Sometimes happiness is really simple

Coming home and opening the door to the backyard, sitting in the kitchen and typing while breathing in the mingled scents of rain, flowers, tar, smothering charcoals and dish detergent. Drinking good coffee, laughing at something a friend said.

A photo studio is a wondrous thing. Before you even pass the door, you can smell it greeting you with a breeze of distant memories. You walk through the lab, the present patrons move about slowly, entranced and blissful to be quietly repeating the ingrained ritual of developing and printing.
Enter the room, there are more lights than you can wrap your head around, choices of seamless backgrounds, and endless possibilities. It is quiet and once you pull down the shades there is nothing left to distract you from the images you are about to create.

When heart is broken...

Every time I use the studio I feel the combination of growing familiarity and the expanding realm unknown potential. Because the result is less than immediate, learning the camera is not a straight forward event. I have to remember what I did and how I did it, later on -when I see the prints-; so that I can lign it up with the outcome and remember, in the future, what and what not, to do. Framing a shot on a TLR is very very different from using the viewfinder on a 35mm camera, or an LCD display for that matter. Firstly, very simply because the image is inverted. But also the fact that you are not directing your eyes in the direction of the subject but downward, into the viewfinder, creates a different dynamic - for me at the very least. As if I am very slightly detaching myself from the direct interaction with the model. Looking elsewhere yet fully focused on the scene.
As mentioned before, in the past, I always only played a single part in photo shoots I worked on : make up, wardrobe, art director..
Besides the creative freedom, that doing everything but the lighting, provides me with, I also think that as a photographer having that introductory moment with the model, as I put them "together", allows us to bond and connect on an additional level that, hopefully, puts them (and me?) at ease and results in rawer images.

Directing people came to me a lot easier than I thought it would.  A simple instruction from my Photo-mentor made it all clear. "Don't let go of the image, it's yours but therefore you need to carry it from beginning to end. Take charge and lead it". This attitude could seem self centered, diva-esque but the truth is far from it. It's more about believing in your idea and following through, which I think is a challenge to a lot of us as it requires battling or ignoring self-doubt and criticism. But it feels so incredibly good to just let go, let the visions flow out of me and believe in them.

Yet again, repeating myself, I cannot stop but marvel at the flow of ideas for pictures that are flowing into/out of me. And this room that could seem inconspicuous to an innocent bystander, has turned into the catalyst of me.

"Everything happens for a reason" is the kind of banality I abhor. But it does seem well timed, that I met this little studio when I did and I cannot wait to see what else comes out of our collaboration.

Sometimes happiness is really simple. Some speed lights, a Rolleiflex, couple of rolls of 120 and a few friends who are willing to come along into your mad descent.