Anna & Amos

This photo prompted me to think about creating “poetry from the evidence” (see my about page for the reference), and the qualities that make you want to stay with a photograph, to keep looking at it. It’s pretty rare. I chose this photo to be the header of my blog for many reasons, which I’ve never articulated.

For me, the first thing my eye goes to is Anna’s finger, so strong, trying to dig into that space between the planks. I love her curiosity, her determination. I feel reverence for how much time we spend, in childhood, to examine the details, to look in the cracks.

Then I feel the wooden planks, their texture, and think of the possible splinters. This tension is immediately calmed by Amos, lazily lying there, watching me watching them. I think he’s telling me not to worry about the splinters, that he’s on duty as the guardian angel. He was a stray cat who spent his evenings in the forest and his days with my sister and her family. He’s the first cat I loved. He came right to my lap whenever I sat down, disarming the dog-lover that I am.

I notice the watering can behind Amos, also lying down. It reminds me of the joy of watering flowers for my mom when I was young, and had nothing more pressing to do. Taking pride in the responsibility.

Then I see Anna’s eyelashes, her chubby cheeks and chubby little arm and feel my heart simultaneously ache and delight in the sweet innocence of toddlerhood. It’s so fleeting. I’m grateful for this photograph, this teeny tiny moment, paused, so we can spend time with it. It might seem silly, or obvious, but I don’t think I’ve ever really said the words, I am so grateful for photography.

Me & sweet Amos, the first cat I ever held and cuddled.

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.”

— T. S. Eliot

A 3 year-old Gives you 15

The first shot was at 6:47pm, the last one at 7:02pm. Exactly 15 minutes.

In that time, I shot 116 photos in 2 lighting situations on 2 different backgrounds.

I selected 26 good ones, and 10 of them I’d call “wow.”

Sometimes after a shoot, while everything is still set up, I manage to get my threenager daughter onto the set.

This is my daughter, Ever. She’s 3.5 years old and she moves very fast. If she’s not physically moving (jumping, twirling, rolling on the floor, doing random yoga poses, throwing her head back in wicked laughter), her face is moving (the grimaces, the tongue sticking out, her hands pushing and pulling at her cheeks, the sad face, happy face, scared face, angry face, etc). If I ask, “sweetie, can you look over there just a second?” it happens for much less than a second.

I’m hunting the great elusive shot I saw it zip by through her hair swirling and mischievous eye. I have an idea of the photo I want, but for each of my ideas I get 10 of hers. Nothing can really be anticipated. She’s going to give me something else and my job is to be ready, keep the focus, gently guide and watch the light falling on her face, while crawling on the ground at her level, both of us riding the spontaneity.

Outtakes. She takes child’s pose and reminds me, “mommy, this is your favorite pose!”

The photo that I originally was looking for, I printed in cyanotype, on paper and fabric. A Christmas present for the grand parents.

“All things in this world must be seen with youthful, hopeful eyes.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Marias Men

I don’t remember what I looked like that day on rue Charlot years ago, but I wasn’t feeling very good about myself, I do remember that. Walking along by myself in the Marais, I felt le regard of these two men across the street. When I saw the way they were looking at me, I felt a bit awkward and so to ease that tension, I instinctively motioned with my camera, “can I take a photo of you?” 

A little while later I looked at the photo on my camera screen, and that’s when I saw them. Their eyes, their smiles, and myself reflected. It didn’t feel predatory but appreciative. A reflection so different than the way I had been feeling. They hadn’t said anything, there was no street harassment or power play. Just a couple of human beings smiling, seeming to appreciate the young woman across the street. 

Their faces woke me up. 

For that moment, I used those faces to take me out of my inner worrisome thoughts, and decided to try and see myself as they did. To appreciate my youth, my health, what was going well in my life. If I’d learned to be a worrier, I could learn to look in another direction too. I continued that day, a little lighter on my feet.

Mario Forte is now

We met outside the back door of 59 Rivoli, the artists squat where I had been photographing on and off for years. I had just photographed his concert, the closing performance of a 3-day jazz festival, but we wouldn’t have spoken if he hadn’t been standing with pianist Tony Tixier, for two reasons: I’m shy and he resembles Rasputin.

Earlier that same day, Tony had walked in yelling, “Who is Danielle Voirin?!?!” He’d seen my blog. I was posting each day, with best photos from the festival, and I think he was surprised to see the emotion in the photos I’d captured.

When he saw me sneaking out the back door like an introvert who’s ready to go home, he kindly introduced me to Mario as “a really good photographer,” and we became friends, in the way that people who admire each other’s work quickly do.

Many of my favorite Parisians are nomads who keep a foot in town but create/perform/show much of their work elsewhere. Like the center of a wheel with spokes going all over the planet, it’s a city of fortuitous intersections. It’s comfortable, beautiful, geographically practical, but missing an edge, a creative grit that, if you need and can’t manage to keep a hold of here, you have to get elsewhere and bring back with you.

This is what I feel Mario Forte does. You can feel it on him when he comes back to town. And it’s always fresh, because he’s always in motion. Based in Paris, born in Italy, teaching in Lausanne, gigging anywhere and everywhere (Mexico, New York, Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, Austria, Germany), and sometimes recharging in Morocco.

