I don’t necessarily procrastinate as much as I overcommit. I could fiddle around being creative full time plus and many times act as if have the kind of time to do so. The reality is I’ve got a couple of kids half time, a very cool dog, a house with plenty of projects to finish and that I need to downscale from. In addition to that I work on boats, sometimes work on deck, and love being on the water.
Sometimes it takes a while to get things done. Just over a year ago I had a shoot with Carrie Crockett-Valhalla of BellowWing. It had been something we had talked about a couple of times and she had just shaved her head and I thought the energy was right for an authentic portrait. She had been feeling ill earlier in the week and everyone was a little tired and worn out but we made it work. I will generally plan on at least three hours for an authentic portrait, we barely made it to two.
Carrie is a musician and one of her instruments she plays is the saw, which she had with. After a few individual shots with the saw I thought it would be a nice to shot a series for a composite playing off of the Game of Thrones. Also it would allow Carrie to stay in the chair and not have to wear herself out posing on my direction. With the help of an assistant we made 88 images during the shoot for this one image.
The composite is made up of 26 separate images. I must give thanks to Brooke Shaden who taught me the basic skills needed to make composites like this and how to bring them to life. I had got part of it put together right away, but as life interceded it got pushed to the back burner. Months went by. But it didn’t disappear completely. When I have a good idea it’ll manifest as an image, I can see it finished in my mind and will prod me every once in a while, if not downright begin to fester.
So with a short day from working on the boat because of the snow I decided it was time to finish this one up. A quiet house, sleeping dog and well into the evening I finished what I set out to do, albeit a year later.
It always feels good to put one in the can.