We all have our favorite images, this is one of mine. Debbie was a woman I met in collage studding for my MFA, she was an undergraduate in the fine art department at UTSA. Years later we reconnected and she loved to model. Deb really loved this image as it showed as a portrait what her eldest daughter Loren looked like, in fact it could have been a portrait of her daughter.

The image is made with the Hasselblad, 80mm T-Star Zeiss lens on Kodak 100 ISO print film. I did the print in my darkroom to capture the feeling of the soft natural light coming through the North facing window of my home. I liked the way the 2 1/4 square format created the need to make square images. This to me is one of the 'compositional elements that 'seeing' with the camera's format design helps shape the final image.

The beads photographed to appear like cheap plastic but were in fact of a certain ceramic type that was made in Poland just after the turn of the last century. Years later, another woman model friend was playing with them and ran them across her front teeth as one does with real pearl beads and remarked that they had a similar feel to pearls but had a heavier drag to them. She wanted to know if I would sell them? One has to let things go after you work with accessories for so many shoots or you run the peril of repeating yourself again and again. I gave her the beads, she was quite excited for the gift.

Of course, Debbie and I have been friends and collaborators for 35 years. She fell in love with the sofa and matching antique chair, so of course she has it now at her place. I always am kind to the women who make my art so much fun and successful.

Side note, Laren is now a PhD in Marine Biology, Debbie was stunned that I was doing Marine Biology while I was living in Monterey California, at The Hopkins Marine Station. Small world.