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| Erik and Nadine. |
Fortitude Valley can be considered the East Village of Brisbane, that is if you’ve ever been to New York City. Brisbane is such a small city town that more or less everyone comes over there to hang out, for it’s a place of cheap eats and drink. To me the whole area looked quite tame, but from what I’d been told the area could be dangerous at times. I noticed a few dingy areas, but nothing out of the ordinary that would’ve got me alarmed. Lots of low-rise apartments with several different types of restaurants and clubs adjacent to one another, some of which I’d been to during my two-and-a-half-month stay in Brisbane. We parked, approaching the side door of a small apartment building in front of us. The door inside was open, yet the metal screen door was shut. Nadine shouted for Evett, and within moments she let us in.
The whole flat was set up, ready to go. Though I’m not sure if I was! Nadine’s photo cases were on the floor of the small living room, Evett’s own cat working it’s way around them, checking them out. What immediately caught my eye when I walked in was the color of the living room wall, which I recognized in the photos taken of Evett. Red’s always been my favorite color, and the tone of it kinda put me at ease, which is what I needed just then. The rest of the apartment looked just as well. On top of that the painting really worked well with the interior of the place; she and her boyfriend had a real flair for design.
Quickly Nadine got down to business. “Evett, do you have anything that Mo can put on, like a loincloth of some sort? Something to cover up his bits with?” Evett said she did, going into a backroom somewhere coming out with something – the size of a napkin. She had to be joking!
They both started laughing, while I cried inside. Nadine chuckled, “C’mon, Evett, do you think his bits are that small? How do you expect him to cover himself with that?” With them both cracking up I stood there quite nervous, as she went into the backroom to get something more palatable for my lower parts.
The next sheet of cloth she came out with was a lot better. It was quite big, and I had a lot to play with. Now it was just a matter of trying to figure out how to fit it on myself, without my lunch hanging out.
We did some test poses, clothed first, in the kitchen. Her kitchen was tiny, having whitish walls, a small sink, and a large open window overlooking the backyard of the complex. The floor was an old-style vinyl checkerboard pattern, quite striking to the eye. Her refrigerator was really old school as well, being something pulled out of an antique shop. It looked like it dated back to the 1950’s, that’s for certain. It was painted an azure blue. An unusual color for a fridge – but it made it look really cool. I mean, all fridges are supposed to be white, right? But this one was blue. I liked that. Now what really contrasted with the colors of the fridge, was the small bowl of yellow bananas sitting on top of it. Hmmm. I liked it! I always remembered in art school that the contrasting of colors was always important. To see colors that you necessarily don’t. It gave a scene more life, more depth – something that Monet had done with his paintings, and a lot of other illustrators that I followed as well. The fridge was proof of that, being blue, instead of white – a color everyone would expect a fridge to be, no? And then�I immediately thought of my dark skin, with the white latex, and the white walls. Yes�okay�I get it. This was going to work! So this photograph was going to be all contrasts. And the contrasts led to a theme. That was spilled milk. Okay, I was buying this idea. This should be a bunch of good photos!
I laid down on the table so that Nadine could look through her camera and see how I appeared. But Evett’s small wooden table wouldn’t hold any of my 200 plus pounds. It creaked and wobbled as I laid across it, and I couldn’t get balanced. So Nadine changed the photo to me sitting on the table, head down, knees up, back against the wall. My left hand would be holding an empty glass as well, laying limp on my side. That was good. It would leave only my left side exposed. From what Nadine said, the camera angle for it was excellent. Then I had an idea.
I realized I really didn’t have to get naked for the photo – I could create an illusion of being naked. I suggested that I could put the loincloth and duck tape on the right side of my body only, giving the illusion to the viewer that I was totally naked. What a viewer cannot see, he or she has to imagine. And leaving one to imagine is part of the creative process, for it increases interest in the what you’re viewing. I told Nadine about my idea and she agreed with that, so off I went.
Just before I left, she asked me if I had a lot of body hair – for that could be a problem with the latex, especially when it had to come off.
