Dennis with Flowers, Rebecca with Flowers
Mapplethorpe’s Dennis with Flowers stayed with me. Working with Rebecca, I wanted to make a female counterpart. The photograph became my favourite from the session, won a submission almost five months later, and belonged to a body of work I kept returning to in the darkroom.
Robert Mapplethorpe had been somebody I had looked up to for some time. His form, composition and lighting were something I could return to. Seeing the retrospective in Düsseldorf in 2010 helped me to reflect further and prompted me to take some photographs.
I particularly liked the photograph called *Dennis with Flowers*. (link to original image/cropped)
I wanted to do the same but with a woman. That was the plan I came with to the session with Rebecca. I explained what I had in mind and we went from there.
The callas. The long stems to play with and the light catching the pale flowers and drawing it out into the space beside her. The difference in how she held them altering the distance between flowers and her body. The difference in her hands.
In my favourite photograph Rebecca is on the right and looking towards the camera. The flowers go out to the left and her hands bring them together.
Close, but not quite there.
We did some other photographs during the session. The stems become more upright. The flowers are closer to her face. She looks at the viewer and she looks at something within the arrangement.
Now, looking at them all, I like that about them. The photograph I had set out to make and all the other photographs we had found around and about it. Same person, same flowers, quite a few places to go.
Almost five months later a call for submissions came in regards to the exhibition: photographs inspired by Mapplethorpe. The winning image would be printed and made available for sale in the gallery store.
I already had mine.
I submitted my favourite photograph from the session and it won. I had made the photograph I wanted to make. A few months later it would have a fit rather well for an opportunity.
Win-win. 🙂
The session provided me with more use from that. A year or so later I was in the darkroom a lot with plenty of Forte Polywarmtone paper and other nice things at my disposal. Even a salt print.
Those prints were very different. In one case the flowers come forward sharply and Rebecca’s face dissolves to a softness behind them. Running the length and breadth of it, grain, grain, grain, the salt and pepper of the Rollei R3 and Rodinal.
I still have the printing notes on the margin of that sheet: Focomat V25, 40 mm lens, f/5.6, grade 4½, sixteen seconds. Forte Polywarmtone PW14, developed in Moersch SE4 at 1+19.
A few short lines documenting how I got to that point, that particular print with that particular balance of light and shadow and texture.
The salt print has something else about it. The warm paper and the space around it come into play for me when I look at it. Rebecca’s gaze lowered, the flowers across her torso, the dark space beside her. All of it settling in a different way on that sheet.
One of the joys of coming back to a session in the darkroom. There are still decisions to be made and things to find out long after the model has left.
Mapplethorpe’s photograph had provided me with a starting point. Rebecca and I had made our photograph from that. Then I had printing to do.
*I just make pictures.*
Sometimes it takes a while.
