R-E-S-P-E-C-T.... W-O-M-E-N

About an hour ago I almost died.

Literally.

NOTE: I try to keep a fairly clean blog, but this time there might be some colorful language in this entry to express the point I'm trying to make a little more passionately. You've been warned.

Something happened to me over the weekend and I haven't been able to stop thinking about how it was affecting me in a really consuming way. So consuming in fact, that as I was walking home from French class tonight, I was in such a focused, deep-thoughts kind of place that I walked out into the street from a blind spot into busy traffic. I didn't even realize I had done it until I was on the other side of the street. I guess I remember headlights coming at me. Very close. I don't really remember hearing horns or brakes or anything like that.

I don't really believe in god or guardian angels or anything like that. I guess the drivers were just all paying attention enough that when a big guy dressed all in black from head to toe stepped out in front of their cars in the darkness, they somehow managed to see me and avoided taking me out. So I guess I decided I'd better write some of this down and get it off my chest before I walk in front of speeding cars again.

I'm a fairly peaceful guy. I can't tell you how many times in the course of my life if I mention that I don't like someone people always respond, "Man, you like everyone! What did they do to you to get on your bad side?" And I'll admit, I do have a classic Irish temper. Lots of smiles and laughing until I get pushed too far... and then... run for cover.

But this is not directed at any one person. What initially set me off this weekend has apparently been pressure cooking away for a couple of decades and it finally decided it was time to hatch.

Let me digress for a minute here. I was talking the other day about the situation in the Middle East and I was trying to come up with a personal experience that would make me so angry that I would become violent about it. That it would make me want to take revenge even though I'm not "an eye for an eye" kind of guy. The only thing I could come up with was if someone did something unspeakable to one of my close women friends. Tears actually started to stream down my face as I talked about it. As I tried to imagine how I would feel.

But it goes beyond women I know and care about. It goes to all women. I have become very angry with the way women are treated in the world. And I mean the whole world. From Darfur to New York to Zhejiang to everywhere in between. There are few societies that treat women with the respect they deserve. And there are certainly extremes, but now that I've cast such a wide net, let me pull it in and focus the beam a little bit.

I want to ask all the men reading this: When you interact with a woman, be it in a long term relationship or an elevator ride, if there is an exchange, be it verbal or otherwise, does she leave your company feeling better or worse about herself? I don't mean to say that women are so fragile that they can't handle themselves in the world. On the contrary. Women are so much stronger than most give them credit for.

This isn't about protection or sheltering. This is about respect.

RESPECT.

From the time they are aware of their surroundings, even as small children, women are subjected to a barrage of imagery, social traditions and man-made limits and expectations that are the supposed norm for women. Fast forward 15 years or so and many women have had their self-esteem just chipped away by so many things. Then come the eating disorders. Abusive relationships. And worse. Not all women go through these internal battles, but every time you hear a normal woman look at herself in the mirror and say she's fat, you're hearing the results of decades of undermined self-esteem.

Men don't help. In fact I have seen first hand the damage that men can do. And I guess I should stop and say that this goes for all relationships, women who date other women and gay men as well. This is about respect for all humans. But it seems that in relationships involving a man and a woman, there is a dynamic that just isn't present in the other variations of human relationships.

As I said before, I don't really believe in god. I'm open to the possibility of some sort of spirituality out there in terms of a universal energy that keeps all of our clocks ticking, but I'm not really sure about anything beyond that.

But I do believe in the Goddess. The more I learn about the Pagans, the more I like them. Not all of the ritual sacrifice stuff, but the idea that women are creators and should be respected and revered. Again, I'm not saying women are angels who never get dirty. I'm saying that when you interact with a woman, the idea that she can create life and you can't should never be far from your consciousness. She may never choose to do so, but it's her choice.

And before you say it also takes a man to create life, you're right. But honestly, the man's role in creating life is kind of like showing up in Beijing with a can of soup, hoping to feed the country. It's a nice gesture, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Let's get back to that question again. When you interact with a woman do you make her feel better about herself or not? Does a woman feel good after she's been with you? And if you're grabbing your package right now and saying to yourself, "Hell yeah she feels good when I get done with her," you're a fucking asshole and you've perfectly illustrated my point.

I'm a bit of a freak when it comes to respect for women. I hold doors. I stand up when a woman gets up from the table or returns. But I don't do it because I believe in some kind of Victorian honor or something. It's simply a way of showing respect. I don't do it to impress. Most women don't even notice I'm doing it. It's a gesture that symbolizes a deep deference to any woman that I'm with. I'm honoring her both as an individual and as a part of a greater whole of the goddess.

Part of the reason all this came up this weekend is that I have been exhibiting some of my photography at Echo Gallery here in Chicago. I'm showing with several other artists who are expressing their own artistic viewpoints and philosophies along with me. I'm showing my several themes of my nude work.

There are some who would say, and who have said, that since I'm displaying images of naked women, I'm objectifying them and that I'm contributing to the same self-esteem chipping that makes me furious when I see others doing it. I welcome the argument because I feel what I'm doing is precisely the opposite.

I have to digress again for a moment and say one of the things I am least proud of as an American is our, in my opinion, completely stunted collective beliefs in sex, our bodies and what is "good and bad" in regards to those areas. We repress our nakedness and our sexuality, but we sell things using the same nakedness and sexuality (in a much more unhealthy way) that some believe should be kept under wraps. Many of us are taught that our bodies and the instincts that go with them are bad. Combine that with Stuff and FHM at the checkout counter and we've created at best confusion and at worse a kind of petri dish of damaging behavior on the parts of both men and women. Men are teased to the point of stupidity and women are taught they'll never be anything if their bodies aren't oiled up and perfect.

