The Operating Theater
No good can come of this. Photograph, Lauren Simonutti.
OK, I did say full disclosure in the form of self-portraits and writing. I said that in my last post. And I am not delivering this week or at least not yet. Instead of looking inwards. I am looking outside of myself and not necessarily with any objectivity.
Self-portraits... Now, that feels a lot more challenging and daunting than taking photographs of someone sitting in front of me. Just me alone with my camera. Vulnerable performer or liar fool.
Who will I be? Solitude, reflection, no distractions. Just me talking to my camera. My soliloquy, my silence, my boredom, my melancholy and mania. An inescapable meditation.
How do those self-portrait photographers do it? If you are not presenting yourself as someone other than yourself, how do you be yourself with yourself and present yourself as yourself? Do I seem shallow here? Or maybe just in some mild form of a demented state about who I am and what this person "Juliana" does alone?
I have surely done my time alone. Probably far more than most people I know. But, somehow when I do not share the stage with the other actors, I am a little bewildered. I am lost without someone holding up that mirror that reflects and shines an interdependent relationship of shared personalities.
Sure, I know what I do when I am alone. Probably too much staring at the walls. But, my concern in the process and the product is that it will only be a caricature of myself. I can only imagine myself positioning my body and contorting my face in front of the camera while counting down the seconds before the self-timer sets off the shutter.
This gives me a whole new respect for photographers whom have sat alone with the camera. I'm thinking in particular of the photographer Lauren Simonutti's body of work. I learned about her recently when I found out about her precious edition of hand made books called "No Such Thing As Silence". I would love to write more about her but if you really want to read a great blog interview with her and get the inside story, you must go to Colin Pantall's Blog (which by the way is eclectic, well-written and just one of my favorite blogs.) A good read and yes, inspiring.
I will say one thing: this book comes with feathers and bells attached.
Right now, for me, the starting is the hardest part.
So, return to the external. Last week, I entered new territory. I photographed all weekend and did not take my Rollei TLR with me. No, film. No, big bracket with big flash. No, 30 rolls of 120 film. I put my Canon 5D and flash in a bag filled with batteries and memory cards. So, light and carefree. So, modern!
Yes, I actually spent the weekend as an analog traitor. I shot digital and I loved it. I felt naughty and cheap and very very bad. I felt like a junkie and an explorer on a new adventure... so many gigs of storage, so many clicks of the shutter... and never ever never enough images.
I woke up on Saturday around 11am. Before sitting up in bed, I had rationalized all the reasons of why I should not gather my lightweight equipment and take a two hour commute by subway out to the Rockaways. The best reason I could come up with-- but it would suffice-- was that it was already too late in the day.
By 3:30pm, I waiting in the local Target for my 4X6" print order to be ready for pick up. I wanted to arrive with photographs to give to my friends. When I got on the Path train in Jersey City headed to WTC where I transfer to the A train out to Queens, it was close to 4pm. I had missed most of the good light.
Diana and Mikey were throwing a birthday party for one of their tenant's little boy who lived in their bungalows. I knew the mother Gabby since before she even became pregnant with little Angelo. I remember the first time I met her four or five years ago. She was sitting on a beat up bed, texting and far away on her cell phone while her friends laughed and partied in a small room in a boarding house near the beach. She looked like a 14 year old kid even though she probably was 18. Her face was angelic.
I looked for Gabby for years. I wanted to photograph her again. I had heard from someone in the neighborhood that she had gotten pregnant and had a baby boy.
"Angelo and Gabby", Rockaways, NYC, 9/11. Juliana Beasley
I didn't find her until recently when I learned she rented and lived with her son in one of the bungalows. No matter who I asked or where I looked I could not find her. I should have known that the past often catches up to the present. Chance meetings and reunions happen in their own time... the Rockaways does not work on a schedule and the time table that most people apply to their lives does not exist here. Therefore, when you work in chaos, you have to adopt the rules of chaos... there just aren't any rules.
I found Gabby and Angelo, one day by chance when I was invited to one of my friend's daughter's birthday party in July. There she was just sitting on the porch outside of the bungalow, baby blue paint chipping off the facade. She was smoking a cigarette. She still looked like a kid. Time compressed and I felt like I had never lost her.
I finally arrived in the Rockaways, however, late I was. And it's never ever a disappointment however late or early I show up. Sure there are unpleasant days out there but I always meet someone new or learn something that had alluded me for years. I always feel enlightened on my 2 hour trip back to Jersey contemplating a day out in the Rockaways while I sit on the subway eating a bag of Cheetos under a florescent lights.
Oh, Nicole's Cha Cha shoes. Yes, you can find her out there in the neighborhood where she lives in a bungalow with her husband. They are newly weds. Close to 9pm, she was putting herself together for a night out working as a female impersonator in a club somewhere in Manhattan. We walked out the door together. She pulled up her hot pink spandex top and exposed a little cleavage.
"Be careful on the subway platform, " I said as we parted.
"Don't worry, honey. Don't let anyone fuck with me because I will fuck you up."
"Nicole's Cha Cha Heels", Rockaways, NYC, 9/11. Juliana Beasley
The party was winding down when I arrived. I took some portraits. The sun went down and the partygoers began to disperse. I walked a couple blocks over to my new favorite pub in the neighborhood and befriended the bartender, Sharon. I finally met my Rockaway's kindred spirit. Years of traveling out to the peninsula and finally, I met someone who really got me. And I got her. We knew all the same people. She is boisterous, tough, and a great storyteller. She can "man" her bar and kindly discipline the most difficult of irate drunk customers into submission. I look forward to our next meeting.
You gotta' "ring them bells".
