17 April 2008

Book of Blue: An Inner Window

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Fae from Book of Blue. Photo by Eric Francis.

WE HUMANS have a complex relationship with the Mirror. In these strange devices, it’s as if we’re haunted by a spirit of ourselves peering in from another dimension.

Yet who is this mysterious Other, in the psychic sense? Is it an image of the ego? Is it an opposite rendition of who we are? Is the appearance of this other an invitation to make friends?

This is my basic philosophy—the Other is calling us; calling us home, into ourselves. It is perhaps our most complex journey through our most challenging relationship.

We all know that we can use relationships with others as a means of forgetting ourselves, or of avoiding a more direct relationship with ourselves. Yet even when we are totally subsumed in a partner, that mirror is there. Usually we catch a fleeting glance, or keep ourselves busy with makeup or our hair, never really relating.

We tend to respond to it as if we expect others to respond to us: as if we are not there. Our relationships with mirrors tends to be less like that of Narcissus in his pond, and more like an insect walking on the surface of water.

Book of Blue is a journey into ourselves, beneath the surface of the water, looking for the spirit in the mirror. My name is Eric Francis. I’ve photographed women searching their gaze in about 10 countries over the past three years. The photo above is Fae from New York State, who participates in Book of Blue projects on an ongoing basis.

Fae is 20, a Leo with a Gemini Moon.

8 April 2008

Book of Blue: A World Within Women

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Readers of the prior series, set in Vancouver, who are interested in the continuation, please write to me at egg -at -bookofblue.com.

I’ll reply if it’s clear that you were a reader of this series, which ran from December through mid-March and is now continuing.

BOOK OF BLUE began as a series of photos of women looking in mirrors.

One photo from an earlier stage of my work inspired the project, an image of my then-lover Maria Henzler created in Miami in the spring of 2000. This was one of the last photos in an earlier series called Luscious Photo, a more explicitly erotic project involving four models and two other photographers.

This photo of Maria haunted me in a stirring and evocative way; it entered my consciousness and would not let me forget its existence. In truth, the image and the experience of creating it with her put me in contact with something in myself that I did not know before. She was at that moment in a far-out erotic state, which was easy for her and natural to for her do around other people. In some ways she appeared to be reserved; in others, she could consciously enter a world with no borders at all.

I remember handing her the mirror so she could see herself. That is her gaze in the first seconds.

Empathy from that moment followed me for years, indeed, it took over as I slowly integrated it into every cell of my body through many experiences. The ability we learned, or discovered, to see ourselves absolutely unfettered, in the presence of one another, and to have that be photographed and seen by others, was for me a deep layer of freedom being made available.

With this came the ability to see without shame, and to look without judging the act of looking.

Many other hangups seemed to evaporate in the process. Something inside me gradually set itself free. Through the next phase of my life, something that had been choking me for a long time gradually loosened its hold.

Photo by Eric Francis.

FOR AS LONG as I remember, I have wondered what it was like to be, that is, to exist inside, the beauty that I perceived in women: the state of mind rather than body. From the outside, I would ache with the desire to make contact with what I saw and felt, as if it were separate from me.

As I developed the ability to communicate and mostly to listen, I began to figure out that what the women I knew, loved and yearned for were experiencing was often something other than I was seeing and feeling. This may be a gap that is more or less extant between all people; is there a way to really see through someone else’s eyes, or to feel through their feelings?

I would experience an exalted expression of humanity as a direct experience. They often perceived themselves as ordinary, and sometimes as striking and other times as plain or ugly.

Between the two states of mind there seemed to be a chasm that was not only wide, but incomprehensible and a little tragic. Getting to know women “as people” helped; certainly, that is demystifying. Yet it was still difficult to see through my perception and glimpse how she witnessed herself.

The question had begun to unravel with the Luscious Photo series. Three women I knew well and cared about deeply had been willing to participate in some exceptionally revealing photo sessions, often with mirrors present in the space. Photographing someone’s face masturbating or near orgasm (as opposed to play-acting, which we too-often see in commercial pornography) creates some transcendent images, but it has some drawbacks: for one thing, many women are at least initially reluctant to go there with a camera in front of them.

