These are some preliminary results from my shoot w/ Gina Noëll, Apr 30, 2005.

Gina Noëll is my singer-songwriter friend and a trusted artistic sounding board for me, as well as occassional collaborateur. This shoot was originally envisioned as a project for her husband Michael (also her producer/engineer), but we quickly let our imaginations get out of hand and before we knew it, we were incorporating a multitude of ideas into what we were trying to accomplish, and it got a little overwhelming by the time all was said and done.

For me personally part of the challenge of this particular shoot was to embrace Gina's self-described "sexy prude" sensibility. This gave me the chance to really apply my collaboration aesthetic, because we had to both fully respect and trust where we were each coming from, while at the same time sustaining a spirit of playful creativity and experimentation.

Of course, working in a photographic medium is particularly nerve-wracking--for me, anyway--because I really don't know what I'm going to get until days after the fact, and being as critical as I am, that can become a time for my self-doubt to fester. By the time I was making contact sheets four days after this shoot, my expectations had managed to sink pretty low, but after making these prints I started to get excited again, and my excitement was reinforced even more by how well this work was received in turn by Gina and Michael. Not only will we be using some of this work for Gina's private purposes, but now we are also planning on using some of the work for her publicity as well, which is very exciting. It makes me happy to be able to help a fellow artist in whatever small way I can!