11 Images...

It's been on my mind for some time now to do a list of 11 images that define my work over the past 3 years. I'm doing 11 because because 11-11 is my birthday and I like the number 11. The past 3 years; the period of time that's elapsed since I outwitted the grim reaper and got a second shot at life. My work has changed, I've changed. Everything in my life has changed. Out of the rubble, the chaos and the struggle however has come a new and surprising manifestation of my artistry. This has not been a conscious thing; it just happened.

So here in no particular order, are the 11 images that I believe most authentically speak to what's been going on the past 3 years. The nudes are after the jump, and there are a lot of them. Just so's you know.

 

Jane Runnalls, singer and humanitarian - photographed on Matador Beach in Malibu. I adore her.

 

Russ Johnson, photographed in West Hollywood. If Michelangelo were sculpting and painting today Russ is who he'd be using as his model. This is classical beauty combined with the ability to go away; to drift into a place that none of us can follow him into. The detach isn't arrogance but rather a unique state of mind that some people just seem to be able to go into while being photographed. I have known a only a handful who can do it and each time I call them muse.

 

Many of you will remember Wes Ramsey from his starring role in the film Latter Days. It was because of that film that I met Wes and first photographed him on the beach in Laguna. A few years pass and earlier this year we had the chance to work together again. This time it was as if old friends were getting together to play and have fun. No protection - he looked into my eyes and there was genuine affection and trust. This image of him, amongst the many that worked so beautifully that day, stands out because it speaks so clearly as to why I love what I do as a photographer of people.

 

Heather Ann Shepard Gardner dancing at sunset on the Salt Flats in Utah. Since I first met her many years ago I have had an image in my mind's eye of Heather dancing naked against the sky with only a scarf adorning her. This image is the manifestation of that long-held dream. Radiantly beautiful and at times utterly androgynous, Heather is one of my muses, even when she's not in front of my camera.

 

I have called this image One Foot In Front Of The Other. I took this picture of Naiman in the middle of a blinding dust storm on the Great Salt Lake Desert. For reasons both obvious and not it has become one of my all-time favorites from a lifetime of taking pictures.

 

The moment I first laid eyes on Ari I knew I wanted to photograph him. At 21 he embodies a new manifestation of consciousness in our culture that is completely unaffected by anyone else's notions of right or wrong. His body to me is exquisitely beautiful, adorned as it is by ink and steel and other modifications. There is nothing hardcore here but rather a gentleness that moves me, sometimes almost to tears. I have chosen two pictures of Ari for this list because each is so completely different and important and worthy of inclusion. Please note that the symbol you see on his leg is not a nazi swastika but rather a traditional Indian symbol for good luck. The tines are going the other way.

 

 

This is the amazing Jim Martin who I photographed at Lambert Hollow in the Uinta Mountains. It was stormy and hailing and very very cold when this particular image was taken but Jim just wouldn't quit and delivered something amazing here that has been generating an avalanche of commentary. I knew I loved this even as it was being created - so it's nice to know that others are seeing what I see.

 

I had put out a call for a real honest to goodness redhead with freckles and magically, a few days later Becky was sitting across a table from me. It took all of perhaps a second or two for me to know that she was who I'd been looking for. Becky and her husband Jason and I drove up to the mountains to do some pictures. Jason and I shot tandem and without a trace of self-consciousness or hesitation this extraordinary titian beauty delivered something far more powerful and moving than just her genetics.

 

Taking pictures out on the Bonneville Salt Flats has been something of an otherworldly experience. This picture of Lee, a fearless and unflappable artist's model, captures a moment in time which can never and will never be duplicated. What both of us went through to get it is not something I'd ever be willing to put me or a model through again. But I'm so glad that both of us were, for a moment, so willing.

 

And finally, Eric Turner at sunset on the Salt Flats. This was my first time out there, my first time ever to shoot there. The sun was fading quickly and so were the batteries in my camera. Every frame was a struggle, every frame had to count. I took one look at this picture and knew that I had struck the motherlode, right out there in the middle of nowhere in the midst of the salty remnants of an ancient sea.

