Several enjoyable, yet educational photographic experiences with Gabe

by Kirk Portas
http://portask.blogspot.com/

My first interaction with Gabe was shoving him away from a bin of fruit that held the last banana in the room. Gabe has since told me he knew immediately that we would be friends, and in the years following that food-scarce week of crew training that culminated in violence over a banana, his prediction came true.
My first photographic endeavor with Gabe came some six months later, on a day of two plans. I contacted Gabe for help taking a bluescreened headshot of myself for a license photo. After the 2 minutes required to take my photo, I stayed a short few hours longer for my introduction to the world of artistic picture-taking.
The setup consisted of myself holding an iMac, the screen displaying the iMac camera's view, and Jen putting her boot on various parts of me. With the iMac pointed at her or myself, and the scenes portrayed the computer as a window to an alternate perspective –2 viewpoints of the same scene.
Being art, our time (of course) veered toward the erotic. We acquiesced to a series of increasingly compromising positions, culminating in Gabe’s cutting to the chase, “you know Jen, why don’t you just take your shirt off and we’ll take the picture that way?” She said no, but the day was otherwise successful.

A year later we found ourselves under a New Haven bridge. An interesting thing about bridges are the clear edges of light & dark they cast underneath, the dark often concealing the rubbish under the bridge, the light a dually contrasting expanse of cleanliness. Capturing that was one of the foci of our day.

The other contrast of the day was that of clothing and no clothing, a familiar concept in my introduction to art. I’ll spare that photo.

All the Pictures Fit to Print

Back at the Aldrich Gallery (Where I learned the modernism failed. It did. If you don’t believe me I suggest you ask a tour guide at the Aldrich (http://www.aldrichart.org/) She will tell you that the failure of modernist architecture and philosophy is just a fact; a fact like “the echidna is the only egg laying mammal.” One does not question the veracity of such things because doing so would be fruitless mental masturbation.) I made several composite photographs about which I felt very proud. I never had any trouble showing photographs of myself crawling about the gallery floor, clearly violating good taste.

However, there was one image that I simply did not want to share.

I never even did a test print. Looking at this image makes me feel sheepish. I hate seeing myself as a child all twisted up and nervous. This image is a visual representation of the discomfort I often feel. To see my body recorded in such contortions makes me want to hide from the world. At least it did. Looking back through my archive, I wish I had given this photo a chance. It is a mistake to take myself so seriously.

I think admitting that I can be childish and awkward might make me a better artist or, at the very least, a better person.