Welcome to another Monday morning. It’s hot here in New York, but I am happy: this morning Blanchette Press completed final printing of The End and shipped it to the bindery. I have to admit that they have done a spectacular job with printing. So, it’s in high spirits that I will talk about this spread from the book. The text on the left reads, “Merry Leigh she rolls along.”

This picture was shot for the now defunct Mirabella Magazine at an estate on Long Island. The inclusion of this photograph arose from the need for a picture of a beautiful woman. The thing that is attractive—or maybe even unattractive—about this picture is the following story. We used two models for the shoot: Annika, the girl you see on the bicycle who is German, and Marie Claudia who is Brazilian. There were three days of shooting. After the first day of shooting, I didn’t really get along with this German girl. She was somewhat standoffish and aloof. The Brazilian girl, however, was lively, gracious, entertaining and funny. I suggested to the art director that we only use the Brazilian girl for the last two days of shooting. Citing contractual concerns, the art director said we had to use both models for the last two days.

I continued to shoot both of them, basically not really connecting with Annika. I don’t think she particularly felt a connection either. The result of the situation is rich with irony. For the most part, I’m pretty good at knowing what the pictures are going to look like when they are made into final prints. I don’t shoot Polaroids, which is maybe something we’ll get into later, so I have to get into a mode of visualization to imagine how the end results of the pictures. But in this case, I was completely wrong.

Because I did not feel a deep connection with Annika, I felt that the pictures of her would not turn out. On the other hand, I had high hopes for the pictures of the Brazilian girl, as we got along wonderfully throughout the shoot. In the end, however, the pictures of the Brazilian girl were just okay. They were not really exceptional. However, the pictures of this girl, Annika were exquisite. She looks strikingly beautiful in every frame, no exception. This is very memorable to me, because I was completely wrong. Here I was, not really feeling a connection with this model, yet I could not take a bad picture of her.  This experience contradicted all my experience up to that point, and culminated in this picture.