Collaborative art

“You’re the photographer,” the client says. “You shoot what you want.” And my heart breaks, just a little bit.

Not because I don’t have any ideas. Rather, I have too many of them.

I have ideas that range from quite tame to extremely racy. I have ideas for shooting indoors and out. I have ideas that involve water, dirt, mud. I have ideas that revolve around looking elegant, and I have ideas that revolve around looking Feral.

And I don’t know which of these ideas would work for you. That’s why I want to talk with you; to find out your ideas, your interests, your limits and your talents and skills. I don’t want you to show up to a shoot and I’ve got a pool filled with chocolate Jell-o for you to swim in, only to find out you’re allergic to chocolate.

Or, if we were shooting indoors, and I were to ask you to go stand on the balcony railing, but you’re afraid of heights and have no sense of balance and get vertigo going up stairs, I don’t want to put you in that situation.

My goal in this is not to take and put you in a situation you’re uncomfortable with. Indeed, my goal is to capture an element of who you are. I want these images to capture your personality, your character, your emotions, your sensuality, your sexuality, your being.

Which is not to say that I am just going to leave everything up to you; rather, I want this to be a collaboration. I want us to to create collaborative art. You are not a blank canvas onto which I can project ideas, but a co-creator. This is about you, I don’t want to put you in some pre-defined box of what is beautiful/artistic/sexy. I want this to be a celebration and a revelation of you.

I’m a big fan of musical theatre. If you’ve ever heard the original french version of Les Miserables, you might note that one of the show’s biggest songs in English—Bring him home—is not in it. That’s because when they went to open the show in London they wanted a song that showed off the high clear voice of Colm Wilkenson, who sang the role of Jean Valjean. They took and changed the musical, adding in a new song, simply because of the lead singer’s tremendous voice.

That’s what I want to do here. I want to create images that play to your strengths, whatever they might be.

How do we do that? Well, it starts with a conversation. So fill out our no-pressure consultation form and let’s create art together.