Lauren.

A girl with a really polite and gentle disposition, no one could fail to like her.

She turned up in search of some portfolio pictures, some of the results are below.

It's fair to say that I rarely know exactly what I'm doing - a general plan is a good idea - but as I've been told by someone with a lot of military experience :

No plan survives contact.

You can make your plans as detailed as you like - but things start going pearshaped as soon as you put them into practice - for creatives this is a good thing, as it brings the element of chance into the scene. Totally unexpected and exciting results can emerge - just as long as you don't close your eyes to what might be possible.

image title : Lauren

Simple curves on a ladys' back,

There's very little in this picture at all, but it carries within it an elegance that a more fully lit image would have lost.

This interplay of light and shade has been used for centuries - anyone who knows Rembrandt will know what I mean (I don't mean to know him personally as he isn't really very available in the flesh at the moment).

Oh - by the way - I'm not comparing myself to Rembrandt - I ain't so silly as that - I have seen - no - EXPERIENCED - Rembrandt in the Riiyksmuseum in Amsterdam. I was truly knocked out. Dunno if this is normal - but when I entered the presence of his work - I had a rush so strong that I felt my heartbeat roaring in my ears.

maybe I just like Rembrandt . .

You could almost hear the powder pouring into a gun in the nightwatch, hear the characters breathing . . . . .

well - I could hear it anyway - softly - perhaps it was my imagination - but those things are actually ALIVE. Such art has a magic so powerful that we can only stand in subjection - if we open our minds to it.

I visited his house too . the one that he bought after he sold the hundred guilder print,
he wasn't in . . .

But he had definitely been there,
the atmosphere was quiet - peaceful
I know that everything was a reconstruction, but his eyes will definitely have looked out of the same windows as mine.

I suppose he's one of my heroes.
did you guess ?

Speaking of the great Rembrandt, he might have liked the lighting on the image above,
he would have understood it.

Anyway - you might wonder what influenced the picture.  

I'm almost embarrassed to say - clockwork orange, cult film of about 30 years ago,
it got banned because it was believed to have been a bad influence on youth at the time.

ho hum.    I went to see it several times. like everyone other teenager at the time.

I probably liked it because it was percieved as bad,
if someone had said that the film was good for you,
no self respecting teenager would have gone near it !

at any rate - on a bedside table in the film was an ornament - a triple crucifixion,
all three Christs doing a strange greek dance, linked together. So irreverent - it personified Bad.

OK, I know that it's odd - but aren't we all ?

p.s. I tried to watch the film again a few months ago - it didn't travel through time very well,
perhaps I should have left it as a memory. just a bit embarrassing really.

You should never try to revisit the past. . . . It doesn't work.

the picture seems to hold it's own though.

OK forget the influences, just try to accept it as an image, for it's own sake.