gin soaked ragtime

a fine pair © Raffaella Loro

I'm sure that if/when my mother reads this post I'm going to get an earful about this photo from my most recent photoshoot. Don't worry mama... it's in black and white so it's tasteful and artistic. My reputation is still intact.

I'm in my last week of my current job, and I'll start fresh with another one on Monday. Understandably it's a period of change. My course is also wrapping up, although I still have to finish both of my papers (which I have made a good start on but I'm in the middle of the road funk). That kind of mixture of exciting new change and inability to progress describes my life at the moment. I don't think I would be bothered by any of this if I were sleeping properly, but my insomnia seems to have returned. Thankfully, I am able to properly function on little sleep, but it is still exhausting.

As a bit of distraction this weekend I had a comedic photoshoot with a friend. The whole concept was sort of built on the initial idea of the classic Seinfeld image of George Costanza posing on a couch in white briefs and black socks. I don't quite recall how the idea came to be, but I do know that it did involve martinis and Martinis. We started out with the Costanza pose (with the intent that the photo will be hung over the couch where the photo was taken)... and then moved about the apartment and the apartment complex (including the sauna, dry tub (inoperable hottub with about two inches of some aqueous chemical mixture in the bottom), laundry facility, lobby and elevator. It was ridiculously amusing, particularly when we interacted with the other apartment dwellers and the postal lady. My favourite moment of the day came when we were shooting in front of the Christams tree in the lobby and the postal lady came down off the elevator to find us recreating Christmas morning (who doesn't open presents in a straw cowboy hat and silk robe with a dragon embroidered on the back?). She sort of stopped and paused for a moment so as not to disrupt the art in progress. I couldn't stop laughing all day... and I was laughing again while taking the photo.
"Don't worry," she said, "I've got a niece like you..."
"like what?" I challenged. "Go ahead, say it... Crazy."
As she headed out the door she turned back and replied something to the effect of, "nah, she's a grobowski. you might know her... Tracy Grobowski." With that she went on her merry way and more ridiculousness and hilarity ensued, including the recreation of some of the finer moments from Arrested Development (nevernude Tobias crying in the shower).

I have no idea what these pictures are going to be used for. They hardly exemplify my best technical work (I broke my lighting umbrella on my way up to the apartment)... I was too amused to really focus on composition... so some of the photos were not as carefully crafted as I would like. Good diversion though... I haven't laughed that much during a photoshoot in a long time.