Summer AIB - 2011

.

Working with Stephanie Cardon, MassArt professor and my artist mentor, images of Lee have become more direct. This is largely due to comments Stephanie has made to me about getting closer and capturing details in a subtle way. The proximity is both physically and emotionally revealing.

Lee's swollen hand and old reconstruction scar on her stomach.

Sleep marks and tattoo.

Lee finds the modeling exhausting. We work in small bursts of intense time together. She has looked at images made by well known photographers who have also made images of family members going through illness. These artists and their work are subjects of one of my papers I was assigned to research by Jane Marshing, MassArt professor and my current faculty advisor. The images include those by Annie Leibovitz of Susan Sontag, Richard Avedon's photographs of his father, and images of Hannah Wilke in her last stages of lymphoma made in collaboration with her husband Donald Goddard in her series of perfomalist self-portraits. 

This photo reveals Lee's reconstructed right breast that was removed 14 years ago. The metastasized breast cancer that occurred four years ago has left her with a tumor in the right armpit that is inoperable. She is currently on the only remaining chemo treatment that has kept hospice at bay. It has caused her to loose the control of her right arm and hand and causes her extreme pain. It is also the source of the lymphedema that results in the extreme swelling. She has learned to use her left hand even though she had been right-handed. She continues to go to work every day as the head of the reference department in her library.

Her once elegant and tiny feet have since fallen victim to the effects of chemotherapy and have distorted her toe nails. This also has caused an increased sensitivity for her feet. The more we work together, the better the photographs seem to get. There are still some options to be considered, some surrounding how the work might be exhibited. I'm thinking of large scale in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 feet wide. Exhibiting is a long way off, but resolution and scale should be accounted for now. 

Technical approaches to the image making process have therefore been modified. I'm using an old portrait strobe system with a high volume of light output. It allows for the use of a longer lens (70-110mm) that affords descent focus all the way through the image.The continuous fluorescent lights and modifiers we used in earlier photo sessions had required longer exposures and severely limited the depth of field. We have also moved to a deeper toned background to add contrast and put more emphasis on the subject.

Lee is lying on her mother's mutton coat from the 1940s. Her mom died 11 years ago. Lee wanted to be photographed in a fetal position. When the digital image came up on the monitor, it was oriented vertically with Lee's head on the bottom, a little more egg shaped like the type of diagram one might find in a "How Babies are Born" book. Stephanie thought it could work in any direction. I prefer this horizontal version as taken. 

We have tried some off-beat ideas that just don't gel with the premise and continuity of these images. They included a large silk covering and Lee wearing a necklace. All seem to detract and serve only as unnecessary props. More work continues as we are always thinking about ways to reveal the emotional and physical  evidence of Lee's 30-year odyssey with cancer.