S. - a photo on Flickriver

            I'd been wanting to photograph this woman for years. It started in 2006 when I took a job at the Very Large Multinational Corporation. One night, on my way home from the office on the train, I noticed a splendid-looking woman. She was about my age, but she seemed to have been transported straight from Victorian England. She was wearing a full skirt and a tidy blouse, her impossibly tiny waist cinched tight with a wide belt. She had long, beautiful, wavy red hair, and fantastically beautiful cheekbones. 

I formed a relationship of sorts with her. Not that I ever spoke to her. But I noticed her a lot. I admired her from a distance. Do strangers know that I worship them? Would it help you to know a benevolent stranger was worshipping you? I hope so. It's probably happening right now.

A few months after first noticing her, I almost fell over my shoes one afternoon when I saw her walking down the hallway in the Very Large Multinational Corporation -- is that really her? She... works here?

The Very Large Multinational Corporation, of course, is Very Large. It is a Black Hole of sorts. It employs many hundreds of workers. And I never knew her name or where she sat or what she did. She disappeared down a corridor and didn't resurface for months. 

I was beginning to realize that I needed to meet this woman, and at least find out if she was interested in being photographed by me. Benevolent obsession is cool to a point, but I was starting to feel Creepy about it.

Finally one morning last June, freelancing one day at the Very Large Multinational Corporation, I saw her again. That long wave of red hair disappeared down a familiar hall, settled in an empty conference room -- !

I raced back to my desk and pulled my business card out of my purse with trembling fingers. I was sweating. I approached the room where she had settled, knocked timidly on the door, and began, "This may be the strangest thing someone says to you today, but I'm a photographer and you have a magnificent look and I'm wondering if you would be interested in being photographed some time..."

It took six months for me to follow through on her friendly willingness to model, but we met up this weekend to make pictures. This image from our time together was my favorite. Hers is a look that you come across once in a lifetime.

This is also the beginning of what I hope will be a small series for me. I'm intending to shoot one portrait a month in 2009. The only rule is that it has to be a deliberate thing, something I intentionally set up with a model, not just a casual shot grabbed in passing. Beyond that, it's open. I'm inviting the Goddesses to work out the details in their own magical way. 

Thank you, Sandra, for being a fantastic Miss January.

Taken on: January 31, 2009

Tags:

woman

portrait

dusk

golden light

forest

braid

lens flare « less

Stats: 30,209 views / 29 comments

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