Rough Gods, Indeed

Another photographer that I dig, Michael Alago, has suggested that he and I do a print exchange. Michael shoots the Rough Gods books, which if you can’t tell from the title is rather specific artwork and might stand out a bit as compared to the other artwork we have, once it’s hanging in our house. And I’m sure that whichever photo I choose for the trade is also going to require careful explanation the first time my baptist mother-in-law sees it. But I don’t care, Michael Alago is a great photographer and I am perfectly flattered that he wants to trade a piece of his work for one of mine.

It’s been narrowed down to one of these two prints. But I’ve been trying to decide, for about three weeks, which. And I can’t. I am leaning towards the second one. But I am just not sure. Your thoughts?

Because Everyone Does . . .

Every photographer shoots their version of this photograph, where the edge of the background and the studio lights show. For that, I felt compelled to do it, too.

Even though this is closer to what the photo will look like, when it appears on my site or the model’s portfolio.

I suppose the next step is panning out even farther and capturing a photo of the model, the lights, and me taking the model’s photo. I am not sure would be the one to shoot that.

(No one, if I get my way.)

My Copy, Fall River Boys

Remember when I told you that I spontaneously contacted a photographer that I adore and asked him to send me an autographed copy of his newest book? It’s here.

Fall River Boys, sitting on my desk

I don’t easily get starstruck. (Someday, I’ll tell you about the time I stood at a gas station next to Dennis Hopper and didn’t know it, or talked to Lara Flynn Boyle at a party and didn’t know.) But in my world, this photographer is high on the A-list.

Then last week, as Echo was walking through the door for her photo shoot, my cell phone rang. Being the polite person that I am, there was no way that I was going to turn away from a photo client to take a call, so I ignored it and greeted Echo and soon forgot about the phone. Then about 11pm that night, I was getting ready to walk the dog and I looked down and saw the new voicemail message on my phone. I picked it up and took Lucy outside and about fell over when I heard, “Hi Scott, this is Richard Renaldi calling . . . “

I didn’t sleep a wink that night, thanks to my racing mind:

• He called me!
• He asked me to call him back.
• I want to call him right now, but it’s one in the morning.
• What in hell am I going to say to him?
• He has a cute voice.
• I hope I don’t sound stupid — or tired — tomorrow.
• How can Jay be asleep at a time like this?
• He really called me!

The next morning, I waited until what I deemed a respectable hour to call an artist and Richard and I played phone tag for a while. Then, mid-afternoon, he called and I was able to answer. He thanked me for supporting his work. I asked if he was going to be in Chicago with his exhibit next month and he said that, unfortunately, he would not. Then he told me that he was looking around my site and he complimented my Habits of Male Primates series. I gushed. He handed the phone to Seth — his business partner and “partner” partner — who took my shipping address. When Seth realized that I lived in Indianapolis, he complimented the city and said that he had enjoyed visiting here in the past, then he asked a LOT of questions about the recent Indianapolis Museum of Art expansion, and I told him about the art and nature park they are constructing now. He was impressed. I was impressed with how nice they are.

And I have an autographed book, that’s like a work of art on its own.

Did I mention they are both adorable?

Promo shot, Seth and Richard

Offline Time

It’s funny that I started a new blog now, because to be honest I’ve been trying to spend less time online.

It seems to be a trend. People are tired of being plugged in all the time. A former blogger who’s site I ADORED told me a week ago now that he’s been blog-free for three months, he has also realized that he doesn’t want to renew the contract on his iPhone. Another friend who’s a fiction writer told me that he purchased ribbons for an old typewriter, and he hopes to forget how Facebook even works. Jay and I were both considering buying iPhones for a while, and then we realized that neither of us wants the internet following us everywhere. Then, the wireless router in our house broke, and about two days later we decided not to replace it — if we want to be online at home, we can go into the office.

Jay and I are even toying with the idea of turning off the TV now and then — okay, a lot more than now and then — we wrote down the shows that truly mean something to us and realized that it only amounts to six hours per week (including the news). Anything beyond that, the TV has to be either turned off or tuned into programming that will teach us something, like how the universe works or how to landscape or cook.

People are just too addicted to technology. You see people who are logged in to gmail chat every time you are. You probably have friends that answer your emails within five three minutes of your sending it, no matter what time it is. People text message or take phone calls in movie theaters. Or they are sitting in restaurants with a group of friends, but are looking down from the table, disconnected from everyone they are with, and busily updating Twitter or their Facebook status.

Those people are the worst. When I see one of them, I am immediately glad that I don’t know them. And my first inclination is to hate them, but in reality, I feel sad for them. They don’t know how to socialize with real people anymore. They have forgotten how to be alone with their thoughts. They don’t realize that as a human being, this is important.