For another, it puts a sexual charge on the session from the beginning, something that does not need to be there. The Luscious Photo sessions were created by a small group of very willing friends; I wanted to do something that involved many more people and explored subtle states of mind that could be found around the edges of erotic awareness: states of self-awareness, what it would feel like to sense one’s existence, or to see a new vision of oneself for the first time.

Five years passed between the last of the Luscious Photos and the beginning of the Book of Blue. I was now working in digital instead of 35mm or medium format. I was also doing all of the photography, using much of what I had learned from my former collaborators, Neal and Maria, and what I had learned as their photographic model.

From the first sessions, there was a sense of discovery and adventure. Aimee, at the top of this post, was the first photo subject. She is a model and actor in Montreal. We did most of the photos outside, including some at the Canada Day parade with dozens of people watching as we worked.

The results were stunning: I felt like I could slip inside that space between what a woman looked like and how she saw herself. I could see expressions that were invisible looking directly at her without a camera or a mirror: the sensation of doubt, of searching, of discovery, and sometimes moments that looked like she was seeing herself for the first time. Some expressions looked like bewilderment and wonder; others seemed to be peaceful coexistence or self-acceptance.

In the photos, it often seems that thin, even transparent layers are dissolving gently, and the complexity of self-awareness is revealing itself in a way that seems to be mystical but is really human.

Photo by Eric Francis.

YOUNG WOMEN are intriguing, among other qualities, because the layers of their personalities are often packed so tight, it’s difficult to imagine they are there, including, it seems, for them. When someone “feels something but doesn’t know what it is,” especially about her own existence, that is what I would describe as the “packed layer” phenomenon.

As the Book of Blue photos progressed, those layers seemed to peel away gently. In witnessing women seeing themselves, I began to feel the ambiguity, the confusion and the quest for awareness that characterized so many of their psychic journeys. I gradually cultivated a quality in myself of holding space for this metamorphosis; of being as wide-open as possible when confronted with the awareness of another.

And I learned to look, and to see, both in the sessions and at the resulting work. In some images, I would see a child looking back. In the image of Nina, pictured above, I kept seeing a girl recognizing herself as a woman for the first time.

I can tell you that at this time in her life, Nina, the model above, was not truly comfortable being a woman. Being perceived as beautiful or desirable were alienating to her, and she seemed to struggle with the truth of being female, with its specific power, its attractive force, and the sense that she could not control the outcome if she let go into that quality of herself.

Here, she seems to be looking through a crack past the defenses of her self-perception, unsure of how to feel about it, but tentatively accepting the woman she sees.

Many people ask me about older women—where are they? There are some sessions in my files, and I’ll get to talking about them soon, with the photos. The age range of the project is currently 24 to 46. I love photographing older women; it is however generally the younger ones who show up.

I also get asked about where the men are; generally I’m the male subject of the series, though occasionally I work with others.

I BEGAN posting to Craig’s List when I visited someplace. Depending on the city, it was easier or more challenging to find models; the contrasts are always interesting. Sometimes the people who show up are professionals, other times, amateurs and often university students who wanted to model and were looking for a little extra cash. Others were friends or former lovers who wanted to do a session. Most possess what I consider real modeling talent, which is a kind of gentle sincerity and ease with the camera.

Mainly, the real art is how each reveals her beauty in her own way; with greater or lesser ease; being able to hold the space more or less comfortably; more or less selfconsciously. For many, a gradual seduction happens, as she works out the way she is going to reveal herself, and at times, her surrender.

Sometimes the models pose nude, others times they are dressed or partially dressed. Often I hear about the values involved in the choice to be dressed, or not, which lends insight into the face I am photographing. What surprised me at first was how willing so many women are to be photographed nude. I then began to figure out that it’s something of an archetypal desire to be photographed nude—something that many women think about, but relatively few do.

Sometimes the sessions venture into more adventurous erotic states. When they do, it’s usually a surprise, something that happens spontaneously, and it’s always got that feeling of it being not really possible, but actually happening. I focus on breathing and taking pictures.

With most models, the session and the conversation go on for several hours, so I tend to hear quite a bit about their lives, their relationships, their upbringings in places from Italy to Dubai, their sexual histories and preferences, and their sense of who they were or were becoming at the time. These are normally very secluded worlds, concealed even from lovers and therapists, sometimes revealed in diaries but often not for fear of being found out.

