we be doing this today?” I asked. “Would it be better to put it off?”
“No, no. We’re here.”
“I won’t charge ya for the day if ya wanna just do it another time.” I wasn’t typically so generous, but this was Isaac—my absolute favorite photographer—and, as I studied him, I had genuine concern.
“Nope,” he insisted. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this shoot. Wanting to do it for years. We’re finally here, so let’s do it.”
He stood, opened one of the cases, and started unpacking reflection gear. Watching him do the things that were familiar gave me a little more assurance he would be OK. It was my turn to find a rock and sit until he was ready for me. I opened my little bag, took out the mirror and checked my makeup and hair.
“If you wanted to do this years ago,” I asked as I applied some eye shadow, “why’d you wait so long?”
“Never found anyone who was interested enough to publish it.”
Isaac wasn’t a gallery artist. He shot photos for art books, magazines, and advertiser, the folks who actually paid for a photographer’s labors. It was how me made a living doing what he loved. So many others in the profession barely squeaked by, insisting they would only create what moved them artistically. Isaac was indeed an artist behind the lens, but he was a practical artist.
“So who’s gonna publish it?”
He coughed. “Well…I haven’t got one. Not yet.”
That surprised me. He was paying me to model, and he didn’t have a customer lined up. That wasn’t like him.
“So what are we doing here?” I asked.
“This one’s more for me.”
“You mean you’re doin’ it just ‘cause you wanna?”
“’Cause I don’t know when I’ll get another chance.”
Now it all began to sink in. He had cancer. He had no family. He had an ambition to accomplish a special photo shoot that would mean something only to him. And he didn’t know how much time he had left.
I felt my mouth go dry. I fought to choke out the words. “I’m honored you chose me.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do it if I couldn’t get you.”
At first, I didn’t know if he meant that or was just being nice. There were plenty of other models he could have hired. My posing was anything but essential. But, for the few moments I rolled it over in my mind, it occurred to me he wouldn’t choose just any model for a project he was doing not for money but to accomplish a personal artistic goal. He’d choose a girl who was special to him.
“Really? You wouldn’t do it without me?”
“Not for this one. You’re my favorite, Jenny. You’ve got…well…” His words trailed off. There was a look in his eyes that suggested he wanted to say something more intimate, more emotion driven. However, he just smiled, gave me a slight nod, and went back to setting up his equipment.
I suppose it wasn’t until just then that I came to realize how much this man meant to me. I didn’t have a romantic interest in him. There was too much distance in our ages. Nor did I look upon him as a father figure. Still, for the past four years he had been a constant in my existence—someone I enjoyed talking to, looked forward to working with, who made my heart glad when I answered the phone and heard his cheerful voice. Now, after all that pleasant and endearing constancy, an uncertainty crept into the picture.
To keep from getting emotional, I focused on my makeup application. He went about his setup work. We both did so in silence.
The equipment was assembled. My hair and makeup were ready. Isaac looked at me.
“Okay.” It was the only word he needed to speak. I knew the drill. I had already kicked off my Merrills. I unbuttoned my blouse and slid it off my shoulders, baring myself from the waist up. I tucked the garment into a dry spot amongst the rocks. My shorts and panties came off next and followed my blouse. I was now nude and ready for work.
Isaac had removed his shoes and socks, rolled up his pants legs, and, camera in hand, was wading through the shallow waters to a point just downstream of the pipe with the most abundant flow. That was where he wanted me—right in the mouth of the great tunnel.
I tiptoed with care into the current, its cool wetness chilling my feet. I backed my way into the chosen tunnel and awaited the photographer. He had his camera at the ready and snapped a couple of shots just to check the lighting. Then he had me step a little deeper into the cavernous pipe, but not so far that the sun didn’t directly illuminate me. Again he snapped a shot to check the lighting.
“Just wait there.” He made his way back toward the starting point to retrieve a reflector. He’d position it so as to project extra sunlight on me from whichever direction would lessen the harshness of the shadows. It was something most amateur photographers know nothing about, but I came to understand that professionals do it all the time.
