Journal

January '12 Project

Casper Lynn — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:20:04 +0000

The first shoot of 2012 started with a long-simmering desire to recapture an old feeling. This project was deemed 'artistically personal' from the beginning, and my objective was to express a private matter of struggling, mending and finding peace. All the elements were in place--the beautiful vintage dresses provided by Shades of Earth went perfectly with the ethereal theme, we had an outstanding stylist and a sweetheart model. So much potential. Unfortunately, I was sick to my stomach through the entire shoot and we wrapped it up before we could get to all the dresses. On top of my icky belly, it was a really cloudy day and the natural light I had expected flaked on me. But, moving onto the floating/falling images, these were beautiful and a new flow showed up so we went with it. All of us are presently more accustomed to a fashion/catalog type of shoot, and we merged into that style as well.

In retrospect, with regard to last month's shoot, the elements I chose--though fabulous and exactly what I picked out--did not gel with my plans for a personally expressive type of project. When it came to my quest for creating without hesitation what I see in my head, it seems that feeling might only be accessible through the rather casual, personal hobbyist photography I did so many years ago; less production, more intimacy.

With that conclusion, I'm skipping the second project I had in mind for February and rethinking my approach entirely. Instead of a pretty model for me to make prettier, I want a subject with a peculiarity of any kind that incites a connection; someone interesting and politely unsettling, rendering the viewer unable to thoughtlessly scan over the symmetry and polishing of a typical model. With a subtle ignorance to the inherent sex appeal surging beneath a calm, limitless sensuality, the image speaks largely to women and how they perceive the unseen beauty in themselves. A break from the male gaze. A moment to simply be. I want to find it, freeze it and share it.

Michael and Melissa

Casper Lynn — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:22:19 +0000

Expectant parents Michael and Melissa, and baby Isabella.

Marietta, Georgia

Sweet Home California

Casper Lynn — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 13:31:18 +0000

Got in touch not too long ago with a childhood friend, the kid next door whom I spent most of my non-Barbie time with, Jeff. Back then we played so much Super Mario Brothers I could fly through those levels with my eyes closed. We picked lemons from my tree and ran a lemonade stand on the corner, we played camp crystal lake at backyard sleepovers (even though I had no idea at the time what that was), we even put on a neighborhood talent show with other kids, lip syncing with tennis-racket guitars to our favorite songs from the movie Dirty Dancing as the audience--our parents--watched us with mild shock on their faces. Yes, the more embarrassing memories have started flowing and so did my nostalgia for San Diego. I've decided it's time to go back, and I'm planning to do just that for my one year wedding anniversary.

The last time I visited San Diego was 2000 and I had my first experience with what a lot of people like to refer to as an epiphany. Driving over the Coronado Bridge early one morning an unnamed Coldplay song came on the radio. The view of the sun breaching the clouds over the city was breathtaking and something in that song spoke to me as I drove, I felt my place in relation to the world and in a flash I grew into my age of 22--no longer a child, both frightened and empowered; I imagined a string of hope extending off into the distance, like a hidden path revealed to me, an answer to get through a deep hurt I was carrying around like, well, baggage. After that trip I went home to absorb the 'epiphany', I remember taking lots of walks alone in my neighborhood, staring out the icy window of the city bus, contemplating everything in my life with new eyes. Within the year that followed I left my office job to go work in a bookstore where I had nothing to do but read (best job ever), taught myself how to get better with my camera and closed 2001 with showing two pieces at the Beaux Arts Ball in Pittsburgh. My life felt in control and meaningful, but still so distinctly incomplete. As much as the industrial grey and decay of the city had seduced me, no inspirational atmosphere could compare to being in the once-familiar places known as a child. The streets, the smells, the names and signs, the aging process, the evidence of time passing. Or even just saying, "Hey that's the playground where I got de-pantsed."

So, going to visit San Diego (with husband who has driven me past his elementary school here in Miami at least 12 times): awesome.

Epiphanies: also awesome but few and far between and possibly non-existent.

Old school friends: the best.

