(For the brilliant photographers, graceful modes and bold producers who capture art and generously bring it into the real world to make our lives the better. Thank you all.)
He performed an unchoreographed dance, surrounding the lovely object on the ground, flirting with her artistic space but expertly staying just beyond this border between that which is real and imagined.
“Why does the camera make that sound?”
The digital camera released the classic whirl and clicking sound with each image that it captured. He was lost in his art. The question was a distraction to be ignored.
“The camera does that when I take a picture. Try to reach for the ankle cuffs, love. Give us a pout like a damsel now.” She responded like a pro. The question vanished from her face Replaced by the cheesecake faux look of confusion and pretend alarm made famous by Bettie Page and the others who paved the way.
But even as the two danced on, telling a lovely framework of a story the eventual viewer would use to create their private fantasy, the question remained in the air. It was now part of the environment in the models fantasy bubble and the air surrounding the camera that pierced through to her world and captured fragments of it to be shared in ours.
the sound, of course, was produced by moving parts in cameras. But digital cameras no longer have these components. The sound is generated artificially to mimic the way things were. Paying homage to a process long evolved.
The sound is the music from the orchestra pit that connects the scenes of the play into a coherent and wonderful escape. The sound isa reminder that life requires romance and fantasies and art.
The lovely girl is bound in rope and leather and steel. She and the photographer will eventually both exit the room and be bound by the confines of social expectations. Their lights will be dimmed by words like “decency,” ”improper,” and “unnatural.”
But that doesn’t matter for now. For now they’ll dance and dream and allow their art to be captured by the camera.