Annette
Saturday, March 28, 2020
My friend, Ian Bateson a retired illustrator and designer, now an artist, has a special talent of annoying me with comments that he often repeats to me. One of them is, “ You are reiterating yourself.”
And indeed when something is good I feel I should be able to write about it, speak about it, and, especially to photograph it again, and again. Indeed the present blog has a previous variation.
In these days of quarantine reflection (the first encourages in me the second) I go through my files to see what I can find that enable me to reiterate myself.
Today’s jackpot is my former friend and marvellous ecdysiast Annette. Had I known then her last name I might be able to find her now. I last and first photographed her, three times, in 1988. The first time I shot what in my innocence of youth did not understand to be simple boudoir. I do believe that the three here are a tad less cheesy than most do these days. A third time (before I write about the second time) involved a series of photographs that I took of women at home that had a pattern.
I would ring the bell and then allowed in. I would request a coffee or tea. In the kitchen or living room I would look around and then decide where I would take a series of photographs (but always in one location) with my subject not wearing anything. The show which I had in a local gallery was called Homebodies. In the case of Annette, she opened the door and told me to excuse the mess as she was painting the kitchen. I photographed her standing on a stool in the kitchen holding a paint roller in one hand and showing off one of the loveliest bodies I have ever seen. I cannot place that photograph here.
That second time involved shooting for an article that my now gone friend, Garry Marchant was writing for a magazine about BC jade and the fact that it was mined by a Canadian petroleum company. Because in 1988 we magazine photographers were given extraordinary liberties I decided to photograph Annette with a background of BC jade tiles. To contrast the greenness I used a red hairlight.
In those 80s whenever I had to shoot for brochures and magazines I was often asked where I obtained my unusually beautiful models. All I ever did was to answer with a smile.
Originally published at http://blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.