Key Biscayne Lighthouse

Casper Lynn — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:06:56 +0000

This little stretch of beach is sort of a special place for me. I love lighthouses, I think they have a romantic, historic feel to them. Even before I lived in Miami I visited the Key Biscayne lighthouse at least a couple of times a year. It's a nice experience if you can get a chilly day when no one's at the beach and you have the place to yourself. No such luck for me yesterday, but the light was growing more beautiful by the second, and the leaves started glowing, giving me lots of little details to play with. I used my often-favored 50mm lens, it's excellent for shallow depth of field and has nice bokeh (the blurry parts).

It was a good day.

5-min photo walkabout / Writer's block

Casper Lynn — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 14:34:45 +0000

Late afternoon light beckons me to get out and capture something random and beautiful. The lot next door is an open field with some ancient-looking docks at the edge of the canal. Good n rusty, forgotten and decaying. This is a rare find in Miami. Tiny yellow wildflowers sprouted up through the brush and debris, dog poo landmines abound. Flip-flops, a bad idea.

----------

I did not feed it, or love it properly. The writing bug has left me. The ideas continue to flow but the premise on which to write is still undecided. The pressure and commitment required evokes an icky fear in the perfectionist in me. After spilling out a 2,000 word outline, I realized I was already bored with my story. Gotta go deep to make that sort of thing worth my time.

Blogs are easier. Here it's my world and random inconsistency is the general idea.

That's all for now. My fingers are sore from wrapping gifts. My favorite thing to do is get in the zone and wrap-wrap-wrap... then see a pile of unlabeled, now-mystery gifts. Good times!

Third-wave what? Speak up!

Casper Lynn — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:34:05 +0000

I'm a third-wave feminist, pseudo-intellectual neurotic.

Depending on one's particular walk in life thus far, a wide variety of images spring to mind when the term feminist is uttered. Like Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell. She was the one I always identified with anyway; tall, opinionated, cursed with full squarish hips and a knack for taking peculiar things personally or offensively. And, as Lisa's snooty Ivy League boyfriend puts it, a pseudo-intellectual neurotic, which I can only assume is a euphemism for good-looking, confident smart girl.

Jessie was a pain in the ass, always checking her jock boyfriend on his objectification of women. It's good to get the message out, I suppose. But they made her so... unreasonable about it... unclear on the philosophy of feminism... and consequently it portrayed the feminist as a stubborn, unpredictable martyr who is often impossible to please.

It's unfair to have that stereotype, and the stigma attached to what should simply be an informative term about someone's personal philosophies. My research of feminism began after I inadvertently came across a thesis on body dissatisfaction among women and the effects (anorexia, bulimia, and in some cases self-mutilation). The cause of which is naturally a variety of things, however a significant source of discontent appears to be the constant exposure to portrayals of women in the media and throughout our culture as inhumanly-shaped sex objects, tools, things to be manipulated for the satisfaction of the patriarchal system.

Heavy topics which no one in their blissfully ignorant mind wants to think about much less learn more about.

But I am a hugely curious creature when it comes to learning the why of things. During photo shoots with fashion models I often heard complaints of body dissatisfaction and even the most slender, fit models would ask for Photoshop work to trim their bodies, as they constantly compared themselves to the ideal appearance of fashion models. So much pressure to be perfect, unnaturally so, and in a merciless field of work. How could these girls not be satisfied? Where does it end?

A woman doesn't have to be a bikini model to feel the same pressures and scrutiny. Many seem stuck in a state of defeat when diets and starvation don't transform them into a Victoria Secret model. Even if it did occur to a girl to accept her body and all the ways it didn't conform to the contemporary 'ideal', she'd quickly realize that she has entered a rare state of consciousness with little to no support from the outside world. Our system doesn't thrive on actually fulfilling the consumer, it thrives on our blind addictions to accumulating desirable objects, such as a nice car, a big house, or a hot wife. The more we see this portrayal, and blindly glamorize self-defeating behavior, the less we know ourselves or what real fulfillment and happiness is. The media needs your discontent, your supposed needs; the need to diet or be a certain jean size, the need to be entertained, or more specifically, distracted. The need to display status, the need to be envied. The need to be attractive to men via enhancement of our sex kitten side in order to earn a husband, and later to be settled into a family and become Martha Stewart.

