Vik

 I worked with this beautiful soul two and a half years ago, and that was that.  I was initially drawn to her because of her skillset and my obsession with dance, but she was a model in New York, and I didn’t imagine that she would want to work with someone with my photographic portfolio and financial situation.  Once I noticed that she had moved to Las Vegas, I passively responded to one of her posts showing interest.  That turned into a few emails, but she told me later that she didn’t really think I was serious about shooting, or that I was even going to show up, until I sent her photos of my scouting a location just north of Vegas the day before, primarily because of the way I communicate and work.

 That will always be my short-coming, but I do show up when I say I’m going to.  I even go so far as drive most the route I was supposed to drive models, by myself, when they ask me for a ride, then back out last second.  It seems out of place to say that, but it happened a number of times in the creatively dark years after Vik.  I say creatively dark because I wasn’t creating like I had been for the years prior, but the truth is I was fully occupied with this current muse that I had found, and this family that we were creating.  The photos and work were abundant, they just weren’t the static work that I had become used to; they were personal, which I will also call back to my roots because my entire creative career has been incredibly, sometimes offensively, personal.

 I did write about working with Vik in my last blog, ID@B, but I refrained from getting too much into it, for reasons that I wrote about recently in this blog (The Ghost of Vik).  I was not disappointed with the work, per say, but there was an elephant in the room, and it was not my place to tranquilize it and drag it out, so I just kind of moved on, while passively following her career from the other end of an internet connection.  A couple months ago she cheated death by said elephant in the room, and has since been on a new lease on life… a beautiful, healthy lease on life.  She was always graceful, a beautiful dancer, and a beautiful soul, but this new Vik was glowing and happy and healthy, which made her all the more beautiful, but for the first time in my life I began to realize how lonely it really is on the road, constantly working, which is what I always wanted and wanted to document.

 She and my wife hit it off immediately, which was nice because I’m so bad at talking.  Obviously, we’ve been to this location before, so I wanted to find something I hadn’t shot.  We showed up early and wandered around, finding even more unique stuff at this crazy location.  While shooting, we didn’t have time to make the whole loop, but we did get some good stuff, way too much to post immediately, and Vik was nice company and more of a friend than before.

I realize this post isn’t too profound.  I just wanted to put it up.  Honestly, I’m still just really tired.  I don’t want to say I’m lacking inspiration, because I’m surrounded by it, but something is missing... maybe this boring Tacitus that I'm numbing through.  We had such a great time with this soul, and Maya is getting more excited about this kind of life that I’ve been passively fighting for.  My boss is out of town for the next week or so, so I am responsible for things, which is a little terrifying.  We just keep fighting.