April 9, 2003

A workday, at home. My American friend Annette came over to be photographed, and for a pie-making lesson.

As she will doubtless be mentioned here again, let me fill you in on her, a little: in her early twenties, home in Detroit, here at University. She spent a year living at Ed and Paige's, and will be there again next schoolyear, ie: later in the summer. What I knew first about her is that she's very athletic and plays a ton of hearty field sports. It was quite a long time later that I found out that she's studying to be a doctor. And even later still before noticing that she's an exceptionally attractive girl: she just isn't into her looks, and so it they tend to sneak up on you.

So, Annette. Yes, that's her middle name really, in keeping with the usual nom-de-net nomenclature around here at AaL. This morning she showed up bright and early at the crack of 11 (I'm still not a morning person, nope), and I made us some coffee to begin with. Strong coffee, and plenty of it.

The departure point for this shoot was a beautiful red hat. A saucy little cocktail hat in lacquered red straw, a self-bow on the front, a single perfect red feather curling to the side, and a very flirty wisp of netted veil. Doesn't it sound scrumptious?

It was a gift from- oh, this does get complicated- the lady who used to own Ed and Paige's High Park house, who now lives just a couple doors north of them, and they're all the best of friends. She was visiting with her two younger kids one day last Halloween. I'm pretty sure that's when it was, because I would have arrived dressed appropriately, in a long fur-trimmed cape and something swirly and grand in a dress. Whatever it was, this dear lady (whom I'll call Angelika) declared, "you look like somebody who really appreciates hats." And she slipped out the door, reappearing minutes later with a big tin box, with a hinged lid and square handles, and inside was the most amazing collection of hats. From the 40s and 50s, there were straws and bonnets and felt cloches, velvety winter chapeaux and elegant pillboxes. "Pick one," Angelika smiled.

They had belonged to an aunt, she said, a lady who had always loved to dress properly and beautifully right down to the gloves and hats without which no self-respecting woman dared leave the house. I couldn't believe that Angelika would part with even a tiny part of such a treaure. What delicious torment to gently pick each one up, turn it this way and that, looking and imagining! Eventually the choices narrowed to either a pink summery hat, or the shiny red cocktail number, and it was Ms. A herself who picked out the red as being the absolutely ideal choice for moi.

So today, six months later, finally I get to make a picture of it, which naturally I'll share with her.

First, hair and makeup. After making the test shots of a barefaced Annette against a white wall ("bring your makeup, but don't wear any" is my standard exhortation), I rolled her shoulder-length curly hair into a sleek roll coiled at the nape. It's not like I'm anything like a good hairdresser, far from it; I can manage to make it look the way I want for pictures, that's about all.

I made her skin pearly-pale, and kept the eyes defined but not dramatic, and then painted her full mouth in the exact same shiny scarlet as the hat. Fingernails, too.

Oh boy, good pics.

So, the pastry lesson. I mean, really- how could I possibly resist the chance to teach an American girl how to make apple pie? It went very well- my standard two-crust recipe is from the good old Joy of Cooking, works every time, partly because my hands have a good sense of what the dough is supposed to "feel like" when it's right. A sidenote: it used to be said that you could tell that a woman's pastry was light and flaky if she had small hands and shoulders (which I do), and if her shoulders and arms were strong then she would make fine bread (quite true of my mother).

The other thing that made our pie a little different was that we used Golden Delicious apples instead of a more common pie variety; brown sugar instead of white; and almost no spicing except a teaspoon of vanilla. And I showed Annette how they teach pie decoration in England: an odd number of leaf cutouts for a sweet pie, an even number for savoury. She was suitably impressed, because it's true- presentation is very, very important.

After supper, we were ready for a second photo session. This was the first time I've ever done two sessions in the same day; it's normally too draining for both me and the model, I suspect. But there had been some food and drink and mindless television, so our batteries were recharged...

For this session, I convinced her that the tight ringlets of her honey-gold hair, normally squirrelled away in a ponytail, was just exactly right for the look I wanted. That look being simply Annette, the unintentionally gorgeous girl. I dressed her in my own black chiffon blouse, used her own cosmetics to just barely burnish her peachy-rose tinted skin, add some gold to her eyelids, sculpted her lips in a warm plum shine.

Now, shooting in the evening presents its own special challenges, namely that I have but a tiny space in which to shoot, and no real studio lights. All I have, no word of a lie, are the four somewhat directional mini-halogens in the ceiling fixture, and two gooseneck lamps on my drawing table. But I've learned how to work with them.

Now that she had seen the morning's pictures, and was used to how the camera saw her, Annette warmed into the session very quickly... and the pictures, totally different from the morning's look, were equally stunning. What a beautiful girl! What a drag she's going away until September! She could be one of my favourite models.

In truth, there's nearly a portfolio's worth of pictures already done. But I don't feel ready. It won't be finished until I get more shots of men, until I do the "firebird" and "eve" pictures, until there are some shots of children and maybe some effects-type makeups.

I love how this is going. There's nothing at all like the feeling of having a big project on the go, an all-consuming fiery hunger longing for completion. Most portfolios are the best samples of one's best work over many projects. This one is, will be, a creature complete in itself.

Really, it started just as a way to maybe get a discount at M.A.C. and apply to volunteer backstage at Fashion Cares. A means to an end.

Now, it's grown into an end in itself, and has become the finest photography of my life.

So far, anyway.