Times are changing and thank goodness more girls are growing up with encouragement, nay--insistence on planning to own a definitive career and appropriately value financial self-sustainability. Not because she won't get married or have children, but because she doesn't have to do those things, and ought to have a choice not a need to marry. Even better if she's brought up not to respect but to question the general message of the media, or fall into the trap of objectifying herself. It only leads to the emptiness that every woman who ever secretly compared herself to a "better-looking" woman knows all too well.

You don't have to conform! Body-dissatisfaction is an unnecessary poison we absorb on a daily basis. But all one has to do is unplug from it. Embrace your natural form, celebrate it and love it unconditionally. Make health your priority, not attention from others. Refuse to play along with the unconsciously self-perpetuated ideas that a woman's purpose is to lure a husband, and then to become a mother and little else. Refuse to believe that any of these things will automatically bring happiness, or that you are alone in your discontent with being discontent. It's never too late to realize your potential, follow a passion, or perhaps contribute to the uplifting of women as people, not things.

Random Miami Observations

Casper Lynn — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:22:01 +0000

Morning light is magical, and twilight even more so. White-haired couples roller blade their afternoon away while taxis bully through busses and clueless tourists. Kamikaze delivery boys weave through traffic on bikes and scooters with stacks of pizza precarious balanced on the rear rack. The strays are cats while little dogs are fluffed and walked and babysat. Young moms push strollers with one hand and text with the other. Some have baby seats perched on the handlebars of their bikes. Most seem to experience the best moments of their kids' lives through 3-inch LCD screens. How do you tell someone they are missing out on the good stuff?

People can be pushy, and you had better hold your own; in line, in traffic, in every opportunity, as though any good thing would be snatched up and out of your hands if you let it. I made the mistake of hitting up TJ Maxx on a Monday, turns out that's Senior Citizen Discount Day. Oi. I was in line with some of the grumpiest, slowest-moving people in the world (generally I enjoy the occasional confusing exchange with a senior citizen, but these were power shoppers from Bal Harbour, where they don't take crap from any of us rascally juveniles), and then my receipt wouldn't print. I didn't mind, I'd been in a great mood all day, I had been cheering up old ladies and disgruntled employees left and right. The hold up lasted for ten minutes but meanwhile I got to observe the lady next to me as she had the 18-ish guy cashier inspect and discuss each item in her cart with her, verifying the discounts, confirming that she would receive her senior citizens' discount as well. A manager had to come over and guess if a shirt would fit her. Then she asked "Where do I look to see the prices while you're ringing it up?" It was pretty amusing.

Miami has a way of inciting my sharpest passions both negatively and positively. These beautiful, cool sunny days are so rejuvenating, maybe that's the main redeeming quality of this place. The annoyances are, well, to be zen about it, part of what one must accept if they want to live with the vibrant little joys that come with Miami. So I learned to stop feeling guilty for not giving the guy on the corner my cash, or for avoiding eye contact with other people when I'm walking alone. Both once-innocent behaviors will invite more trouble than the alternative is worth, I learned that first-hand within a month. Yes, that's weird for me and yes, it's sad and maybe a little dangerous compared to my hometown. This isn't the suburbs or the grove, this is Miami Beach. But you take the good with the bad. Learn to find the good, the shortcuts, the scenic routes, the finer experiences, the view from the hole-in-the-wall mahi sandwich place that makes you sigh with relaxation as you watch the sun set over the bay, the experience of riding your bike to the ocean, narrowing down the best take-out joints, even just seeing palm trees every day. Simple things that make up for a lot of happiness.

Key Westified

Casper Lynn — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:16:38 +0000

I won't preface it much more than this: Many, many moons ago, when my husband John was more commonly known as "Cracker John," or just "Cracker," the bro-mance of his life began with a fellow ridiculously-talented percussionist from Louisiana, the Rell. To the left we see them posing for a yet-to-be recorded, strictly-drums techno album. In their earlier days, I doubt that either of these guys ever imagined that their future 2010's would include each of them getting married, to the women of their dreams no less, and both in beautiful, scenic and now even more sweetly-nostalgic Key West.

It's Tuesday afternoon and I'm still recovering from the wedding weekend. Imbibed more cape cods than I have fingers and toes. Danced (astonishingly) in heels, met lots of truly interesting people (like, people who read), and got to watch our dear friends become husband and wife. We drove down in my new 128 and soaked up some sunshine with the top down; I'm now a firm believer that the best days are most often solar-powered. This was our third trip to Key West this year, the last time being for our own wedding back in July. Reminisced with many a kiss, we did.

