The woman I was due to photograph at two o’clock that afternoon described herself as a burlesque performer. As a studio photographer I have learned that a certain amount of classification is unavoidable. Anyone who enters a large dark forest without recognizing its predators will inevitably be eaten alive.
In the amateur circuit, burlesque performers tend to be women who feel they have not been sufficiently “seen” and who therefore correct this injustice by stripping on the stage of a community hall. If you cannot see the beauty in that, you may not yet fully understand the deeply tragic yet strangely luminous aesthetics of real life.
The audience usually consists of stomping, whistling and cheering women. Most of them identify as feminists of one wave or another. It appears to be a complex philosophy of life. If you attempt a conversation with someone like that, the boundaries of the conversation have already been carefully drawn. Silence and enthusiastic nodding are usually safe strategies. A direct verbal attack on all fronts can sometimes produce the most interesting results, although it may leave you saddled with the admiration of a woman who sincerely wishes eternal damnation upon your entire species. Before long you may find yourself looking up terms such as bipolar or borderline.
Normally I do not choose my models myself. I like surprises, regardless of gender. In this case, however, I had seen the profile photo of the burlesque performer who was now about to enter the studio. It showed only her head, a pleasantly round face wearing a whimsical little hat. I have always had a weakness for hats, so I called out to my assistant, “Yes, let’s have that one!”
Naturally I first made sure that the doors and windows were closed. An outburst of enthusiasm like that can easily bring a respectable photographic career to an abrupt end.
This leads directly to the most important function of an assistant. One needs a witness in this profession. It helps when a client who cannot pay the bill decides to accuse you of crossing certain boundaries in order to avoid the collection agency. Ideally the assistant is entirely credible, female, and of impeccable character. Big blue innocent eyes are an advantage.
The burlesque performer turned out to be smaller than I had expected. Her eyes now radiated irritation, which seemed at odds with the serene self-confidence she had displayed in her profile photo while gazing at her iPhone.
Once she sat across from me I noticed that she did in fact possess a perfectly normal neck. The photograph had suggested otherwise. What the photograph had not revealed was that she owned a truly impressive pair of breasts, hoisted so high that her chin occasionally brushed their upper curves.
At the beginning of a photo session I usually talk about myself at great length. I happen to enjoy the sound of my own voice. Meanwhile I observe which anecdotes land well and which do not. In this way I can quickly assemble a character sketch, which is essential in my work. I discovered this method rather late in my career and it has one great advantage. It saves me from having to listen too carefully to the model. After forty years in the profession that becomes exhausting.
People feel strangely liberated inside a photography studio. They begin confessing everything. A partner’s athlete’s foot. Grandfather’s new heart valve. Every detail of domestic life pours out. If you wish to do your work with proper concentration, it is best not to let them talk for too long.
“I’m a flaming hairdresser with a camera,” I often say.
This time, however, I politely asked questions. She was studying something that involved gender, and she was furious because she had just come from the offices of the publisher Prometheus where her second novel had been rejected.
I genuinely felt sorry for her. I have never exactly been close friends with publisher Mai Spijkers, but one thing I knew with certainty. He had clearly not yet seen this author. Otherwise her work would already have been spread through the bookstores so widely that a journey to the bestseller lists would have been almost inevitable. If necessary he would simply have had the manuscript rewritten.
“Shall I call Mai for you?” I asked in what I hoped sounded like a fatherly tone.
“Oh please,” she said. “That man hasn’t involved himself with the publishing house for ages. I spoke with an editor.”
Apparently I had once again become the elderly gentleman who no longer keeps up with current developments. I adopted an even more careful tone.
“But why did they reject your novel?”
She remained silent.
“They must have given you a reason,” I said. “They can’t simply reject something without explanation.”
By now I was becoming almost angry about the injustice that had apparently been done to my model.
She must have sensed my sincere sympathy because suddenly the words came out, visibly painful.
“They said they already had a book about a whore.”
“What?”
My indignation was genuine. In my spare time I have acquired some experience with what it feels like when readers start identifying you with the characters in your novels.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what he told me. Right to my face. ‘We already have a book about a whore on the autumn list.’ A book about a whore, he said. About my novel!”
The afternoon never quite recovered after that.
I took three hundred photographs, selected eighteen and edited them carefully. Three more than most models ever receive. I did everything I could to soothe her bruised ego. Every single image was rejected. That had never happened to me before. Models always buy at least one photograph, if only to show their friends what a disaster the session had been.
I turned to my assistant.
“It can’t possibly be the case,” I said, “that the publishing world has secretly returned to publishing nothing but serious literature while I spent all those years drifting across the internet and wasting my money on server hosting and software.”
My assistant shrugged.
“You never know,” she said.
“Maybe you should read that other book about a whore from Prometheus.”