All images and photographs © Scott Nichol. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
Keira - delicate in the hold
Today is the day they shipped
home our summer in two crates
and tonight is All Hallows Eve
and today you tell me the oak leaves
outside your office window will
outlast the New England winter.
But then, love is where our summer
was.
Anne Sexton – Loving the Killer
Genna Bee - Whilrling
i recently purchased a set of Radiopopper JrX gizmos. they’re radio frequency triggers used to fire flashes off-camera. i wanted to use the Allentown Fair as a backdrop for some interesting experiments with the new devices. before we started, we had a bit of a scare as they seemed to be triggering randomly and without any input from the transmitter. for whatever reason, the optical slaves on my Nikon SB800s were just firing the flashes randomly as if some giant source of IR was out there blasting away in the darkness. don’t worry, its probably just the government protecting us somehow. in the end, covering the optical slaves did the trick.
it kinda took me a little while to bring this all together, finding the right model, getting a HPLS (human powered light stand) to assist, but when it all came together we had lotsa fun. Genna Bee is a great model that brings a lot of creativity to something like this, especially given my minimal direction. i’ve seen her style herself for various shoots and i just trusted her.
Genna Bee - Carney Freak Show Terror!
the sweat really comes when it gets down to the brass tacks for me. when i actually have to produce something, and do it with a lot of people watching. i’m getting better at it, not being so self conscious. trusting that i really do know what i’m doing here. in the end we got some loverly shots and had lots of fun along the way. Genna even got a big, loving hug from a little 3-year-old girl that was walking by! i mean, its still cracking me up!
its good to think about breaking out of my molds from time to time. and when i attempt projects like this, it just convinces me that Annie Leibovits got nothing on me. so, i’m for hire and mostly debt free, so my rates are pretty good. got a magazine? want something cool and unique? you know where to reach me now.
for today, just a little poem that i’ve always loved. it always seems to capture me and i guess i just seek it out when i need it most. enjoy.
Melissa - Whats That
What’s That
Before it came inside
I had watched it from my kitchen window,
watched it swell like a new balloon
watched it slump and then divide,
like something I know I know –
a broken pear or two halves of the moon,
or round white plates floating nowhere
or fat hands waving in the summer air
until they fold together like a fist or a knee.
After that it came to my door. Now it lives here.
And of course: it is a soft sound, soft as a seal’s ear,
that was caught between a shape and a shape and then returned to me
You know how parents call
from sweet beaches anywhere, come in come in,
and how you sank under water to put out
the sound, or how one of them touched in the hall
at night: the rustle and the skin
you couldn’t know, but heard, the stout
slap of tides and the dog snoring. It’s here
now, caught back from time in my adult year –
the image we did forget: the cranking shells on our feet
or the swing of the spoon in soup. It is as real
as splinters stuck in your ear. The noise we steal
is half a bell. And outside cars whisk by on the suburban street
and are there and are true.
What else is this, this intricate shape of air?
calling me, calling you.
- Anne Sexton