Through the sessions, there has been a phenomenon that recurs and is always intriguing. This is how the face looking into the mirror is at times so different than the one looking back out. Sometimes it seems like another person.

Whatever is revealed, one by one, women take my hand or take their own and walk us through their inner world, exploring their in-the-moment responses to their existence, and sharing as best they can some inner elements of their relationship to themselves.

When the model leaves, I am left misted in her presence, seduced, sometimes in love, always in a room doused in her psychic essence. And I have pictures that I can share with you.

11 February 2008

Looking & Seeing

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Iris. Photo by Eric Francis

IT IS in many ways taboo to look at women. True, they tend to go out of their way to be [in their terms] acceptable and [in my terms] beautiful. After so many hours, days and years of preparation, it is perhaps polite to glance at them, not so often polite to take a very good look and if one actually notices, one had best be subtle about it. Either that, or extremely bold.

I am reminded of the Greek myth where a mortal happens into some circumstance where a goddess is present, sees her nude, and is struck blind.

One of the most exquisite pleasures of photographing women is being able to look, and to see, with her direct consent. In a sense, it is a ritual of goddess worship: a conscious act of appreciation of a female and what can truly be called the Feminine. The ritual of witnessing the feminine is as much about their being seen as it is about my granting myself, and accepting, permission to see. The healing goes in both directions, because that is where the struggle went, too.

Has it been said recently that we humans NEED to be seen? We needed to be seen and acknowledged by our parents when we were young (and most of us were not). That carries into all kinds of needs to be seen and acknowledged as adults. If we hide the more often as we grow older, it only makes stepping into the light that much more emancipating.

Humans have a special thing about seeing themselves; we seem to look, a lot, and then act like it doesn’t happen. I mean visually; psychologically, we are nearly invisible to ourselves, but a physical mirror is a symbol. There is a split: we cannot usually be known for our self-awareness, or our self-curiousity, and we tend to hide things things from ourselves and others.

A passing glance, perhaps; but rarely deep indulging. Before a physical or a psychic mirror, generally one is alone. In a sense, the act of seeing oneself is the most secret that there is.

This is the space that is opened up by the camera and the mirror, the space directly entered. It is beautiful to see a woman seeing herself, in the midst of her unmitigated narcisissm, whether selfcritical or selfloving. It is a relief; it is the feeling of the universe meeting herself, acknowledging herself intimately.

There is a word for it: Compersion, the absolute acceptance of another person’s eroticism. Or, one’s own.

6 October 2007

An Art or Nothing Moment

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Prudence White in Brussels studio space. Photo by Eric Francis.

WHAT EXACTLY is sexual art? Oh, we usually use the words ‘erotic art’, but I am this evening declaring them a euphemism. Or perhaps there is a difference. Maybe erotic art includes the depiction of something directly sexual. But sexual art is something where sexual alchemy went into the creation.

Here is the story of the tee shirt.

We met again some months later. She did not want to pose nude or topless. Or perhaps she did, but she was adamant in a way that made me proud of Austria. She also knew this would be disappointing, since we both knew I wanted to see her nude and planned to make some fun pictures while doing so. I am sure she got a jolt from the power of saying no. I did.

Yet I am sure our desire was in the same place – and her resistance (she said, “I am a prude”) could have extinguished the daring quality that photos need. I have leaned to work with resistance rather than against it. This was an art or nothing moment. I slipped into my room and came out with a new white tee shirt and sharp scissors. I placed them on the black tabletop and suggested she make herself a garment. She snipped away at the thin cloth for a few moments, stepped into the bathroom and came out looking like she was wearing a smock. The shirt kind of dangled off of her like a 3-D female clothes hanger.

Then she started playing with it, just as the light turned sweet. The shirt became a living thing, relating to her consciously. In truth, it was her puppet, and she could make it do anything. What it was going to do was present, display and engage with her breasts. With this boundary, she could expose herself.

Okay taking the photos was fun. It was also agonizing because the tension we were walking on was between me and her tits, but she was in command. Further, she had confided in me two explicit details of her habitual masturbation at the end of our first session. So I had that imagery in mind, and the vision of her face saying the words to go with it. I don’t think she intended revealing this to torture me. Maybe she just needed to share.

