Lensman.
I got to do a lot of exciting things at DragonCon this past weekend. I got to meet new and established readers of our work. I got to make an appearance on DragonCon TV, which was more fun than I anticipated. I got to reconnect with dear friends who I haven’t seen in many months. I got to return to the unforgettable insanity of DragonCon. And among all those awesome things I got to do, there was one creative endeavor that I got to indulge in that made me extremely happy: I got to take photographs again.
Now when I say “taking photographs” I don’t simply mean pointing my camera-phone at someone. I mean setting up a time and place with a subject, having a creative back-and-forth in which both photographer and model contribute to the composition of a picture, and finding a working groove where art is made. After almost a year of not touching my trusty old camera (thanks in part to a brutally bad falling out with other, now-former friends) I dusted off the lens, scheduled a shoot with a good friend, and found my groove again.
The experience was rejuvenating. My friend Saber Tompson, a plus-sized nude and fine art model, and I have worked together extensively in the past but distance and real life responsibilities kept us apart for many months. It was great not only to reconnect with my old friend this past weekend, but to work together with her again. There are some people with whom you click creatively, where ideas are effortlessly thrown back-and-forth, where suggestions are accepted or rejected without judgement, where each participant pushes the other to create new and exciting things. Working with Saber again after a long absence breathed new fire into a spark I thought had long gone out.
If you’d like to see more of her work (much of it NSFW), consider supporting her on Patreon. Some of this past weekend’s photos may contribute to her body of work (pun intended), and yours truly is responsible for her Patreon page’s header photo.
If you’d like to see more of our weekend at DragonCon, we posted our monthly Q&A/vlog entry on YouTube.
Enjoy!