“Maybe photographing beautiful things isn't enough for me, maybe photographing a pretty face isn't enough for me...”
I have this mind in my head for the longest time, ever since I started my journey on portrait photography, I have been trying to find the meaning of doing it for myself. When I am doing it for my clients, the meaning of it is clear, it's the satisfaction I get when I fulfill my clients' wishes, I love it when my clients are happy with what I created for them. But when I do it as an art for myself, what does it mean to me? No photographers will reject creating beautiful images, but I want to create something that's not only on the surface. I thought about emotion. I always thought the human's emotion is beautiful, and it's a deep kind of beauty. I am an emotional person myself, but not in every kind of emotion. I found myself easily immersed in sadness since I was young, it is not to say that I was a sad kid, but I tend to have a stronger feeling when it comes to sadness. It just seems like there are many shades of blue in my world of sadness. I tried photographing a crying self once, but I thought I was not entirely focused on my emotion. I cried first, then I thought maybe I could try to take a picture of it, so I was crying when I set up the tripod, and then I continue to cry when I was taking pictures of myself. It was too intended, but that was the first time I tried photographing crying. Crying can be associated with a lot of different emotions, but I found most people cry when they feel pain. And this pain probably is something they rarely think about or talk about to other people. I personally love having deep conversation with people who are interested in connecting with me. And that's why crying experience was slowly formed in my head.
I am so glad Josephine has accepted my proposal to become a part of this. I would not have the gut to ask other models, first of all, Josephine was an exceptional model, not only about the expressions her face could portray, but I could always pick up on the emotion she subtly expressed. Secondly, based on the experience I had with her in the past, I felt she was a person who was cool with most of the things, especially with "weird" things, so I decided to ask her to do this with me. I did have the fear that she would not want to do it, but I had no idea who else I would ask, so I just went for it.
Then we set up mood boards for the shoot. We wanted this shoot to have 2 parts, an editorial part and a crying part. I was totally nervous about doing this so I figured starting with the editorial part would warm up both of us and make the crying experience a lot easier. Also what if we failed? If we had only done the crying part and failed then she would just have come to my apartment for nothing..so yes the editorial part was very necessary for the build up and back up. When it comes to makeup artist, the first person I could think of is Najeema. She was an incredible person. To me, she was first a wonderful human-being and then a talented makeup artist. I trusted her so much, I knew she would not disappoint me and she was just amazing. She added so much color and life to my photograph with her makeup skill. And that necklace of hers also inspired us on the shots with a mother Mary concept.
In terms of the meaning of our editorial part, it's not complicated. It was a beautiful portrayal of someone crying. Most of my favorite pictures are without dramatic sad expression. I prefer the expressions that have more of a sense that this person has been crying for a long time and she is exhausted. We chose a grey background, but the strong light on the model and my edit made the background look pitch black. Emotional piano instrumental music was playing during the session. There were several moments, I just wanted to cry when I looked at Jo's face with the music playing. But I held myself together, since I needed to be the person to record this.
The Crying Experience-Editorial Part
Model: Josephine Marie MUA: Najeema
Then We played with the pink sheer fabric Jo brought, used it as an object that was suppressing her. And then the cross necklace of Najeema's.
The Crying Experience-Editorial Part with pink sheer
Model: Josephine Marie MUA: Najeema
The Crying Experience-Editorial Part with pink sheer and cross
Model: Josephine Marie MUA: Najeema
The Crying Experience-Editorial Part with pink sheer
Model: Josephine Marie MUA: Najeema
After saying goodbye to Najeema, Jo and I started to chat with the studio light still shining on her face, as if I was going to take a picture of her at any time, but to be honest, even after the editorial shoot, I was still nervous... I thought that I was a little bit weird for a second, but then I quickly saw this experience as a way to connect with my model. I really like Jo as a person, but then I also found her hard to talk to sometimes. I felt intimidated by her, but not because how great a model she was, it was a slight frustration that I had. I knew she could execute what I wanted very well but would she appreciate the art like I appreciate behind this as much? I still don't know the answer and I know I should not focus on this either. I started asking her how was she doing, she said she actually felt this was the time in a long time that she did not have to worry much, because she found out her credit was enough for her to graduate this year in January. Her major was related to the medical use of Marijuana which probably no one could have guessed. With my half giving up attitude (I really did not think I could take the picture of her crying), I asked a bit about her boyfriend and then her family.