This wedding however was a much grander affair, as it was a very special event that had been in the works for quite some time. Brilliantly the couple invited their friends and family from all over the country to spend a few days relaxing and partying together, getting to know each other, breaking the ice, etc., so that by Sunday afternoon as the sun was starting to set behind the beautiful blue sea, the congregation arose and turned to watch the bride walk down the aisle, framed ever so elegantly by slender palm trees and with a gentle breeze lifting a few of her cascading tendrils, nothing but happiness in her eyes - there was an effervescence of love and support pouring out from every one of us, so much excitement and joy, and all of it focused onto these amazing people as they took their marriage vows. Good energy if I ever did feel it.

I was flattered that they asked me to get some shots from the sunset cruise they had planned for the day before the wedding, and the photos came out quite lovely I think, but I'm going to wait till the newlyweds get the chance to see them before sharing the rest. To the left is a shot of the guys helping to raise the sail.

To wrap it up, what an amazing weekend and wedding, I can't wait to see the professional wedding day photos; she used K.T. Merry who is just phenomenal. Had I decided to stick with wedding photography I would no doubt aspire to create and produce a similar style. Like I mentioned before, I haven't been shooting much lately, inspiration points to writing, so be it. Now to unpack, find the other camera, and report my scooter stolen. Yep, stolen, some time while we were out of town. Real nice, Miami. You never fail to disappoint my low expectations.

Another reason escaping down to Key West is, as Miley would say, pretty cool.

Love you Rell & Jenny, congratulations!

Post Holiday Cheer

Casper Lynn — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:25:54 +0000

Not quite a year ago, Juan from Spain sold me a solid wood, marble-top buffet that I've since used for some desperately needed storage space. Plans to refinish it were postponed and nearly forgotten, until about three weeks ago. The view of it in its state of limbo, a worn spot here and there, a patch of test paint on one side, so sad. I stopped by the hardware store, stocked up on sand paper, picked out some paint, and spent many, many hours eating through many coats of two colors of paint, annoying my neighbors with the sounds of a lovely power sander. Anyway, it's been in my living room forever it seems, I finally got the last coat of new paint on it this morning. The only thing left to do was paint the ornate little feet at the bottom. No problem, I thought. I'll just lay it on its back on top of some blocks and let it dry. Worked fine until an hour later, the marble top, heavy as a mo', detached itself and fell to the tile floor, cracking completely in half and shattering all around the edges of the break.

I mean, wow. As the final coat is drying. Really?

Of course, I feel like a moron for not realizing that marble top was too heavy to just hang there. The worst part though - I didn't know where one of my cats was when I was hearing the noise of it ungluing itself from the wood and realized - this heavy ass thing is about to fall straight down. I saw Ginsu on the sofa but Kaia, notorious for snoozing in the folds of my drop cloths, was not in my view, I was so scared she was underneath and would be crushed when I looked around to the other side. But she was fine, she's curled up next to me now on her 2 pm nap spot.

My Thanksgiving was bittersweet times a thousand. I got to spend time with my beautiful and amazingly smart niece. I got to hug my dad and see him smile. I got to feel like I was home and with family. And then we had to leave. I cried like a baby on the way to the airport, my poor hubby must think I hate Miami. It's just hard watching the streets and buildings as you pass in the car and you know it's the last time you'll see it for a painfully long time. Leeds, Alabama. Who would have thought such a town would make such an impression on my wee heart. I'm glad I got out and photographed the seasons there. That's definitely another thing to be missed.

Speaking of photography, I haven't posted much because I haven't been shooting much lately. I've been doing more writing actually. Something I used to do a lot of. I started charting out a fiction novel and my main character kept evolving so much, the story line was an endless chase, it had me wondering if I'm not better off writing some non-fiction, something real and from my own experience. Journaling has been the new addiction. The chronicles of casper lynn, unfiltered. For now.

Crappy iphone pics are my favorites lately.

Miami: Pretty

Casper Lynn — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 13:16:20 +0000

Some iphone catches of Miami.