As a model, she did what she wanted. In other words, she did not need direction; I just followed her with the lens as she went about her motions, took a call, smoked a couple of cigarettes.

As she moved around and occasionally talked, she kept stretching the shirt in a myriad of directions. She would not reveal her nipples or areolae. She played an interesting game that I didn’t see till I was looking at the photos, which was to flirt as closely with revealing herself as she could, but without actually doing so.

The word for this is psycherotic. It is a kind of mental interplay between oneself and an experience, or play between two people, that is an intimate psychological mingling. Oh, and visual, because photography is just about all about looking and seeing – and showing. This particular showing came in the guise of concealing herself.

One result was, looking at the photos later that night and in the days after, I was gradually obsessed by her breasts and also by the woman who was engaging with them. I cannot say I liked her, but I felt deep, swirling compassion for her. I was in her world, I knew and understood her as the feelings fluttered through her psyche. I felt her slip on doubt and gradually get her footing again. Her face told the story. And that daunting, tentative beauty could send my mind reeling into pulses of surrender.

I think it’s fair to say she claimed not to like her breasts, and her reluctance to reveal them bare may have involved the fear that they are too small. In the process, she created pictures that make one’s heart thump a few times, and that exalt breasts, hers and those of all women.

4 September 2007

The Celibacy Goddess

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Iris, holding her gaze in the oval mirror. Photo by Eric Francis.

PHOTOGRAPHS are not reality; they are the symbol of reality. Yet they create a “reality” of their own. Alice A. Bailey says many times in her writing that there is an entire dimension of [non]existence which we could call glamour. We think of glamour as being something good, or fun, or beautiful—as in glamourous, how wonderful!

The thing about glamour is that it has a certain, well, the word often used is allure…yet we know it’s not real. Photography is often involved.

Bailey describes what we think of as glamour as being a reduced form of a much larger problem: we create a fake world, and then we try to live in it. She calls this the “world glamour,” the creation of an entire sphere of [non]reality that includes the media, much of what we think and much of what our senses perceive, and which has no grounding in reality.

To see this in action, make art—and to some degree, succeed well enough to know you have created an alternate reality: an image that was not there before, a character that did not exist, a scenario that takes on a life of its own.

The thing about art is that it’s either done with very focused intention (I tend to trust artists inherently, because they live to focus beauty), or it is done in a process of surrender that brings one into contact with one’s creative core; and this, too, is supremely trustworthy. In these situations, alternative realities can be a lot of fun and teach us an enormous amount about ourselves, and show us how to see life a new way. Alternative realities can teach us to create reality.

We don’t often use our creative power to make the world we actually want, or even the one we need—rather, we typically create a kind of grey astral world (of polarized emotions, for example, a hallmark of the astral plane) that we don’t quite want (but seem to be hooked into). We can create whatever we want; all it takes for something to happen is enough people to decide it’s going to happen, and sometimes that means just one or two.

We have another issue entirely when the power of art is turned to greed or deception. It loses none of its force, indeed, it seems to focus energy and reach us as deeply or more deeply. It turns out that “glamour” is part of this process—making evil things look good, for example, or exposing people to beauty so that you can sell them what they don’t want or need.

Glamour is typically a world of unfilfilled desires, fantasy projections we are often too scared to experiment with in reality, or too embarrassed to admit. Yet it reminds us, in a backwards way, that we have the capacity to create and imagine, if we notice what we are doing.

I think this is the most glamourous photo I have ever taken. I had no plans of making it that way; I don’t even remember the shot, specifically—it’s one of a series. Yet clearly something comes through, or rather someone, Goddess-like. I keep getting the feeling of Athena. In that sense, it’s not glamour we are seeing here, but rather a glimpse of the Goddess-essence carried in that moment by one woman. Or perhaps that is glamour.

She who is depected here is morphing into a fictional character, based on her inaccessibility: the Celibacy Goddess. She doesn’t have a name, but she has a feeling. The cool athenian gaze and face that to me seems so Greek, that is the face that you don’t get to see cumming for you.

To me, she is a ritualistic mirror in which I must stand alone, and acknowledge at least the potential that no act of sexual communion can give me the self-completion I seek when I look into her face. And in a way, her flawless female reflection is the symbol of that completion as it already exists within me, if I can reach the point where I feel as inwardly beautiful as she appears in sensorium.