haunted (2023) (Patreon)

Another of the shots from Bannack State Park, which also is one of my favorite "self-portrait" shots but also I think just one of my favorite shots in a long time in general for reasons I'm now beginning to understand. 

Back when I was posting daily photos on Cohost, a (somewhat) long-form writing oriented social media platform, I had written extensively about the concept of having a muse for a day when I took this shot: 

manic pixie dream muse (2022)

This is an entire scene, maybe out of a car window, or in an establishing shot in a movie, doesn't matter. It feels complete, it feels like it has a story, and the shot would not work without the woman in it. The woman is staged—that's my friend Roxy, also a very talented photographer. It is not "true street photography" because it is staged, but as I wrote when I first posted this photo, I don't care because it's good. I had long felt a sense of inadequacy about my fear of doing street photography and candids etc, but this single shot made me care less; this has an intentionality to it that I think makes it just as valid a form of art as street photography, and I can actually make it with where I'm at in life.

The point of bringing up this photograph of Roxy is that when I took it (and the fifty other amazing shots the two of us got that night), it shifted my conception of what my photography could look like. Roxy's visit to Reno and the ensuing days of photography we did together where when I picked up playing with unusual formats for the first time (cinema crop stuff, ambient lighting portraiture at night, etc) and began to figure out how to stage not just portraits, but scenes with models, like in manic pixie dream muse. 

The interesting part with today's shot is that while previously, when I did self-portraits, I found compositions that would suit me; that is, I was still the focal point. On this trip I positioned myself to benefit the compositions themselves; I am no longer the center focus, and that's why I like some of these shots so much. They no longer look like self-portraits, they look like scenes, just like the shot with Roxy. It is a new way to evaluate both a setting and a way to use myself for the goal of a shot.

This is all probably obvious to everyone else but I wanted to deconstruct this, just to make sure I understood why I liked them so much; then I can make more, which is always my goal.