As I stood there waiting for Isaac and wiggling my toes in the brisk stream, I looked about. Not a soul to be seen in any direction. Well, at least any direction I could see from my vantage point inside the mouth of the tunnel. The immediate sides of the creek bed were obscured by the pipe’s walls. Straight ahead was just more creek. Behind me was the tunnel leading back to the direction from which we first arrived, the opening at that end now appearing as a small bright circle of light in the distance.
There was no place to sit other than on the chilly, watery base of the pipe, and I didn’t want to do that. So I shuffled my feet along the shady side of the tunnel and angled my body such that I was able to bend my knees and lean my butt up against the wall. The cold, hard concrete wasn’t terribly comfortable on my bare ass, but it gave me some relief from having to stand upright the whole time.
And, as I squatted there, I thought about the man outside with the camera. I thought about our longtime working relationship. I thought about all the shoots we’d done. I thought about the many kindnesses he’d shown me, being a gentleman as well as an artist, and a concerned human being when it came to my comfort and feelings. I thought about the quality photos he’d taken of me over the years—images that made me look and feel beautiful. I also thought about his present situation, and that made me wonder whether all of that was about to come to an end. A sense of melancholy began to overtake me.
Isaac came into view. He had the reflector in one hand. He anchored it to its metal stand, just off to the side where it was bone dry. He needed me back in place so he could adjust the reflector, so I got my ass off the pipe wall and returned to the sunny mouth of the tunnel.
How nimble his fingers were as they positioned the reflector, angling it just so, until it illuminated my curves with the right amount of what’s called “fill light.” He stared at my nude body the whole time as he did this, and yet his unblinking gaze didn’t make me self conscious. Not one bit. That’s because his face never faltered from its businesslike expression. There wasn’t the remotest hint of leering. Since I was naked, and I knew he was heterosexual, I probably would have forgiven him an occasional unbusinesslike gawk. It’s only natural for a man to have some primitive response to the sight of a bare nymph posed provocatively, and, as a woman, I wouldn’t have minded a little confirmation I had the ability to provoke at least some reaction along those lines. Sure, it’s easy to do when you’re with a man in a sexual context. However, this was a whole different situation, and I’ll admit the thought intrigued me more than once over the years as to whether I was giving him an erection. However, whatever urges Isaac might have harbored he kept hidden beneath a stoic exterior and a pair of loose-fitting trousers.
“Are you familiar with Vitruvian Man?” He had finished positioning the reflector and was retrieving his camera.
“No.”
“Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing? A nude man in two superimposed poses, framed by a circle and a square.”
“Oh, yeah.” His description brought back memories of having seen images of that drawing on various occasions, typically in connection with something to do with science.
“It’s the d
epiction of the proportionate perfection of the human form,” he explained. “Nature and geometry all in one. To Leonardo, there was beauty in the ideal of a human being conforming to a mathematical equation.”
“So we’re gonna duplicate it here?”
“Not quite. But we’re gonna pay homage to the master by having you recreate the old poses framed by a modern day, manmade circle…the pipe.”
It sounded like a cool idea. I’d done weirder things in front of a camera. So I got myself into my professional modeling frame of mind and readied myself to be physically manipulated. That is, I would think of myself as soft clay and allow the photographer to mold me with his instructions.
For the first pose, Isaac had me stand right in the middle of the tunnel’s entrance, feet together, legs and back rigidly upright, arms extended straight out and even with my shoulders, my palms and face angled directly at the lens. Although it felt awkward, he also had me turn my left foot ninety degrees outward, which sent the pipe’s water trickling over my instep. Then he went sloshing through the downstream waters as he maneuvered to get just the right shot.
“Try to hold very still,” he said as he squatted, the camera’s eyepiece pressed to his face. “I’m trying to frame the edge of your extremities within the far circle of the pipe’s opening behind you.”
It took him a long time to get things just the way he wanted