How Evelyn and I met is a bit of a funny story. It was during 2020 after schooling moved to online learning. We had a substitue teacher because the original teacher was feeling sick. I had typed into the chat that I was the teacher's assistant, someone important and that I usually carry some authority throughout the Zoom meetings; that I was not a regular student, to mess with the substitute teacher - just a little. Among the people that were starting to believe this was Evelyn. The zoom meeting was ending. I had told her to check her email, which she did, all the while thinking she was in trouble of some sort considering who I had just claimed to be. It wasn't anything bad at all! I had just said she looked like a nice person and that we should be friends. She said okay and then we became friends.

That made the first week of in-person school a lot less stressful. - I had someone to hang out with now. We became close friends and at some point, she ended up inviting me to her quinceañera, which was the first time I'd taken photos for her. Read more about that night in the Evelyn Mercado Project.

Some time has passed, a lot of time has passed... Evelyn has two times now been one of my go-to models. The shoot we did in April was organized by both of us needing something. I'd been wanting to shoot more portraits and she needed an experienced photographer to take photos for her and her mom (her mom had a camera already, Canon, which she wanted to test out. We went to a University in Redlands and took photos on campus on the grassy field available in the front before making our way closer and taking photos near some stone pillars. It was a great opportunity for me to experience again the being able to guide a model in a certain creative direction, to communicate ideas and help us all reach something we were happy with.

We started off with some portraits of Evelyn by a bench. There was grass and bushes surrounding us, so I used that as a background. I got some close-ups with the Canon - though I myself brought a Nikon. I asked her to face one way, to face the other, and at some point, to try to embody an emotion. It's a very interesting thing to do that, especially if it is successful because then the photos really do carry emotion. They're real and honest. Or at least honestly convey the message or image that the model and photographer were trying to convey. Beyond the bench there were some stairs that led upwards closer to the entrance of the University. I took some photos of a couple of things, Evelyn going up the stairs to capture an action in motion and then I took some photos of her at the top. She wasn't wearing a dress, but still there was some bit of length in some sense to the outfit, floral in nature, pink, red and black, white. It was kind of majestic. She had come in with a pair of black boots too. From the get-go I knew I liked the presentation in the wardrobe.

Directing Evelyn was actually pretty easy. She had a certain level of comfortability in front of the camera already. She truly has potential for modeling in the future. I could feel that even though she was slightly nervous, she trusted me. I was making sure too to stay attentive with the directions both in what I was asking of her physically and emotionally. That provided a sense of security I would say. There was an established current of communication between her, the model, and I, the photographer. My favorite photos that I got from her at that shoot have got to be

Tourner Dans Le Vide, Something Else

Tourner Dans Le Vide carries a sense of sincerity, rawness, and in some way untouched unreadiness. It's something being presented, making itself known. It's a moment in time captured presenting the feeling of being shown. It makes me think of when an actor or singer is behind a curtain or waiting to go up on stage, that moment when they are about to go up.

Her mom, Alejandra, was a bit more on the timid side. She was harder to convince to get in front of the camera, as she had only really come to take photos too. But with the fact they were both matching, wearing nice floral outfits, I knew I needed to get them both. It was an interesting thing photographing her, as I was able to get a shy person to open up a little - in front of a menacingly void camera lens with no face. It makes me think of how I need to remember that the model does not see themselves in the camera, and that they are trusting the photographer to capture them in the most true and honest yet protected manner though vulnerable they still are and feel. My favorite photos that I got from Alejandra are

Dernière danse

Dernière danse for me feels like reflection, thinking, thoughts. Looking into oneself and facing something foreign. It's maybe too recognizing a part of oneself. Maybe crediting it too. We all know ourselves more than anyone else, but even to us there exists things we don't know that much about and need to acknowledge.

Being a model is similar to being an actor, I'd say, because of the emotional work that is asked of you. You are in front of an audience who is looking at you, perhaps of course judging you even. There's then a social though subjective reality represented in that physical camera that is being pointed at you. It amazes me then that even though that is true, someone can overcome that and, in the process, overcome themselves in their tendency to highlight the social vulnerability concurrently made possible through the camera, considering the possibilities that camera may hold. I believe then too that these sessions can serve as an overcoming of the self and certain insecurities which in-turn results in personal growth and change. Moreover, the model sees the photos after and is pleased with the results. - they've seen them now, it was the eternal fear of not knowing, being uncertain, which was daunting. There are things we cannot have in our control, things or people that will not go out of their way to make things easier for us, but if we can push past that and trust ourselves, the one person in the crowd that we do know, maybe just maybe we can discover something about us that we did not even know we had.

Evelyn and Alejandra did just that.