Without a recorder, I could only write down bits and pieces I remember, if there was any mistakes or slightly untrue statement please forgive me. Before telling her story I just want to throw back to the first time I met Jo, it was at Style Shoot Boston. She was the last model we shot with. Everyone seemed to know her already, saying how great she was as a model. Her boyfriend came with her also with a dog. He was waiting for her with the dog, far away from the shoot. That was my second time using my Sigma 35mm to shoot portrait, I was still struggling with the new lens a bit. I just thought this girl was pretty easy going, and she seemed to have some killer eye expressions, also her boyfriend must be so nice to wait for her like that. She was 21 years old and she was living with her boyfriend, and that was all I know.
I love to ask people about their siblings because as an only child I grew up alone and I was always interested in their stories of siblings. So she told me she had a brother but her brother was not living with her current family. She and her brother grew up in PA, and her parents had a divorce when she was 7 years old. Not too long after the divorce, her father had a new girlfriend which is her current stepmom. Her brother has always thought the stepmom was the reason for the separation of their family, since the timeline seemed so obvious. But up to today, their parents have never explained about why exactly they had the divorce. Jo's mom chose to leave the house, so the burden of mortgage went onto her father, and he couldn't afford to pay the house, so they decided to sell the house, the house that she grew up in.
They faced the possibility of being homeless but Jo's stepmom who was just her father's girlfriend took them under her roof. They had a place to stay thanks to her. According to her, her mother had been absent most of the time in her life, and her stepmom was the one to be there for her most of the time. She started crying when she compared her mom and her stepmom, because the more she articulated, the more she realized, her step mom was more like her real mom. She wanted to believe that her mom-her real mom was the mom, but the truth was, her stepmom was her real mom this whole time. She said it was not like she lost her real mom, she was still alive, but why she was not there most of the time? They did see each other regularly, but they could never have the kind of conversation she had with her stepmom.
It was at that moment I wanted to take the pictures. I was touched by her realization, and on the other hand I was trying to capture this moment. I felt her vulnerability in front of my face, it scared me a bit because I felt like I opened a box that was never opened. The emotion, the tears, they made me feel the weight on my shoulders. I hesitated but then I took the pictures. It was a bit of a struggle because I felt as if I violated her confession. But here she was, showing an emotion of frustration and realization.
The Crying Experience-Crying Part
Model: Josephine Marie
The Crying Experience-Crying Part
Model: Josephine Marie
The Crying Experience-After Crying
Model: Josephine Marie
After this shoot, I walked Jo to her car, she was not driving back to Amherst and I was glad she did not have to drive alone for 3 hours at night. I went back home, and I just had to process, I felt like I was emotionally exhausted although I was not the one who cried.. I was not sure why I had that feeling. I did not look at the pictures that night because I had a bit of difficulty looking at them and editing them-I felt depressed when I looked at them for a while. But once I got through the emotion, I managed to edit some of the pictures.
And this was my first crying experience session, I still cannot believe I did it. My intention was to capture the emotion and build a connection with the person I take picture of. There was definitely a burden I carry when someone shares his/her pain with me, but it was part of the release he/she needs. The purpose of the session was to remind us the beauty of emotion, the connection we made, and the story we shared.
Opinions and thoughts are most appreciated, if not I hope you at least enjoy my art.
If anyone is interested in doing an editorial headshot session that follows by a crying experience with me, please let me know. I look forward to get to know you, and to let you know about me.