LAURA SERIES

LAURA

This is an internet exhibition from a work in progress.
It started in 1989 when I was introduced to Laura, a Canadian
fashion model then living in Paris, France. It was in August of
that year while visiting New York that I made my first photograph of
her. We were both guests in the home of a mutual friend. It was
early in the morning and I was trying to leave quietly for the
airport. As I passed the room she was staying in, I noticed the
door slightly ajar. I put down my hand baggage and reached for my
Leica M6. I remember hoping that I had film in the camera as I
clicked off my first frame of Laura, back-lit, sleeping
peacefully. I did have film in the Leica and later, in my
darkroom, on a proof sheet containing street pictures of New York
City and images of clouds taken from the window of my 737 was the
single image of her sleeping back there in Oyster Bay, New York.

I've since made hundreds of photographs of her and the same
feeling hits me when I look at the proofs in my darkroom. Each
image seems printable - each wants to be printed. I choose several
from each proof and make enlargements. Months later I review the
proof and others leap out at me.

Laura has a way of occupying an image. She's not just in there
somewhere but rather she takes that little 24x36mm space and
breathes life into it. This happens even when she's unaware of
being photographed.

I have worked with her professionally many times but nearly all of the images in
this series were from what I call our "personals." The Leica
Series. Of course there are several from our professional
collaborations included because this is part of our relationship.
In 1990, I spent a month with her living in a motor home, crossing
the United States for Giovanna Calvenzi, then the Photography
Editor at Vanity Fair Italia. Laura styled every photo herself,
did her own hair, make-up and brought her usual enthusiasm to each
photograph we made. We worked for 36 straight days, shooting day
and night across the U.S. from Los Angeles to New York with a
multitude of side trips to incorporate towns I'd always dreamed of
seeing. She drove half the time, read aloud as I drove, and cooked
wonderful meals in our campsites.

All along on that voyage I made "personals" in black and white. On
another trip we travelled throughout the states of Virginia and
West Virginia. I made color fashion photographs of her in Agadir,
Morocco for Paris Joyce magazine and made some wonderful
personals with the Leica as well. We toured the South of France
together, the Island of St. Barts, Italy, England, Canada and
lived together in a small apartment in the Rue Washington in
Paris where I made many early images of her. We built an apartment
in the 11th Arrondissement of Paris, designed in such a way as to
be able to photograph her in every room, in any direction.

It seems that with the pressures and preoccupations of our "vie quotidien"
we pass periods where we don't make many images
followed by concentrated periods where we work intensely on our "personals."
My idea is not to organize these sittings, in fact
not to treat them as sittings at all but rather simply explore
life together and have my Leica always at hand.

This series has its inspiration in the works by Harry Callahan of
his wife Eleanor, Stieglitz's photographs of Georgia O'Keeffe,
Man Ray's photographs of Kiki and Lee Miller, David Bailey's
photographs of his wife Maria Helvin and Lartigue's beautiful
photographs of Florette, Bibi and Rene. I always dreamed of being
able to visually document the life of one woman, and unless one
lives with his muse, this is impossible to accomplish.

This series is in a sense a poem written for Laura in the language
I speak best.

A catalogue is available of the Laura Series exhibition held in Brescia, Italy
at the Museo Ken Damy di fotografia contemporan in 1995. For further information
on ordering this beautifully printed 72- page duo-tone catalogue,
click HERE.