Pentacles

Finally! they are done! I've been wanting and dreading finishing the black Lilly deck of tarot cards for ages, and now it's (almost) done. All i have to do is make some more of them.



The reason why this is scary is that I already decided when the project was starting that once I complete the deck, I'm going to send it to some publishers and hopefully someone will get excited about it and would choose to publish them. I know it's a long shot, but if this happenes I'm going to fulfill one of my life long dreams.



I'm going to have to decide about one color layout (if any) and how the back side is going to look like but the basic design is done. Now I just hope they sell...

Law and Order Alpha dog trailer

Law & Order: Criminal Intent “Alpha Dog” August 2nd (promo)
by USANetwork

In the past couple of days Ned's been spreading the news about the shoot we did for Law and Order CI, it's airing this Saturday at 9:00 in USA today. All I could do was keep wandering "what if all the scenes we were involved in got chopped off in the edit.

So today we saw the trailer for it and one of the scenes is in it!!! Horay. it's at about second 2, and is just this flash view of the billboard with a blue half naked guy on it!

Photography II

We were shooting yesterday with a girl from an new agency, her mom was on set and a lot of effort were made into making both of them feel welcome and comfortable. A part of it was my call to not take any photos and trying to just get good results for the agency.

I took about 6 pictures all day, all of them are of this outfit in about 10 seconds before I gave up. I'm really happy with the way Ned's photos came out but feel sort of sad I don't have anything to show for it really.

I know that the photos Ned shoot are actually a joined effort, we are both on the copyrights for them and he really insist on reminding me how they wouldn't come out the way they did without me.

I know that I did a lot in those pictures, from styling to editing to sitting at the monitor making sure that the focus is right and that everything looks good. However, somehow it doesn't feel enough.

Photography

Strangely enough since we had a bad shoot experience about a week and a half ago and decided to take a break for a couple of weeks and focus on other things, we've had 3 shoots that sort of arranged themselves without much effort in our side.

2 shoots were with friend and were nudes and today, we shot a new face agency model.

It's pretty amazing how different the two experiences are, with nudes and friends, time just zooms by, we talk constantly and laugh constantly and just stop to hang around and eat candy or go out. It feels like 3 people in a room working toward an end together, and sometimes, the photos are not even it. sometimes what we learn about ourselves and the experience we have is the goal of it all.

With fashion, especially with this specific shoot, was very different, the model is very young and her mom staid for the whole shoot, most of the effort goes into coaxing the model out of herself, and it's all a little strange and require a lot of patient until the photos become exciting. Also, we need to keep stopping ourselves before they get too exciting...

Both experiences are very satisfying and very fun but really as different as can be.

Exciting Black Lilly News!

I think that 4 e-mails in one week from people who were wondering if I ever going to finish the tarot deck, plus listening to "witches Abroad" my Terry Pratchett finally pushed me over the edge and I finally got off my lazy ass (just to sit it again on the floor where the books and pens are) and finished the last Suite of the Black Lilly deck, which I started working on about a year and a half ago.

By now, a lot of the first cards looks sort of too simple to me and not at all exciting, plus there is a lot in the process of both making the original designs and the actual production I would have done differently.

I wonder how long before I start a whole new deck, which I'm already starting to think about...

I still need to write the instructions and probably take a trip to the paper store, and maybe also the fabric store, but I hope the have the first deck up for sell in the beginning of next week.

Tango

When I do illustration Friday I usually like the obscure and abstract words that i can make mean anything or relate to how they make me feel at the moment, usually I start of with an idea or a sentence and move from there.
With all the shoot and being busy with some design projects, i didn't draw for about 2 weeks, so I thought that doing Illustration Friday this week might get me back into shape. I decided to challenge myself with it.

The word was Tango, which is neither obscure or abstract and I don't really relate to it at all, I ended up downloading a bunch of Tango dancing photos and printing them, and just started drawing.

While I was drawing I thought about how i never really found this type of dancing as sexy or even something to do in a couple. My dancing abilities are very limited and often just involve jumping around in a concert, actually, the only situations I could do even that was when I was single and going to shows on my own. Somehow the getting carefree enough to jump around while being in a relationship doesn't really work for me (plus, I was drinking a lot more back then).

So those dancer people pictures were somehow more embarrassing in their dramatics and exaggerated motions then attractive or sexy.

A while later i remembered a violent and pretty sensual movie called Tango, by Carlos Saura, which I saw many years ago, the combination of dance scenes and a vague story line as well as pretty extreme light and set effects, actually did made me see someo f the beauty others see in this dance.

The most amazing thing I've ever seen in my whole entier life

Today we went to meet Ned's dad and go with him to Fotocare, our favorite camera store, he's buying a new camera for himself and wanted to go get it. they just moved into a new space and since the store is larger have room for events and lectures in the shop.

For the 40's anniversary for the moon landing, they had a show of photos taken on the moon, a display of the back-up Husselblad cameras the astronauts used, the originals apparently staid on the moon to make room for rocks and other moon samples, and one of the space suits that was actually warn in space.

I was expecting a lecture or explanation, I also expected a huge crowed, I was disappointed about the first and thrilled about the second. John opened the display cabinets where the cameras were and let us hold them, and then showed us the suite, it was just sitting there on the table, made out of fabric and switches that could have belong to any electric circlet. The huge helmet with the golden visor, the photo of which we could see on the wall with the moon in the background - it looked very stylish but also, very utilitarian, and surprisingly, very simple.

This whole experience, without me having any expectation of it, moved me to the verge of tears, I felt like one of those kids who runs around excited till they burst into wails because they just can't contained their own emotions. I can't really explain it, or rather, i can but the words just don't see enough. The notion of being in such close proximity to something that has left earth and came back was really shocking, also, the notion of being in such proximity to something that was such a historic relic, while at the same time, totally connected to modern day made the whole notion of space travel feels both very possible and extremely unlikely.

I felt at once that my own life and problems are puny and small compare to the idea of being in space, and at the same time, very connected to the history of mankind and modern world.

The suite and cameras will be in display till the end of the week, I don't know if everyone (or indeed anyone) else but me will experience this strange and intense feeling of rapture, but if you are in NY and have some free time, it's totally worth seeing.

Now I just need ti figure out how to get to the moon so I can pick up that free Husselblad...