46.

     These are the first pictures of Ava that I've taken in the winter, well, it's been the first winter since I started taking pictures of her. It's almost been a year since I took that first set. I felt bad with this set, she was horribly cold but that didn't seem to stop her much. That little girl knows how to get her picture taken. I want her to be in a Marc Jacobs ad one day. I told her that I wanted her to be creepy, so she was. We went to this park - not far from her house because we were losing light so quickly. The pond was frozen, it was freezing, there was no one around and it was so silent other than the numerous crows. 

     We took a couple of picture and after, what I'm estimating to have been, 30 minutes, she said, "I want to leave this scary place." It was adorable. But, it really was unsettling. I want to get the creepy feel of the atmosphere and the crows were really a big part of that, so a took a video clip of her with my phone.  I told her to look dead. I like the creak of the swing and the low-quality of it - it's kind of makes it creepier, like a serial killer documenting her work....I kind of want to do it with adults. Like, have a series of short video clips of 'dead' bodies in motion. It's a bit cliche, but I think it'd be fun. 

45.

     These are technically the first nudes that I've done. I think I actually froze Leah. You know how people say that when you freeze to death, you get sleepy and then just die....well, she was half way there. These are not at all what I thought I was going to do this morning, but I think I like how they came out. I had the pictorialists in mind. I find that I need to give all my images a narrative. Some times, it is an encumbrance and it becomes detrimental because I can't just take a picture for the sake of taking a picture. 

.......and I always kill Leah, so that's what the last picture is: dead Leah. 

44.

     These are from my semester project for seminar. I brought these actors into the studio and told them to say a monologue. This project was a small study in what I have been calling artificial emotion.  My intention was to photograph their ability to portray emotion that they weren't actually experiencing. I have recently become fascinated with actors and their ability to be a character, another person. I think it takes a certain kind of person to be an actor. I think one must be some what detached from oneself to be able to allow another person in - allow some one else's words to come naturally from one's mouth, some one else's gestures, posture, facial expressions - everything. It's a theory. That, or, completely self-aware and able to manipulate and change most everything about one's self. 

     All but one of the images I chose to include seem to be depressing. They did happy monologues too - I made them do happy but I didn't like them as much - it was quite unconscious. I found the others to be boring. Happy people, boring? I've never expressed such a thing. Nell's happy monologue was quite insane - something about a woman stealing a baby - it was deranged and, quite frankly, my favorite happy monologue - probably because it wasn't very happy. 

     I tried to mimic stage light with my lighting set up - I think that I was pretty successful. It's pretty simple and in its simplicity, I think it looks pedestrian. But I like how they came out still - I do not know what I do differently. 

     The title comes from one of my all time favorite movies, All About Eve. It is from a scene when Margot is talking about being replaced and one of the creatives refers to her as "a body with a voice."

     and can I just make it known that all of these people are far more attractive than they look in these pictures....I told told one of them that I would photoshop her face and totally forgot and I'm now out of time....I actually feel bad about it. 

43.

     This weekend, I took a trip the Berkshire Mountains with my mom to do a retreat at the Kripalu Center. These are image from my stroll around the grounds. I far too distracted to actually get into the program - I have so much work to do here at school. I just wasn't in the mindset. Actually, I don't know that I am ready to do Kripalu right now. I feel, for lack of a better word, guilty when I'm not working. If I accomplish nothing in a day I feel like it was waste - hours, days, weeks: they go by so quickly there is no time for me to stop right now, I'm young so I do not see the problem with it but, one day in the distant future I would like to go back to Kripalu and actually be there. It was nice to spend my time with my mom and it gave me an excuse to do so - just us. I wouldn't have just gone home because of the work load but the fact that we paid and the ever-alluring thought of Kripalu made my go. I love Kripalu, I do but just not now. Every one in program was there, all of them. Physically, I was there but mentally, spiritual - I was not. I feel as though I have deprived my mom of something but she got something out of the program and for that, I am thankful. It was not a waste of time. I think she would have liked it more if I had gotten something out of it, well - I figured some stuff indirectly from the program - I was enlightened to certain things but not that which was intended to brought about. 

42.

     My mother wanted to go back to the God's Wisdom cross. John Harty, the man who made the cross is, I'm guessing, in his late 80's. He comes out to greet any car that pulls into his yard and tells his story with the same inflections - every time. In 1989, he says that God came to him and told him to finish the pond (as he was building a pond in his yard), level the field, make a cross, plant rye to grow four feet tall all around it, on the cross - put the ten commandments. His says that his daughter Noreen was the chosen one to do the art work. Then he was to cut down the rye and reveal the cross. Later, God came to him again and told him to write GOD'S WISDOM at the foot of the cross, on either sides of the God's Wisdom, he was to put the two flat stones from the field. There was only one problem with this: there were no flat stones. The men leveling the field said there was one big rock from the center of the field - which they tried to break in half, to no avail. One day one of them though he would give the rock one more try and tapped it with the machine. At the moment, the rock broke, against the grain (which is very uncommon, nearly impossible naturally) with a sound louder than dynamite. He then had his two flat stones, on which he wrote bible quotes. In the field there is a spring, over which he made a well & pump - there is a story about that too, I think something about Mary but I am not sure. 

     People come from all over to see the cross and John. And some times, he remembers them. My mom and I are known as the lady that plucks hairs from people's face and daughter from Gorfstown. "You're in my black book," he told my mom with a wink, holding her hands - as he did much of the time. He took us around the field and told us of the story we'd both heard a couple of times now, of the updates since last time and future plans. 

     Whether he is delusional or a prophet, he is the nicest old man and he is very proud of his cross - he keeps it up with adding adornments, decorative plants and benches. He is not very healthy and I fear for the fate of the cross in coming years. He still is very involved in keeping it up but after he passes, I don't know who will keep it up - it's sad, really. It is just as legitimate as any other shrine/place of miracles (as he claims people have been healed there) and I hope that if no one else, God will not allow it to fall into disrepair. He loves it so much - that field and he are one and it would sadden me very much to see anything bad happen to it. 

     I think that, considering some other Catholic saints, he should at least become blessed - and I'm not just saying that because I want to be able to say I have met a saint. He just lives so humbly and seems quite content to do so - he lives for God. 

     I am still very skeptical about the whole thing, but considering other things that people accept as truth, this seems just as legitimate. Meeting and speaking with him adds validity. He said, "It's all for Jesus. It's all for him. He proved to me that God is real...God is real. And God is spirit."   

41.

     These are images I took for Alex. She made a skirt and jacket for class and needed them to be photographed. In terms of photography, I don't much like these images but I think they serve their purpose in showing the garments. If we had had more time I believe I could have something creative for her, in that way, I feel like we kind of ripped her off - it's kind of pissing me off. But, again, she'll have images for her class. bleh! The seamless looks SO BAD.
     I like the outfit though, it reminds me of a modern, young version of the Desiree costume from the 2009 revival of "A Little Night Music."