PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT: Spirit

Name: Keni
Age: 40-something
Job: Spiritual comedian, lyricist
Location: Upper West Side

1. Is there something in your past that you would like to have in your present/future?

I would continue taking piano lessons instead of stopping when I was a kid, so that now I would be an excellent pianist.

2. What is currently the most important thing in your life?

Spirit.

3. How do you imagine your future?

Usually with my head, in pictures and thoughts and ideas - functionally, that's how I imagine it. I imagine my future as being more and more delightful, and with more awareness, less of me and more of everything else.

I have now interviewed 32 people, and am feeling as if I should stop, so as to make the editing process easier for myself. Even if I don't stop, I'll slow down - no more sign for me! I have a lot of pictures that I haven't edited yet, so that is what I need to focus on.

In the last few days, I've managed to get a bit more of a variety in the people I interview. It's interesting to hear the answers of people whose lives have NOT worked out successfully, because they have a rather different perspective on things.

Somehow, I have now covered almost the entire spectrum of ages. I have every decade up to the 70s (excepting children), with only a couple of years missing from each. It is a superb experience to (tentatively) be able to glean patterns from the responses, if only for my own edification.

Today I am supposed to meet with Leonid Lubianitsky (a well-known Russian portrait photographer who happens to be a friend of the woman with whom I am staying). I am excited but slightly anxious. I think I have been improving steadily, but it's always a bit nerve-wracking to be critiqued by a professional, especially one who was an assistant of the photographer who is your main inspiration. I am sure that he will be able to give me some excellent advice. So far, these are the questions that I have decided to ask him:

- how does one create tension with the subject? (I am actually getting a lot better at this)
- where should the thinking stop and the intuition kick in?
- what attracts you to a subject?
- how does one translate a person's character into their face?
- what should the ratio of good photographs to bad photographs be?

In news unrelated to photography, I took a nap yesterday afternoon, and I feel SO INCREDIBLY REFRESHED. Unfortunately, I also have a bit of a nasty sunburn from our trip to Coney Island - I literally (no, not at all literally) bathed in aloe vera last night. That same sun has taught me to photograph in terribly bright daytime conditions, though, so I am not too bitter.

I was hoping to be more into the video part of the project, but I feel that the "footage" I get with the dinky quality of a point-and-shoot is not especially inspirational. I'm sure that an amazing director could do wonderful things with any type of camera, but amazing I am not. I'll just have fun with it, I suppose, and do my best to produce something decent.

Update: New edit