So those are my 11 choices from the past 3 years of shooting. In looking back I realize that what I've shared with you here is kind of just the tip of the iceberg; there are many of you, even some of you perhaps reading here, who I've photographed. Thousands and thousands of pictures of so many people. I'm amazed at how much I've been shooting; it's kind of almost mind-boggling. I don't know, maybe this is what's kept me going, kept one foot out in front of the other when all I felt like I wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry myself to sleep. Desperately at times, I have wanted the life I had before back. But at this point I think I understand that it's not going to happen. Something new is coming in and somehow these images reflect some of that emerging newness.

As a parting shot, here is a self-portrait that I took in the first few months after the meningitis struck. I was lost and I didn't fully understand what had happened to me. I went to the mountains because I didn't know where else to go. I got naked and I hiked and hiked and hiked; alone, going nowhere, stopping occasionally to rub dirt into my skin or to take a picture; sometimes of me and sometimes of a flower or a rock. Sometimes I cried but most of the time I just walked; naked, lonely, scared and lost.

I was the first person I turned my camera on after the illness. From there the lens then gradually looked outward again, only this time into a new world; a world that still seems mostly overwhelming and uncertain to me. Aside from the constancy of friends and family who refuse to give up on me, are these extraordinary people I see through the lens of my camera. I see them dancing at sunset, naked and free and beautiful. Perhaps in each of them is a reflection of myself. I hope so. I stood in a grocery store ringing up a girl's purchases yesterday and she looked up at me and said, "You are so beautiful." I'm a cashier in a grocery store and someone, a stranger, still sees me as beautiful. I don't know what to make of that but I know that when I look around me I see beautiful people everywhere. And sometimes I'm lucky enough to get to take pictures of them.

Comments

[Wag]

Tom, your art is truly magnificent.

Love ya, man.

--Wag--

[David Stimpson]

"Sometimes I cried but most of the time I just walked; naked, lonely, scared and lost."

A beautiful metaphor for life itself.

[Richard]

I liked this idea so much that I stole it for my own blog. Full credit is given, of course.

[Nicole, Richard's Sister]

Did you know that the Corduroy Appreciation Club holds it annual convention on 11-11? And do you know why? Because 11-11 is the date that most closely resembles corduroy.

[Jana]

Amazing.

I found your work through Main Street Plaza & have loved moving backwards & forwards through the various entries on your blog.

I spend several days a week out on the ocean, just north of Laguna. The wind and sea and sky are my gospel now.

[Tom Clark]

So wonderful to hear from all of you. Here's a warm welcome to those of you who are new. As you've probably figured out by now my blog is an amazingly eclectic gathering point for all of the wildly different things that I'm interested in and that occupy the hours of my days. Sometimes what you'll find here is a little cleaned up, a little slicker than my life actually is. But that's OK, I do from time to time go right down on into the heart of the matter and the exposure when I do is enough to make up for the times when I gloss over the tough stuff.

I read everyone's comments and I truly appreciate all of you who take the time to visit here and to comment. The feedback is valuable.

[Jim]

What a wonderful retrospective, Tom. My favorite of course is Wes. I especially like the subtle chiaroscuro effect of the shadows on the vibrant color. My only caveat is that you didn't include any of your nature studies. There's something euphoric in your use of color there.

[Tom Clark]

I guess what I'll have to do Jim, is another series with my choices for non-human subjects. I have koi and water lilies and alpacas and flowers and insects and stuff. Should be able to pull 11 images from all of that, yes?

Oh yeh, there's the yarn porn too. :-)

[Sideon]

"Perhaps in each of them is a reflection of myself."

Yes.

[true religion oultet]

A James Bond like character, Detective Superintendent Antoine San-Antonio is a member of the French secret service and set in the 1950’s and 1960’s. A San-Antonio novel can be found in almost every bookcase in France and is truly a classic. Dard was born in Bourgoin-Jallieu in 1921 at 75, Rue de la Liberation where a plaque today notes his boyhood home. After writing more than 300 novels in total he died in 2000 and is buried in the nearby town of Saint-Chef. His last novel “Napoleon Pommier" was published just threefa weeks before his death.