Fifteen More Portrait Treatments 2010

As you see, I've been going crazy with these things again. Can't really help myself. They're just too fun to do and they come so easily and yield such nice surprises for me as I go. So this is what I've been doing to just relax over the past few days.

Over at the Gustave Archive, I'm calling them The Willow Gray Portraits because most all of the collage material I'm using here is coming from Willow Gray's Image Farm (at her facebook page). Not sure if I'm supposed to feel weird about that or anything but, fact is, she seems to like a lot of the same stuff I like and much of the fun of making these collage images is in trawling her great collection and pulling images that especially appeal and that I think I might use. So I'm going to call this dubious application of her fabulous pictures a tribute her excellent taste. Thank you, Willow.

As with any series, I start by setting limitations for myself - of scale, of content, of pallet, materials... what have you. This time I've arbitrarily elected to make my subject matter always portraits of women. This was almost sort of happening with the Character Compositions but with this new endeavor, I've chosen a more strict and narrow route and, while unconciously going about my process, I've been sort of wondering just why. Honestly, attractive subjects kind of tend to make more attractive pictures. Not as a rule, mind you... but it's definitely something I've noticed while plying my trade as a photographer the past ten or so years. I've often made what I think are a lot of really pretty images of subjects who are (how to put this delicately...) possibly not widely considered pretty or handsome or whatever. I put these images in front of people and enthuse about the light and the moment but, in so many cases, if they're not looking at a pretty subject, they're not seeing a pretty picture. Odd, right? So this time, I'm starting out with only pretty faces for my central subjects. I'm not gonna cripple myself at the gate. Not this time around. There's opportunity enough for that down the line (you'll notice I have no problem messing up a pretty face for the sake of the mood or the vibe).

Or maybe I'm just trying to be this century's Patrick Nagle.

There're worse things, I guess.