“Whattya crazy? Naw, most Black people don’t have a lot of body hair. I mean, I do have it,
if I didn’t I wouldn’t be a mammal. But I don’t have a lot of it.”
“That’s good. Because I was going to suggest that Evett and I both shave you if you’d like.”
“Yeah Mo, you know being shaved by two girls is every guy’s fantasy.” Evett added. They both were cracking up again! Oh geez!
“What? NO WAY! You two have got to be crazy. If I were to let you two shave me, I think it would get REALLY embarrassing! (if you know what I mean).”
So after what seemed like an eternity, I was ready. The loincloth was only on my right side, wrapping more or less around the inside of my right leg. A small flap covered my private parts. I came out (slapping my own behind for good measure), jumping on the table, taking the pose that Nadine wanted. She had me adjust the loincloth a few times while she used her camera, trying to get the right look. As soon as she was done, on came the latex.
As Nadine poured it on me, she kept giggling. Oh, I’m sure she was having just a GREAT time of doing this, with me absolutely paranoid as to whether or not my private parts would be hanging out in the photo, let alone if she could even see them! Oh well, I tried to block it out.
As she poured the latex, I could feel it dribble down my left side, and go right into my nether regions like a magnet. Great. My mind did cartwheels as to how I was going to get that shit off of me now. I knew that I was going to be losing some hair downstairs (if ya know what I mean)! But what the hell, it looked like it was going to be worth it.
After a few minutes she was done. She quickly ran over to the camera and did a test shot; then took a couple of photos without the cat, with my head upright a bit. Then she called for Evett to get Merlin, so she could blast away.
Nadine plunked the kitten down next to my relaxed left hand, holding the glass. She ran back to her camera. “Okay, Mo, don’t move!” BLAP! Went the flash on her camera. “That’s good, that’s good. No giggling, c’mon, think of something serious.” BLAP! For some reason I was finding this funny. Don’t know why really. Merlin sat there on the table sniffing the latex, and I got extremely nervous that this playful fuzzball would attack my nuts. I could see it happening, and the potential pain associated with it stopped my smiling!
But lucky for me, the kitten just sat there. And after about 10 minutes, Nadine was done. Whew! I felt as if I had just taken a needle from a doctor when I was a child. Quite relived. I jumped off the table, feeling a little stiff from all the glue, eager to get it off. Nadine was really excited about the photos – and I was too. I knew they were going to come out great. And I just came away with another story to tell the family and friends. I could actually tell my mom that her son’s behind is now rather famous, being used for a photographer’s self-promotional gig in this exotic country named Australia!
Then came the hard part. The washing off of the glue. It was painful. It took me over an hour to get all the scraps off, and in the end I was left with a lot less hair downstairs, and my first layer of epidermis pulled away. But no harm done, it was worth the experience of having my likeness frozen in time forever.
After cleaning up and helping them move the refrigerator back in place, we all sat around and drank some of Queensland’s best, 4X beer. The conversation eventually steered towards Evett. And she turned out to be a really interesting woman, having written a thesis while in graduate school that made her world-renown in psychology circles. To the point of even being invited to a conference of psychology in the States, and being offered a job at Brown University in the USA to be part of their faculty, along with a University in Australia! Hmm. Brainy, attractive, AND Australian! She had a secret admirer in me, and I voiced that opinion to Nadine after we had left.
On the way home, Nadine and I had a mad rush to get the negatives into the print shop she used, to get them back the same day. But it was too late. We arrived not on time, and with my upcoming trip to Fiji happening soon, it looked as if I’d have to wait for several weeks before I got to see them.
And I did. Before I left for New York, I got the prints in an envelope, given to me by Nadine’s boyfriend Erik. The photos came out perfectly! I was really proud to have been her model. And beneath my own set of photos in the envelope, there was a surprise. The photos she had taken of Evett.
Right on.
Thanks, Nadine.
To see more of Nadine’s photography, check out her website: www.nadineshaw.com