Who’s ready for a massage?

It’s Monday, July 1st and my hands ache. No, it’s not arthritis. The last few months feel like a blur. A handful of fashion shoots, gym and composer portraits, concert shoots, photo editing on steroids and business expansion have all consumed the studio. Needless to say, I’m ready for a few days off and a mojito.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

With a tour of the Midwest in the books, I had some downtime between destinations to pause and reflect on how we see things as Artists. As a photographer I’m fascinated by people, but it’s their hands that first catch my eye. They communicate so much, even before first contact. The hands of the musician, the gym trainer, the farmer, the painter, the lawyer, the fashion designer/stylist, the model… the Pianist. All very different. They’ve experienced life in ways that only their hands will show. The age of young silk or wise veins, supple or cracked, rough and course, gnawed down to the bone, or preserved in gloves of satin.

It’s Electric.

Touch is how we experience life, from first contact with a handshake or caress of a lover, the reach for that morning alarm or cup of coffee, or to start our craft with implement at the ready. Neurons firing through axons in the brain, passed through synapses to communicate. I close my eyes and I can feel the first time snuck up to the wooden chest, pulled open drawer and picked up my Father’s Nikon F at five years old. At 34 I smile every time I take a portrait with it, smiling as I am right now at the thought of capturing those hands of craft and time. What’s their story? What have You seen? And just maybe, they might tell me where you’re going. In the meantime my aching hands are getting ready for that collins glass with mint this Fourth of July.

Happy Snapping!