|
In Which the Eccentric Flower Poses
Hedy Lamarr died yesterday, and Beth quotes her as saying
Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.
That's what I did last night for several hours. I sat still and made blissful, dreamy, or other sorts of expressions while being photographed in various Fifties-starlet-head-shot positions, my brain for the most part devoid of higher thought, focused entirely on the mantra of where to hold my head and my hand and where to direct my eyes and what expression to use.
And I had the best time!
These photo sessions are half of a trade of services - photography for web design is what it amounts to. I have told the photographer, Graham (who is also a friend) that he is the one who must watch the clock, that I'll happily pose and play and attend as many of these sessions as he cares to shoot. It's his dime, and I'm enough of an exhibitionist that I won't tell him to stop.
This session was just intended to be a preliminary foray, for each of us to try working together and get me used to the equipment and such. No shots below the neck, nothing fancy with the clothing, just me and a chair and some basic makeup. I know, though, that when I see the contact sheets I personally will feel as if I've gotten Value Received right then and there. If they are as good as I suspect they are, they're going to make me want to laugh out loud.
Which is what I did several times last night - laughed out loud from the sheer glee of it. I like posing and I like having someone fuss over me and I got both. The psychological value, if nothing else, has already taken place. My only worry was that he was going to turn out to be one of these photographers who gets all intense and severe while concentrating on what they're doing. He's not. If anything, he turned into a little kid, bouncing in excitement and exclaiming over what he was seeing in his lens.
Speaking of intense, that problem came up last night. Several of you have looked at my self-portraits and said, basically, "They're great, but why do you always look so grumpy?" I'm not grumpy. Some of that is my neutral face (the corners of my mouth just turn down, period), and some of it is because I'm concentrating on what I'm doing with the camera, and some is just because I tend to have ... an intense stare. What can I say.
Graham started teasing me every time I made the Intense Sad Face, saying I looked like I'd been abused. And whenever he did it, I'd start to smile around the edges, and that evil, evil man would always get me the instant before I broke into laughter. He even got a few shots of me in an open smile, where my teeth are showing. Ardent Readers will remember how much I dislike showing my teeth.
He was obviously having fun, which is a relief to me because that way I'll feel less like I'm ripping him off. I perceive this basically as a vanity project for me - he retains the rights to the photos, of course, but I don't think they'll be much use to him - so it's nice that he's enjoying the chance to play around and experiment for a change.
And I, of course, left the session floating on air. And surprisingly exhausted, which he warned me would happen.
It's been a good week for girlness, all told. I had a successful and surprisingly frugal (redlines galore!) shopping expedition to both Express and my favorite shoe store. (Amazing pair of fur-lined boots - wore them last night with black tights and a black cotton skirt, and am wearing them again today at work because I just can't resist them).
I took Graham's advice from the week before and started using brown eyeliner a tiny bit. You can apply a surprising amount of it before it becomes obvious that you're using eyeliner - all people notice is that your eyes look bigger.
Now, thereby hangs a tale which illustrates one of my major problems with makeup. I've known for ages that outlining your eyelids in a dark color makes your eyes bigger. I mean, duh. But it never occurred to me - since my eyes are already are easily the most memorable part of my face, why make them more prominent? But even I was beginning to notice that when I had foundation on, my eyes looked washed out. Graham gave me what I needed to put two and two together.
This is the problem with shaping my face via makeup. I know how to use dark and light to alter the contours of my face. Problem is, I don't know what changes to make. I don't know what I consider desirable or even how to make my face conform more to classical ideals of "beauty," because I'm not sure what the characteristics of a classical face are. In short, I have some idea of the technique, I just don't know how to use it.
Anyway, I have taken to wearing the eye pencil out of the house pretty much at all times for four or five days, and it really does make a difference, and again it's been a case of: Try a little tiny bit, where only I can see any difference ... get away with it ... try a little more the next day ... get away with it ... a little more ... and so on. Gradually I am finding the threshold between "looks great" and "weird looks" - and am encouraged enough not to care when my experiments occasionally cross the line.
Another example: I have been wearing lipstick out of the house, too - to work and basically everywhere else. The MAC lipsticks I liked so much but which gave me so much trouble finally yielded their secret. One day when I was absolutely aching for color on my lips, enough to risk playing with the lipsticks again, I tried just applying a little tiny bit.
That's when I learned that you have to use this lipstick sparingly. Even now (when I've gotten more daring about how much I'll wear), I apply maybe six or seven dabs - I don't move the lipstick across my lips at all - and then rub it around with my lips. That's plenty. And the lipstick goes on different colors depending on how much you use - the shade I'm enjoying (it's called Paramount, for what that's worth) can look red-brown or sort of a bronze color. This is so much fun!
Okay, okay, I'm babbling. But isn't it nice to see me cheerful about something for a change? This is the stuff that makes my life happy. That's why I persist in these odd habits. My brain knows what it wants.
© Columbine
|
|
