Katie 277

"Happy to meet and sorry to part" is the name of a well known Irish jig. The title is quite appropriate for this final portrait of lovely Katie in glasses made by Cardin. All good things must come to an end, even this glorious photo shoot. Katie is the 53th Lady behind Crystal Veil.

When preparing myself for the first series of photo shoots in the Dublin area in March, 2013 I browsed through the Dublin models on Model Mayhem. Katie's portfolio was great, especially those incredibly beautiful eyes. A few weeks later, I was delighted when Katie was among the first who reacted on my casting call. Unfortunately, our appointment in the center of Dublin had to be canceled but another occasion presented itself during my second series of shoots in August, this time in Bray.

Our meeting point was the entrance of Bray station, at 10 AM. Five months is a long time but I remember vividly that Katie was not reserved at all and we had a lively chat during the short walk to my B&B at Strand Road. The master bed in my large room was completely filled with some 150 glasses waiting for our selection. Katie selected the glasses with a mild prescription and then she relied on my opinion when it came to selecting the strong glasses. Then I left the room and set up my tripod in "John's bedroom" near the beach while Katie prepared herself in the "dressing" room. When she arrived at the beach, it all went super fast. This how I remembered it and out of curiosity, I just checked this on my camera.
It revealed that we started shooting at 11.20, the final photo was taken at 12.55 and we used three short breaks of five minutes each during the shoot. My memory was that it went super fast but not quite as fast as shown by my camera. Katie posed in four dozen glasses. This means that she had to change glasses 47 times within 80 minutes. Incredible speed. And yet it was relaxed, there were jokes and laughs, and my usual lecturing about the history of each pair of glasses. Speed is essential during a photo shoot in prescription glasses, especially during the section with the strong glasses. It's a matter of creating the flow and then go with it, from both sides of the camera.
Katie is a professional model and she managed all the parts with ease - speed, relaxed atmosphere and efficiency. A good example of her efficiency is that she simply took out of each box what happened to be on top, starting with two glasses of minus eight through which she could only see a massive blur.
All in all, the photo shoot yielded 524 photos of Katie, an average of eleven photos per pair of glasses. This brings me to the quality of our team work and especially Katie's posing. More than half the photos taken were "weblog quality" and there were dozens and dozens of portraits that astounded me when they first appeared on the screen of my PC, back home. Given the time pressure, our selection of the glasses was clearly a good one. Not a single pair had to be left out for aesthetic reasons. Not rushing the selection phase may sound contradictory to the time pressure but it pays off. The selection process is instrumental during any first photo shoot with a model. No matter if she is amateur, freelance or a full time professional, the selection process is an integral part of any good photo shoot. So many pictures are already in my head, "theoretically already taken", simply by watching the model's looks in each pair and hearing her reactions on each transformation.
The effect of the transformation is always essential but even more so when the model has such incredibly beautiful eyes as Katie. Eyes of the Middle East, a region well known for the beauty of a young lady's eyes. Katie told me that her roots are in Palestine and that her real name - not revealed here for privacy reasons -means "Aroma of the Flowers". Small wonder that a baby girl with such a beautiful name has grown into a young lady with beautiful eyes, and perfect eyesight as a non essential but handy bonus. The selection process of the glasses is is different when the model has perfect eyesight. Glasses are not familiar, it's all new and fascinating.

Doing a photo shoot in prescription glasses when one does not need glasses at all may sound contradictory but it's not. Before World War 2, glasses were regarded almost like a wooden leg or a scar on a lady's face. This changed somewhat upon the arrival of cat eye glasses in the 1950's. For the first time in history, there was a design process that gave the fair sex an expression of her own. The aspect of necessity remained as there were no alternatives for glasses if one had bad eyesight, but there was an element of consolation because glasses were aspiring to become an element in fashion. The rest is history. Contact lenses became available during the late 1960's and to be honest, I had mixed feelings about them. So many beautiful girls seemed to lose some of their attraction after ditching their glasses but at the same time I saw their relief and understood, especially when the glasses had been quite strong and made the girl shy when she felt that somebody was watching her. Near the end of the century, laser operation became the new alternative and while understanding why so many attractive girls and women went for it, I felt a loss as well because unlike the use of contact lenses, there is no way back. For a while, it felt as if the streets would soon become dull, deprived of remarkable or even fascinating sightings. Not that much would have been lost at the time. Retro glasses.... two decades almost lost. And then out of nothing, there was the boom of the black hipster glasses. Once more, the streets were an attractive place to be, even if the vast majority of ladies in glasses only have mild prescriptions.
My photo shoots create images of ladies that "exist and don't exist" at the same time. A photo shoot in prescription glasses is a dress up party for any model's face. Freelance and full time professional models are hired to show designer dresses, jewelry and so on. But did you ever see a professional model showing half a dress, half a ring or half a pearl chain? The answer is no, for the simple reason that the model would look ridiculous and the product in question would never be sold in the shops. Which brings me to the Leitmotiv behind this project: why do opticians, even nowadays, invariably use photos of beautiful models posing in empty frames? After all, a frame is only half the product opticians are trying to sell. What's wrong with showing the entire product? Is this an echo of the 1930's when glasses were considered to be almost like a wooden leg or a scar on the face?
Anyway, it's heartening that my casting calls always result in more reactions than can be handled.
End of lecture, class dismissed :).

Dear Katie, much about your photo shoot has been mentioned but not in a direct, personal way. It was my privilege and honour to work with you. Looking back, I think that we did a great job. Allow me to go into a few important details, specific to your uniqueness.

You are a master at producing subtle changes in your expression and posing. The whole gamut of expressions was there, from "almost a menace" via boredom, neutral look, funny faces and amused to moments of innocent seduction. A great achievement but at the same time, there is no "total control" This shows that what you are doing in front of the camera is a matter of instinct and participation rather than a premeditated receipt to be followed. No matter what you embark on in the future, avoid a receipt - unless you need your first pair of glasses in the distant future :). One thing is for sure - if there's anything proven beyond doubt within an hour and a half, it is that many styles will suit you when looking for frames.

You kept dripping good looks from start to finish, delivering one great series after the other. Each series in a different pair of glasses added a new aspect rather than a new person. There is consistency in your posing and this, no doubt, comes from experience and awareness. Another quality you have in glorious plenty is introspection, a sense of abstraction. This came out loud and clear when you were posing in the strong glasses. You are a real ambassador for young ladies with bad eyesight, giving them the guts to wear their glasses with pride. During that part of the shoot, you "saw" what they "see" without their glasses and you adapted to the situation with flexibility, simply accepting the handicap and making the best of it, but with a glean in your eye. Your portraits from that section struck me as natural and above all, credible, just as if you were quite shortsighted and in your own glasses. I know that you prefer the portraits in mild prescriptions - after all, they look more like your good self in the mirror - but the other Katie in strong glasses is a testimony of acting capacities that will prove useful for you in the future. A special quality in your portraits is the subtle tension caused by the slight asymmetry between both eyes. This was given to you and not a matter of talent, but it's an asset that can be used in many situations. The resulting "double" expression in many of your portraits is priceless.

What more can I say? Enough said.... Thank you so much for a pleasant day in good company and for an incredibly beautiful photo shoot. I will let you know when a next visit to Dublin is in the making. Meanwhile, keep up the good work! And yes, the portrait says it all: peace!!!