eduardoizq:

by Rachael Dunville

Just as ripe anticipation awaits the development of a roll of film, a similar eagerness is present in the moments before making a photograph with another person. I bask in the fertile scene, paying intimate attention to my subjects, moving fluidly and thoughtfully around the physical hurdles that define their space. Hardly aware of my own automatic dialogue, I listen to their nervous verbal rambling, their secret body language and the chord being plucked by the sensual composer inside of me. The determined sound of the shutter’s kerPLUNK and the successive crank of the film advance serve as mechanical percussion to the emotionally melodic ballad that I am conducting. Our moment of creation has begun.

With empathy ushering my keen eye and innate senses, a harmonic composition evolves among the electrical, euphonic, and aesthetic impressions to which I am most sensitive. I dare to satisfy my subliminal strategy - the playful command and improvisational dance of a spider on his deliberate lattice. Upon mental tiptoe, I orchestrate the event, diffusing any lingering hint of apprehension, yet maintaining the vulnerability that fuels the self-conscious performance both behind and in front of the camera. The glistening silk of my web is spread. I am anxious, full of controlled delight. I have butterflies.

There is a distinct and profound pleasure in making portraits. In an attempt to engage in this mysterious delight, I create artworks that convey and nourish a complex human essence expressed through the intensity, humor, surrealism, and grace of photography.

I approach the transaction of making a photograph of and with another person as an intuitive, magical exchange - a subtle seduction between willing participants. Each image is based on a mutual regard for looking and for being seen, confirming our existence as subjects. We’ve all encountered it: the coquettish glance of flirtation; the courting, cherishing stare from a lover or intimate; flattering or frightening, a potent gaze strikes at our humanity and self-awareness. It creates tension. It highlights desire.

The foundation of my photographs is established in the active crescendo of impulse and the evolving rapport between photographer and subject. This oscillating event displays the complexities of human desire and tension as fundamental to the act of making photographic portraits. Desire often stems from a mutual admiration or identification with the other. Sometimes, an unabashed charge of attraction and palpable lust is exhibited in the dance of cause and effect between the image-maker - loaded camera in hind - and the willing subject.

Tensions are further heightened by the presence of my Hasselblad [Make that my Zenza Bronica ETRSi (645) or Nikon F2 Photomic] camera, a physical and psychological barrier between the photographer and subject. The large black mass of the camera body and loud interrupting noise of its shutter release emphasize the scrutiny of its gaze. More importantly, my subjects acknowledge and respond to my presence as voyeur, as I am aware of their attention on me. I regard attention as a pure form of human electricity, animated by the broadcasting and receiving of focused energy. Often, my photographs record the suspenseful choreography of wanting, needing, diverting, giving, absorbing and distracting our concentrated attention. From this exquisite and complex ensemble, the photographs disclose a delicate, lascivious friction.

Conscientiously recording this scene of visual spell and constant chiaroscuro, my eye - the animated periscope of my compulsion - becomes a zealous collaborator with my heart and the shutter release. kerPLUNK. I observe with the impunity granted only in dreams. My subjects, often unaware of this brimming synergy, respond with a stare of intolerable tenderness and penetrable human depth that makes me ache with the paroxysm of desire that throbs at a poet’s core. This sustained pinnacle of our engagement is transfused on the film itself, leaving an indelible imprint of the immortal mystery of humanity of each photographic encounter.

Music, specifically jazz, deeply influences my photographic process. Improvisation expresses a kaleido-phonic arrangement of the artist’s unique recipe of intuition, skill, intellect, and emotion. The creative potential is rich inside the orchestration and visceral reactions between photographer and subject. Within this exchange, I trust the spontaneous to materialize. It’s the narcotic kernel, the falling in love.

The camera offers me a unique opportunity to explore and communicate a raw moment of humanity - one human to another. The magic and pleasure of making a photograph with another person lies simply in the enigmatic fusion of the sacred human exchange between artist and muse with the intrinsic order of photography itself. The people I photograph can look straight into the camera, and therefore, straight into me. What is unveiled in this hushed interface is a distilled state of emotional undress. The honest curiosity to explore the conditions of looking into someone becomes something sacred and intense. We blush.

Brilliant essay to offer something to think of when taking images of people, taking in account the tools we use…

[slightly edited to offer a different choice of tools]