Thursday, August 02, 2012

Instant Model Shoot


2 August, the night before Paul Harmon's triple bypass surgery, the night before "First Friday" in Berkeley (that I have attended only once).    
Instead of following my usual walking route, around Lake Merritt, my subconscious lead me to 19th Street, and I was soon in the neighborhood of First Fridays where people roam through various art galleries on the first Friday evenings of the month.  I stopped to photograph a glitzy fashion outfit out front where a mannequin was holding a sign in favor of Obama, and a young man walked up and asked, "Are you a photographer?"  
"Well, I take photographs." 
“Well, at this gallery we are need photographers for our fashion show tomorrow night [making themselves part of First Friday events].”   
"Are you a model?" I asked.  
"Yes," he said.  
"Well, may I take a couple of photographs of you?"  
This was all very quick repartee, and I took two photographs in about 3 seconds, made easy by the fact that he was ready to strike a pose at once.  He took me downstairs into the large exhibition space where their fashion show will take place, and he introduced me to various people.  Beside one man on his stomach, working on something, was his baby sucking on its bottle.  Then the young male model introduced me to Mario B ("The House of Mario B").  Sweet, affable people, in love with what they are doing.  On the more full length versions of the two hastily-taken photographs, I later removed some lint from his jacket and stains on his beret via Photoshop.  The reflection on his sunglasses was terrible, but I darkened the lens only on the one photograph, and that helped, and with the other photographed I “changed” the lenses:








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