80. on attitude (cont'd)

(cont'd from above)
...What the artists are looking for - or let's just say what I am looking for - is not lines. It's attitude. It's your attitude, which turns out not to be that hard to affect if you can get past the spotlit nude thing. Human, personal attitude expresses itself visually as…attitude. Angle. Counterbalance. And what's the simplest way of affecting that? Tilt your head. Just a half inch one way or the other will set off a chain reaction of small but telling compensations throughout your entire frame, the sum of which - once you have found a balance you can maintain for two-and-a-half, five, ten, or twenty minutes -- will be an apt expression of you being you, and not the mannequin with the glass of water on his or her head. And that is all we ask. Honestly. Read a book. Just remember to tilt your head when you do it, and magically the image will become one of you reading a book you like. All because of attitude.

Case in point, the model above, featured here in poses of several durations. Granted, she possesses a natural curvature and hyperextension that make her lines manna to my ilk, even if all she is doing is inspecting a gum wrapper, but that's the point. Whether she is inspecting a gum wrapper, or her toes, or merely standing, she does so with stunning attitude, both literally and figuratively (which in this context, mean the exact same thing). She was able simply and expressively to Be, and the proof was everywhere in evidence around the studio. In other words, I'm not the only one who had a good night last night. One artist after another was remarking the strange ease with which the images seemed to be coming - or the lines, if you will. And the reason for that was as clear as it was self-fulfilling: Not a single person in the room was posing.