but the primary topic of conversation at dinner parties (or in fact at any gathering in the UK lasting longer than ten minutes) is the housing market.

The British are completely obsessed with property prices, even more than the weather. Of course, like the US, we are headed for a house-price crash in about a year‘s time, so everyone is thinking about selling their house and downsizing before the shit really hits the fan.

So Rich and I are tentatively looking for a new abode. Although we live in a beautiful spot, there are a number of reasons we need to move. Closer to our kids’ school would be perfect, but a frighteningly expensive option (house pieces double in and around the city, and we need to decrease our mortgage, not the opposite.) Closer to our favourite coffee shop would be pretty good too (high priority when considering moving.) But the primary reason for relocation is now the photography. As Art slowly and insidiously wheedles its way into our daily lives, we NEED more creative space.

Because we live in the middle of nowhere, renting bigger studio space is not an option, nor is outdoor shooting unless you’re both brave and foolish (Big Brother is watching everywhere.) So we are challenged with moving somewhere cheaper, but still handy for the train (kids go to school by rail), and with a larger day-job office and studio.

This is rapidly becoming Mission Impossible, and I am spending every spare waking moment on property search web sites or scouring local newspapers for potential nekkid-chick-pads in which my dear Mr Fluffy can explore his …um …art. Because my other yummy mummy friends are also on the property hunt, we ladies talk about houses constantly, to the exclusion of all else.

I am completely obsessed of course, and am driving Rich utterly crazy with my studio lust. Many young women eye up dishy young men when they pass them in the car. I eye up dishy-looking commercial buildings. Sadly, I’ve never been known to salivate over young, pert male buttocks, but instead I drool over old abandoned barns, big factory buildings, revolting run-down farmhouses with wrecked outbuildings. Anything I can possibly fantasise about converting into shooting space. There’s nothing that makes my pulse quicken and my meter rise like the glimpse of a provocative and tantalising ye-olde-warehouse. Who cares about the looks? It’s the personality of my lover that counts. He has to be really big, with room for me to expand into him, dress him up, play with him, fill him up with my wildest longings.

Yes, I’m still talking about houses. Definitely NOT about the hunky young, curly-haired Orlando Bloom look-alike who works at the local bank and keeps asking me if there‘s anything he can do for me. (Tip for young men: Never EVER ask a randy middle-aged nude model if there’s anything you can do to her, unless you want to wind up very, VERY scared.)

But no, I can definitely resist Orlando, just not the forlorn, unloved and wrecked old barn I’ve fallen for with its door hanging off, and a Christmas tree on the side. Damn, he’s cute. And he’d be so gorgeously satisfying to toy with and explore to his deepest depths. Ah! Sweet desire! If only I had the money!

Alas, houses are sexier than men. Ask any middle aged woman with a crazy gleam in her eye, and I’ll bet you next month’s wages it’s a house project which has put that sparkle there, not her sexy young bank clerk (bless his cotton socks.)

Of course I realise that the perfect studio is a mirage - a sexual utopia which isn’t real, but exists only in my wildest fantasies. But I don’t give a hoot. I am addicted. I must have my prize, or perish in the attempt. The nature of addiction is that the sad old fool carries on lusting, regardless of the consequences.

So you middle-aged guys just carry on shooting young nekkid chix who have no interest in real-estate whatsoever. Just leave us old laydeez to our online property porn.



Let me introduce you to my latest desire, the Object of My Obsession.

It would make a brilliant studio - it just needs a little TLC and a new snazzy studio name which really sums up what our photography is all about.

A name such as……

Feles mala! (Bad Kitty!)

My skin shoot went well yesterday. A bit brief as the studio was freezing (we turn the heat off at weekends) , but my skin is now immortal, even if the rest of me will never be. Apart from that, I indulged in a recently revived hobby that I engaged in many moons ago, when I was a lass: Teaching myself classical Latin.

I used to be pretty good at Latin, but that was 25 years ago. Nowadays I am extremely rusty. However even a very limited understanding of the Latin language can come in rather handy at times, if you find yourself in a tight spot. Those Romans certainly had a way with words.

Yesterday also involved me applying my considerable charm towards my dear photographer, in the vain hope that he would supply finished images of my dodgy art-nude-piccies from our recent series of shoots. Now I am justifiably very proud of these pictures. I think they are beautiful.

Rich disagrees. He says that he’s not very good at making the nether regions look tasteful. He’s adamant that in order to be classified as art, such dodgy pictures have to qualify as “erotica,” which is apparently not the same as "porn." I think this is complete tosh - “erotica” is just a label, camera angles and some fancy lighting techniques. Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?

Anyway, apparently my recent photographs, although beautifully lit, are nevertheless too pornographic, rather than erotic, so I’m not allowed to post them.

“So why can’t we let the viewers decide?” I asked.

Him (annoyed): “We’ve had this discussion. I don’t want anyone looking at my wife’s pussy except me.”

Me: “Vescere bracis meis!”
(Eat my shorts)

Him: “What?”

Me: “Darling, it just means that this is my art too! And it’s good!”

Him: “That’s as maybe. I’m the photographer here, and I say that no-one’s looking at those photographs unless I upload them for you!”

Me: “That’s blackmail!”

Him: “And?”

Me: “If you don’t let me shoot them with you, I might just go shoot it with someone else!”

Him: “Not if I say you can’t!”

Me: “Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.”
(I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear)

Him: “What the hell does that mean?”

Me: “It means, of course, my dear, you’re absolutely right.”