But as an artist, it is critical.

Jay’s Tattoo

Echo Trobridge

She’s a local artist that I’ve wanted to photograph for a long time now. I have one of her photographs in our den on the wall opposite my desk. It’s probably my favorite art piece. Note in the first photo that she has a white tattoo above her cleavage. I loved that.

While we were working, Echo asked me to tell her how I define love. I am used to talking about much different subjects during a photo shoot, such as how many crunches the model does in a week or what I think of the Jonas Brothers, so I wasn’t ready for that kind of a subject and I am pretty sure that I gave her a really cliche answer — not as bad as “love means never having to say you’re sorry” but something equally stupid.

Echo then told me that if she could have a superpower, she would be able to make every person that she comes in contact with love themselves more, because if everyone saw the value of their own lives, then there would be more peace and less violence in the world.

Speaking of tattoos, now that my arm is done it’s Jay’s turn and he has an appointment to start his tomorrow evening, and after that we are going to meet Echo for a beer and maybe a late dinner. I have a general rule that I try to keep photo shoots on the professional side and avoid invitations to get too close to my models. But I’d like it if Echo and I became friends.

Galactica

There are only about five hours of television in a week that I really care about (not including The Young and the Restless, which I will watch when it’s convenient and when I am in the mood [don't judge, this show comforts me somehow; I've been watching it since I was about 12, when David Hasselhoff's wife was kidnapped and sold into white slavery and Katherine Chancellor's boy-toy husband's first wife was trying to convince people that poor Mrs. Chancellor was insane]). But now that Battlestar Galactica is over, there is a big hole in my TV-viewing desires. I can’t imagine that I will ever find a prime-time show that I like so much.

Last night’s series finale left me satisfied. It was what I had expected, yet it wasn’t predictable. It was a good ending without being sappy or too depressing (although the final scene with Roslin — even though we’ve all probably known it was coming for five years — reduced me to tears.

Of the numerous things I could go on about that I’ll miss about this show, here are three more:

Lee Adama

Sam Anders

Karl Agathon

Hey, I’m just telling it like it is.

This will also be the first television show that, when it’s released on DVD in a box set, I’ll purchase. I am looking forward to watching the whole thing again, starting with the miniseries.

I Wanted to Take a Nap

But my bed had reached maximum capacity.

Natasha

A beautiful woman. A loss.

A great photo/still of her (below).

This makes me sad.

Jamie

On Monday night, Jay and I had the pleasure of having some quality time and good Vietnamese food with my niece, Jamie, and her husband as they were driving through town on their way back to Nashville. This is the same niece that’s been performing with Carrie Underwood for the last year, and who’s soon going to be a rock star on her own merits.

No, really, she is; she has people from Warner Bros., Universal, and some record company in London listening to her music and talking with her manager right now. She hopes to have a contract signed by the end of the summer. Jamie gave me a copy of her demo CD, and it’s really good — and I’m not saying this as a proud uncle who would clap and cheer his way through a niece’s 10th grade part as a chorus girl in Guys and Dolls — quite the opposite, really; school musicals and recitals make me want to scoop my eardrums out, no matter how much I like the child. But Jamie is REALLY talented. She writes most of her own music and her voice has really matured. I think she’s ready, and this is her time. It’s exciting.

It occured to me that I’d love to upload a song onto here to let you hear how fabulous she is, but being new on Blogger, it doesn’t appear that it likes music files so much, just videos and photos. And it’s probably for the better since I don’t know how copyright laws work with music — and especially since Jamie’s not signed yet.

But I can be really retro: Let’s pretend that it’s still 2002, here’s her MySpace page, which has some music on it. (If you want my advice, listen to “Never Knew Love” first, although “Powerless” is amazing [just a bit too Mariah for this non-lover of pop music.) I’ll confess that her music is all a lot more pop than my usual taste, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s quite incredible.

It also occured to me as they were getting ready to leave that I should photograph them. But I wasn’t in the mood. I am never in the mood anymore, unless it’s with an actual “client” in the real studio. This is something I want to change. One of the reasons that I started this blog is to make myself become more creative and actually start carrying my camera around again. I used to always have a camera with me; now I never do. I just have to get over the fear that, unless there’s an up-and-coming actor or naked man in my studio, my life just isn’t that interesting.

Jamie and I also talked a lot about food. Both her and her husband have waistlines about the size of my left wrist, and she told me about a diet that she usually sticks to that sounds incredibly doable. But more on that another time. I am, however, tired of being a fat guy.