In my last journal entry, I wrote about what it feels like to live inside my In my last journal entry, I wrote about what it feels like to live inside my imagination for a while. I In my last journal entry, I wrote about what it feels like to live inside my imagination for a while. I talked about the strange search histories, the costumes, the props, the flowers, the hours spent moving things around the studio and staring at them until something finally feels right. I wrote about how, long before I ever pick up my camera, I've already spent quite a bit of time wandering around inside a world that doesn't actually exist.
At the time, one of those worlds was sitting unfinished in my studio.
There were yards of red fabric draped across furniture, flowers waiting to be arranged, a dress that had been chosen because its enormous sleeves reminded me of petals, and several ideas floating around in my head that I wasn't entirely sure would work once I tried to bring them together.
I called it Red Dahlia. about the strange search histories, the costumes, the props, the flowers, the hours spent moving things around the studio and staring at them until something finally feels right. I wrote about how, long before I ever pick up my camera, I've already spent quite a bit of time wandering around inside a world that doesn't actually exist.
At the time, one of those worlds was sitting unfinished in my studio.
There were yards of red fabric draped across furniture, flowers waiting to be arranged, a dress that had been chosen because its enormous sleeves reminded me of petals, and several ideas floating around in my head that I wasn't entirely sure would work once I tried to bring them together.
I called it Red Dahlia. for a while. I talked about the strange search histories, the costumes, the props, the flowers, the hours spent moving things around the studio and staring at them until something finally feels right. I wrote about how, long before I ever pick up my camera, I've already spent quite a bit of time wandering around inside a world that doesn't actually exist.
At the time, one of those worlds was sitting unfinished in my studio.There were yards of red fabric draped across furniture, flowers waiting to be arranged, a dress that had been chosen because its enormous sleeves reminded me of petals, and several ideas floating around in my head that I wasn't entirely sure would work once I tried to bring them together.
I called it Red Dahlia.
There wasn't an elaborate story behind the name when I first began. I knew how I wanted it to feel long before I knew exactly what it would become. I wanted red. Not a polite touch of it, either. I wanted an unapologetic amount of red. Deep crimson satin, enormous flowers, dramatic shapes, rich shadows and the kind of light that makes you think of an old painting before you think of a photograph. I wanted something romantic, but not particularly delicate; beautiful without becoming sweet.
Mostly, I wanted to see what would happen.
This is the part of creating that I've been thinking about lately. We talk about inspiration as though an artist receives a perfectly formed idea and then simply executes it, but that has rarely been my experience. My ideas tend to arrive in fragments. I can see a color before I see a composition. I can imagine a mood before I know what someone will wear. I find one object that leads me to another, and somewhere along the way a collection of completely unrelated things begins having a conversation with each other.
Red Dahlia happened that way.
The dress came first, and those sleeves immediately made me think of flowers opening in enormous folds. Then came the dahlias, followed by more flowers because apparently I have very little interest in restraint once an idea starts working. Red fabric began appearing everywhere. I started thinking about old portrait paintings and the way fabric was used almost architecturally, creating volume and movement around the body. I wanted the set to feel lush without becoming cluttered, and I wanted the woman standing inside it to remain more interesting than everything I had built around her.
By the time the set was finished, I could finally see the thing that had been living in pieces inside my head.
Then she stepped into it.
And the story changed.
I think that's one of my favorite things about conceptual portraiture. I can plan the set, choose the wardrobe, arrange the flowers, study references, decide how I want to light something and imagine a hundred photographs before the session begins, but eventually another human being walks into the middle of all those plans and brings something I could never have designed myself.
Suddenly the enormous sleeves weren't simply part of a dress. The way she moved made them feel almost floral, opening and folding around her. Her tattoos created this incredible tension against all of that polished red satin, and what I had imagined as something romantic became stronger, stranger and far more interesting. There was elegance in it, certainly, but there was also defiance. Softness existed beside something much sharper.
At one point, I handed her a flower.
Later, we added scissors.
That wasn't part of some carefully written allegory I'd planned weeks beforehand. It simply felt right in the moment, and I love that. A flower and a pair of scissors suddenly created questions that weren't there before. Is she tending the garden or cutting something away? Is the flower precious to her, or has she already decided its fate? Depending on which photograph you're looking at, I think the answer changes.
That is where photography becomes especially interesting to me.
The image doesn't have to explain itself.
It can leave room for you.
When I look at these portraits now, I can see traces of the things that inspired me, but I also see something that didn't exist in my original idea. The woman in these photographs feels entirely at home in this strange red world we built around her. She isn't overwhelmed by it. She seems to belong to it, as though the flowers, the fabric and all that excessive red were simply waiting for her to arrive.
Maybe that is what I've been rediscovering through these shoots.
In my first journal entry, I wrote about playing pretend and wondered why so many of us decided imagination was something we were supposed to outgrow. Then I wrote about the joy I've found in allowing myself to follow ideas again: searching for costume pieces, making props, building sets and asking "what if?" simply because I want to know the answer.
Red Dahlia gave me one.
This is what happens when I follow the thought all the way through.
Something that began as a color in my head became fabric spread across my studio. The fabric became a set. The set became a place another person could step inside. Then the two of us began experimenting, changing things, laughing, moving flowers around, trying ideas that worked and abandoning ones that didn't until, somewhere along the way, the world stopped belonging entirely to my imagination.
For a little while, it was real.
And now there are photographs to prove it.
I think that may be what I love most about all of this. Not creating fantasy because reality isn't enough, but discovering just how much more interesting reality becomes when we allow imagination to participate in it.
There will be more worlds after Red Dahlia. Some are already beginning to take shape in notebooks, saved photographs, half-finished ideas and objects around the studio that probably look completely unrelated to anyone but me. I don't know exactly what all of them will become yet.
I'm learning not to rush that part.
For now, I'm enjoying following the ideas wherever they decide to go.
And if you've been carrying around one of your own; a character, a story, a color, a painting, a strange little thought you've never quite known what to do with, bring it with you.
It doesn't need to make sense yet.
Those are often my favorite places to begin.
Come imagine with me.
Model: Mortish
What World Would You Step Into?
Maybe your idea doesn't have a name yet. Maybe it's nothing more than a color, a character, a story you've loved for years, or an image that keeps finding its way back into your thoughts.
That's enough.
You don't need to arrive at Studio Gemini with a finished concept. Bring me the fragment; the strange idea, the impossible dress, the forgotten goddess, the character you secretly want to become, or simply the feeling you want to explore. We'll build the rest together.
Your world doesn't exist yet.
Let's create it.