Thursday, September 16, 2010

A Project to Last the Rest of My Life!


As a conceptual photographer, I'm constantly drawing on outside resources to inspire my photo shoots. A painting, a poet, a prop, a song, a book – these are just a few things that have inspired me throughout the years I've been shooting conceptual work.

As a side note, I'm known to occasionally entertain a guilty pleasure of mine – visiting tarot card readers (even though 99% of the time they're completely inaccurate)! While getting these readings, I've generally found the tarot card illustrations to be dark and depressing in nature – not to mention the fact that they're not very stylish, which is something I notice as an artist who is drawn to aesthetically pleasing things. I did a little more research and found a spiritual bookstore that had a wall sectioned off for tarot cards. It was interesting to note that all the cards were illustrated. Not one single deck consisted of photographs – and in that moment I discovered my latest photo shoot inspiration!

The first tarot card I decided to interpret photographically was the character of "The Fool." I had set builders create a corridor with 6-inch nails driven through each of the corridor's panels. My model being barefoot in the set and holding onto a bouquet of balloons that could pop at any moment illustrated her as "The Fool" character perfectly.

A tarot card deck consists of approximately 80 cards. One card down, 79 more to go!

For a Behind-the-Scenes video of the conceptual and production process behind this shoot, visit: http://gallery.me.com/kamerakitten#100019

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