Him: “Why is it I don’t believe you?”
(Pauses. Smiles kindly at me) “O.K. I can compromise. I’ve uploaded one of your pussy pictures that you can post. But that’s the ONLY ONE, O.K.? The rest are for my eyes only…”

Me (excited): “Oooh! You’re a wonderful man!”
(Rushes to examine photograph.)




Me: “Mater tua criceta fuit, et pater tuo redoluit bacarum sambucus!”
(Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!)

Like I said, no-one could express themselves quite as well as the Romans.

Published!

Rich has worked really hard to be a good photographer. I’m a wannabe model and writer. Of all the members of the family to be published first in a real book (let's not get started on the web publishing argument again), we always thought it would be him or me. But no. We’ve been beaten to it!

Today I am the big proud Mama because my oldest son is going to be the first of our clan to be published. He has been invited to submit his artwork for publication in a local poetry anthology. His illustrations of a naughty donut-eating collie dog have gone down really well with the poet and the publishers. Alas the book isn’t going to make Amazon, but it’s certainly kudos!

Published at twelve! Whatever next? Currently he is positively “glowing” and his ego is so huge that it arrives ten minutes before he does. But we don’t care - we’re proud parents anyway!

Last Saturday I took my son to the local town barbers to get his hair cut. I waited alongside a row of other willing victims whilst the barber did his uber-trendy stuff. As he skillfully executed a number 5 all the way over, the barber conversationally asked my son what his favourite interest was.

“I’m an ARTISTE” he replied, looking exceedingly pleased with himself.

“Oh!” said the barber, boggled. “Are you any good?”

“Yes, actually, I am VERY good!” my son announced grandly in his best stuck-up posh-school accent.

The barber looked him up and down. His lips twitched slightly. “So what sort of art do you do?” he enquired politely.

“Surrealism,” replied my son proudly and I swear I saw his nose stick up further in the air. The barber and I exchanged looks. His eyes twinkled just a tiny bit. I desperately struggled to keep a straight face, whilst quietly willing the ground to open up and swallow me.

“And what’s surrealism?” asked the barber impassively.

“Dunno really,” said my son, panicking like mad, and then abandoning all sense of elitism and lapsing into a broad Norfolk accent. “Weird stuff I ‘spose, but my Mum says it‘s kinda cool.”

The whole shop collapsed into laughter at this point.

And his mother made a mental note to stop raving on about art all the time.



My son has steadfastly refused to let me display his art on the blog, where it apparently "might be seen by thousands of naked people" (clearly he thinks you are all reading this naked in front of your computers. I just want to point out that we do NOT do this at home, so I've no idea where that idea comes from). In fact he's now hidden his doggie drawings at school, so I can't seize them and scan them. So instead here's a human statue snap from Covent Garden last year, which deeply fascinated my kids.

Photography is not art

As you will all know by now, my two sons go to Hogwarts, which is a typical ye-olde-English grammar school, with hundreds of years of tradition blah, blah, blah, and a mighty fine standard of education in both the sciences and the arts. Or so we thought.

My oldest son is one of the brightest in his year at art. He’s really good. The school have said he should sit the art scholarship in January 2008, which is a tremendous honour, as only a selected few are allowed to attempt it.

If he gets it, he gets to wear a special flowing black robe with magical powers (kidding about the powers, but the robes are very real..…where do you think JK Rowling actually got the ideas for the Harry Potter series?) and varying special privileges such as their own common room with a shiny scholarship ping-pong table and a t.v. (which they can’t watch anyway because they will have too much homework), plus of course they get to be worshipped by all the girls (chix apparently deeply dig long flowing black robes – don’t ask me, apparently it’s a Dan Radcliffe thing…the movies have a lot to answer for). Oh and we get a discount on the school fees. (Seems inconsequential to him in comparison with said chix, but it’s rather important to us, as it means we wouldn’t have to sacrifice quite as many goats to send them there). To obtain this lofty prize, my son has to sit an exam, and he also has to submit a large portfolio of his work.

Don’t even get me started on the requirements for the art portfolio. Talk about pressure! Hogwarts want “proof that he spends the majority of his leisure time engaging in art", as opposed to playing computer games, which is actually his main leisure pursuit (at least until recently, because nowadays homework soaks up all available free time). The art portfolio is supposed to be made up of 50% of school art and 50% home art. If he’s doing 10-12 hours extra (at least) per week on school art stuff, as well as at least two or three hours homework every night, when exactly is he supposed to get this mysterious “leisure time”, to do the “leisure art” which makes up the missing 50% of his portfolio? Not to mention, when is the poor guy ever going to have any sort of life?

O.K. I thought, so why can’t his home portfolio partially be made up of his photographic stuff? The little chap is a fine photographer for his age (unsurprising, I know) and he can produce some decent artistic photography. So why not?

Well, it appears that the revered art teachers at Hogwarts do not like this idea. Apparently the very-highly-qualified Head of Art at Hogwarts (a cross between Sibyl Trelawny and Dolores Umbridge with an addiction to tea so strong, she keeps nipping out of class for a quick fix) does not consider photography to be an art-form, so “regrettably”, she says, he will not be able to include photographs in his portfolio.

Yes indeed, you read that correctly.

Photography is not art.

I am, of course, speechless.

If one of the best and most highly revered art teachers (supposedly) in the country, does not consider photography to be art, then what hope is there for future generations of young potential art photographers?



His first artistic challenge, according to the art teacher, is to draw a fine-art figure study of a black male. Or as my son put it, “Mum, it’s an ugly old naked guy. Can’t I draw a spaceship instead?”

Hmm….this scholarship may be doomed…