Wednesday, April 16, 2008



When I first met the tall Vantana some years ago, she reminded me a bit of Geena Davis. I proposed to her the idea of taking her picture in room 618 of Tony Ricci's Marble Arch Hotel. She agreed but warned me that she had recently cut off and bleached her wonderful hair. I wasn't going to wait for the hair to come back so we met at the Marble Arch.



For laughs I brought my dark blue pin stripe suit, a white shirt and braces. We took pictures in a room where I had photographed quite a few women before and a quite a few after. I was still experimenting with lights and no lights (some of these are long exposures with my camera on a tripod, using the light that was available in the room).



I followed my friend John Armstrong's idea that a lamp without a lampshade made pictures look a tad cheap and noirish. I have never used these pictures for anything but they certainly helped me progress in perfecting my style of photography.



I now use my light a lot closer and get more shadows. It is close in look to the one you see here where Vantana lifted the braces up to her shoulder. I was rendered speechless when I saw this.