What I appreciate about Mario, in addition to his incredible talent and diversity in musical collaboration, is that he’s really happy to be here, right now. To be alive, exploring, composing, connecting people, and collaborating. He’s in the present moment. not afraid to jump, a person who lives in the river, rather than watching from the banks.

In one of our first conversations about music, I said if I could do anything other than photography, I would be a musician. He then told me that every one of his friends who practices other creative arts all want to be musicians. But perhaps it’s just human nature, music is so connected to our emotions.

One night, talking about jazz over his home-made tagine, I commented on the lack of female jazz musicians. Many singers, not so many musicians. We were listening to Charlie Mingus, there was a solo and he said, “really, can you imagine a woman playing this?” He had a point, it was hard to imagine, but a woman would play something very different, something striking in other ways, ways we haven’t heard yet.

Mario showed up in a dream I had once. In wondering what my mind was using him as a symbol of, I decided to draw a tarot card on the question. I got The Fool card. I’m a total tarot novice, but know the Fool is the spontaneous, free-spirited child within us, creative and unafraid. It’s the way we are in the world before life teaches us to build protective walls around our unlimited potential.

Still, I wanted more info on the card and went to my favorite resource, biddytarot.com, and found some phrases that rather closely describe how I see Mario :

The Fool :

• Is all about new experiences, personal growth, development and adventure.

• Encourages you to believe in yourself and follow your heart no matter how crazy or foolish your impulses may seem.

• Lives a carefree life, free from worry and anxiety. He does not seem to mind if he does not really know what lies ahead.

• Enhances courage, risk-taking and the creative expression needed to open up new areas in your life.

• Is about to step off a cliff into the material world.

I think Mario had the courage to jump early in life and has been flying like free jazz ever since.

Danielle, We're Savages!

Amine Benotmane

I was bartending in an Irish pub in St. Michel. It was a very different epoch in my life. My boyfriend had just moved to London and I was working two part time jobs while attending photography classes. One of the jobs was in this bar, owned by a Turkish man who’s real name was probably not Charlie. The other was for a photographer who shall remain nameless, but whose assistants, un-fondly called Le Monstre. I was living in a 13m2 apartment and in my spare time would pile all my belongings into the bathroom and practice taking portraits with lights borrowed from my school.  I lived this way for about a year but it seemed like five.

Amine came into the pub regularly for a Coke. Our very first conversation began with him asking me, “are you Muslim?”  I was making a mess, pouring an excessively-frothy beer, and he saw the ring on my middle finger.  I bought it on my first trip outside the U.S., to Mexico at the end of high school. It was a silver moon and star that wrap around my finger and cuddle each other without touching. I’d completely ignored this symbol’s many meanings and uses, and simply wanted to wear a couple of elements of the night sky on my hand.

Amine is from Constantine, Algeria, and when I talk about wanting to visit his country he tells me, “Danielle, I’ll take you there.” And, after thinking a momtent, “You have to be careful, we’re savages!” He says this with a big smile and playful eyes. He’s a sweetheart, the friend you can count on whenever needed. When I bought my guitar, he took me to every store on rue de Douai and played guitars for me so I could hear which one felt and sounded like it should be mine. 

He makes friends easily, everywhere, and is a remarkable diffuser of conflict. I’ve seen him use kindness to completely extinguish another man’s anger. The streets of Paris can be aggressive, everyone walks around owning the space around them and pushing you off the edge of it if you penetrate their perimeters. Amine has such an ever-accessible sense of humor and lightness about him, that walking through the city with him, I feel we float above the angst.

In the time we have known each other, he has created a heavy metal band called Acyl. I finally heard their music when they got a gig playing at the Maroquinerie in Belleville and he asked if I would come take photos. It was summer, and I walked in wearing a pale pink tank top, jeans and sandals. I usually try to blend in if I’m going to be photographing, but doing so had completely slipped my mind that day. I believe I was the only person not wearing all black, with very heavy boots on. I felt like a spring chic walking into a dungeon. 

When Amine came on stage, I was down in front, ready. Except that I wasn’t. For my uninitiated-to-metal mind, there was no build up, they jumped right into the fire and took us with them. Heavy guitar, heart-palpitating drums that over-rode my own heartbeat, and then Amine started screaming. Growling, guttural sounds he was forcing into the microphone, from someplace deep inside that I had never seen. I was stunned. I completely forgot what I was doing there. A little confused. Where was this anger coming from? How do you go from absolute silence, to making the most devilish sounds your human voice can create?!?! I was impressed, admirative of the courage and raw emotion! That might feel really good to let out!

Because I consider him such a gentle giant, I think I smiled like Amelie Poulain discovering who the photo-booth repairman is, fascinated by the contrast and delighted to see my friend expressing himself so fully. I stopped just short of laughing out loud as if on a roller coaster, because I could see this was serious business, this metal music that was so foreign to me.

What I find so interesting, and maybe naive of me, is the contrast between their on-stage personae and them being this bunch of really nice guys that wouldn’t harm a fly. Amine is right, they are savages, but only when they express themselves through their music.