Saturday, April 10, 2010

I got my first caricature!

I attended Jambando tonight at the Plaza Theatre (http://www.jambando.com) and Eddie and I had our first caricature EVER drawn by Maria Bolton (www.mariabolton.com) and its AMAZING. See for yourself, I look better in caricature world than real life. Haha

I'm doing my semester long documentary on her and her activities from art to animal rights and awareness, eco awareness etc.

I know I'm not supposed to participate in anything or accept gifts to be a professional documentary photographer but um...I'm weak and lets be honest about my doc work...I'm not going to make a career out of it. And lets be honest again and say who could turn it down?

I also became very aware of the similarities between her drawing caricatures and me taking photos of people. I'm always more of an observer than a participant so I ended up listening to the way she spoke to people (including me) to ease the discomfort that is in the first 20 seconds of the process. But what it made me realize is when I'm in the studio getting ready to shoot someone (with a camera) the tension that arises is not being in front of a camera but being in the vulnerable position of allowing someone studying you. Ordinarily we don't spend time with our friends or strangers staring at each-other and studying each others features. Or at least I don't.

What a funny cultural instinct though, to feel vulnerable because someone looks at you longer than a glance. I'm guilty of that feeling of vulnerability too though so I'm in no way pointing anyone out or passing judgment. I get weirded out when people stare at me and then I realize it's probably because I'm sprawled out on the floor somewhere with a big camera trying to get a good shot, or its because my zipper is down or I only put mascara on one eye. Just an observation I made. It just reminds me of animal instincts, that an animal staring at another is usually a sign of aggression or some kind of territorial thing. One becomes dominant, one submissive or they fight to figure it out. In this case you submit to the fear of being studied physically and the connection that arises from it, but you quickly realize its a place of total comfort and actually fun.

I remember Eduardo Rubiano giving us the advice to pursue things that we fear, because the fear is probably the recognition that it could be something you will fall in love with.

What am I talking about? Is this an antibiotic induced hallucination? Did I really just go from drawing to animal instincts?

I'm actually really sick. But I can't stop my life and responsibilities because of it. Can I? No.

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