Ella Rose Muse: the story: Cracked Earth, Sleek Fashion and Tumbleweed

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Cracked Earth, Sleek Fashion and Tumbleweed

Very excited to show you these, from my most recent photographic adventure with photographer Jeremy Howitt. As you may have noticed, we do end up shooting in some fun places, and when I mentioned to Jeremy that I'd be in California in October he took the opportunity to visit too! I am having a bit of a dilemma here about which images to post first, but think I'll go for the ones taken at Lucerne Valley dry lake bed. (Edit: I might be lying; I'll probably post everything.)

Jeremy had in mind some images he'd seen of some dry, cracked earth, and I jumped at the idea, as I have never shot in a location like that before - one where you can literally see the ground splitting apart - and I knew it would make for some amazing shots! Luckily, we found an absolutely perfect spot and also managed to coincide our jaunt with a storm which was making its way in over the San Bernadino mountains, which made for the incredible sky you'll see below. (No, it really wasn't photoshopped in!). Jeremy has already posted a thread on PurplePort about the trip here, if you'd like to read his version of events.

As always, I'm very grateful to Jeremy for choosing me to model for him yet again, and in such amazing places! Some of these images are just so spectactular - a wonderful combination of landscape photography and figurative art. In this area we focused mainly on keeping the pose(s) simple while Jeremy experimented with perspective. I especially love the fourth shot here (which I then go on to post a million versions/crops of... sorry!... Help?) I think this amazing place deserves to be seen in both monochrome and colour. Any preferences though?

Previous to this set, we had visited El Mirage, another dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert, but one whose landscape is completely different. I really love how simple these shots are - in such a vast, empty space the poses are everything.. all the world's a stage, etc., etc., and I love the dusty tones on the horizon. (Clothes provided by Jeremy.)

I like to call this the 'Batwoman' set:

And we also managed some quick nudes, despite having to chase the black fabric half way down the desert at one point. That wind was fast!

And finally, a quick set we did with some tumbleweed found on the side of the road. We were pretty determined to do this (dappled light = goodness!) and again the wind played its part; it took great restraint and gravity control not to be pulled around while lifting it up. They are surprisingly heavy. And utter wind traps. Pretty amazing little (big) things, tumbleweeds!

So, I'm afraid this has been another bumper blog post... I have been spoiled with images again (I also have square-crop versions of most, and the colour/mono debate is evident once more...) so please do declare your favourites with any comments! Thank you!

Walter De La Mare, 'The Listeners'

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

By the lonely Traveller’s call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

’Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:—

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,

That I kept my word,’ he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Natasha Khan/Bat for Lashes, 'Horse and I'

Got woken in the night,
by a mystic golden light.
My head soaked in river water.
I had been dressed in a coat of armor. They called
a horse out of the woodland.
"Take her there, through the desert shores."
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear.
You're the chosen one, there's no turning back now."

The smell of redwood giants.
The banquet for the shadows.
Horse and I, we're dancers in the dark.
Came upon the headdress.
It was gilded, dark and golden.
The children sang.
I was so afraid I took it to my head and prayed.
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear. You're the chosen one, there's no turning back."
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear. You're the chosen one, there's no turning back."

Mark Doty, 'A Display of Mackerel'

They lie in parallel rows,

on ice, head to tail,

each a foot of luminosity

barred with black bands,

which divide the scales’

radiant sections

like seams of lead

in a Tiffany window.

Iridescent, watery

prismatics: think abalone,

the wildly rainbowed

mirror of a soapbubble sphere,

think sun on gasoline.

Splendor, and splendor,

and not a one in any way

distinguished from the other

—nothing about them

of individuality. Instead

they’re all exact expressions

of the one soul,

each a perfect fulfilment

of heaven’s template,

mackerel essence. As if,

after a lifetime arriving

at this enameling, the jeweler’s

made uncountable examples,

each as intricate

in its oily fabulation

as the one before

Suppose we could iridesce,

like these, and lose ourselves

entirely in the universe

of shimmer—would you want

to be yourself only,

unduplicatable, doomed

to be lost? They’d prefer,

plainly, to be flashing participants,

multitudinous. Even now

they seem to be bolting

forward, heedless of stasis.

They don’t care they’re dead

and nearly frozen,

just as, presumably,

they didn’t care that they were living:

all, all for all,

the rainbowed school

and its acres of brilliant classrooms,

in which no verb is singular,

or every one is. How happy they seem,

even on ice, to be together, selfless,

which is the price of gleaming.

Kate Clanchy, 'Poem for a Man with No Sense of Smell'

This is simply to inform you:

that the thickest line in the kink of my hand
smells like the feel of an old school desk,
the deep carved names worn sleek with sweat;

that beneath the spray of my expensive scent
my armpits sound a bass note strong
as the boom of a palm on a kettle drum;

that the wet flush of my fear is sharp
as the taste of an iron pipe, midwinter,
on a child's hot tongue; and that sometimes,

in a breeze, the delicate hairs on the nape
of my neck, just where you might bend
your head, might hesitate and brush your lips,

hold a scent frail and precise as a fleet
of tiny origami ships, just setting out to sea.

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Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Cracked Earth, Sleek Fashion and Tumbleweed