So back to my art. In this exhibit in particular I'm showing a side of my work that is far more erotic than anything I've ever shown in public before. But again, going back to my belief in the goddess, I would insist that my work is elevating women, not objectifying them. The way I photograph them is simply about inspiration to me. I am in awe of women and images I make of them are simply a reflection of that. I believe my art is extremely positive. The comments I heard again and again in the gallery receptions would bear this out. In fact women seem to make up the majority of the people who are the most vocal about how much it moves them.

In my work I show more of a woman's body than you see on covers on the magazine racks, but I think the meaning behind it is so much more healthy and positive than Stuff. It's like when you look at one of those covers the reaction it's designed to invoke in you is probably a bit animalisitc. Okay fine. But when you look at my art, you see more of a woman, but I think it evokes a much more peaceful emotion. It's not that it isn't sexual necesarily. I guess art evokes different things in different people. But I really don't think most people who look at my art find themselves muttering to themselves, "Oh fuck yeah, I've gotta tap that."

I want women to look at my work and feel good about themselves, not feel fat. I want men to look at my work and see something amazing about women that maybe they never thought of before. Something like respect. I never photograph women who have enhanced themselves with plastic. I really hope that trend wears itself out sometime very soon. Men: Stop encouraging it, okay? People in the future are going to look back on breast enlargements and shake their heads the way we are amazed that people once believed the world was flat.... no pun intended. It's pointless and it makes women feel bad about themselves. Knock that shit off already!

And if you do find yourself in the fortunate position that a woman has decided to let you know her in the most intimate way possible, would you please take a moment to understand what she is giving you? Would you please show her a bit of honor? A very good friend of mine once told me she believes that everyone we sleep with leaves a little imprint of themselves on us. Ask yourself the question: What imprint am I leaving with her. Am I showing her respect? Are you going to leave her confused because you got what you wanted and aren't interested in her anymore? Chip, chip, chip.

I want to be clear. I am as turned on by women as anyone else out there. I get terribly horny. But I think there is a positive way to have a relationship with a woman and a negative way. Not every relationship is meant to be a lasting one. One night stands are a fact of life. But if we all respect ourselves and each other we can experience the good of who we are and what we desire without tearing each other down every time we decide to really know each other.

What an amazing thing it is to wake up in the morning, open your eyes and see someone you love, just inches from your face. Maybe they're still sleeping and you can feel their breath on your face. Maybe they're awake already and you have a small moment of wonder of how amazing the other one is before one of you says a word.

This is to the men: If you find yourself in a position like that, be amazed. Be amazed that you're there. Understand how lucky you are that this goddess is lying there next to you. She may not look like Jessica Alba on the cover of FHM, but she's still a goddess. She can create life and you're lying there with your measly can of soup. Appreciate her. For the love of all that is good in this world... respect her.

... Or my mostly peaceful but suddenly furious Irish ass will rain down pain on you like you've never known.

Afterglow

Okay, does anyone have to go to the bathroom? This is going to be a long blog and now's the time to go before we get started. Anyone need a drink of water, or a coffee or their cocktail freshened up? Okay, then let's begin.

Saturday night was one of those nights you know is just going to be incredible, but you're not really sure how or exactly in what way, and it definitely delivered. After five years of quietly making photographs, trying to grow, attempting to shoot ideas and concepts and visions that were in my head, I finally unwrapped a small part of what I've been working on and put it up for anyone to come have a look. Of course the opening at Echo Gallery happened to be the coldest day in Chicago in two years. Nothing like a challenge.

Morgan and I walked in a little bit after 8pm and already her sister Justine and some of her friends were there. It was a nice way to start the evening. Derek and Veronika, the proprietors of the gallery were putting the last touches all around the place and I got a chance to walk in and see my work up on the walls for the first time. I was incredibly happy to see how they had arranged all of my work. Really beautiful.

It's one thing to spend hours and hours and days and weeks and months going over my photography on my computer screen, editing and retouching and deciding what makes the cut and what doesn't. But seeing it in a gallery setting is really something else. It's like you can stand back and soak it all in at once and walk up to it and stand back and just explore it from so many perspectives. As an artist, it's really a rare thing to get to look sat your work like that. It had been so long since I'd experienced it, I'd forgotten how powerful it can be. And it certainly was that night.

The large pieces were bigger than any I had ever displayed before. They were part of my Underwater theme and they were 32 by 48 inches, and there were ten of them up on the wall. And then I had eight more from my Love and Ecstasy theme that were framed to 16 by 20 inches.

But enough about what was up on the walls. The amazing thing was what came through the doors of the gallery on such a cold night. I'm pretty sure it was one degree out there.

Shortly after we arrived, Morgan and I were beginning to take a lap and see some of the other work by the other artists there when I heard someone say, "Hi Billy." I turned and recognized the face of a good friend of mine, but I couldn't place him because there was something wrong with the context. It was my friend Mark Johnson who was really supposed to be in new York as far as I knew, but there he was standing right next to me. He had flown in specifically for the opening. I was blown away. You can see some of his work here if you click on the Fashion Video links.

Another air traveler also came in for the exhibition was my friend Laura Hermann who arrived from her new digs in Washington DC. I first met Laura years ago at the now defunct Feitico Gallery where I was showing for the first time and she was a manager of sorts. We spent a very nice Saturday afternoon getting to know each other and discovered that we were kindred spirits in many ways as people drifted in and out to look at the art that afternoon. But amazingly on this cold February night, there she was, stirring memories of art adventures past.

I cannot find the words to say how humbled I was to see two far off friends like this sharing such an important evening in my life. Getting in a cab on a ridiculously cold night is one thing. Getting on an airplane is going to a whole 'nother level as far as I'm concerned. Thank you Mark and Laura. You are truly wonderful friends. I do not take your support for granted.

But there was so much more.

Before I even had the chance to finish walking around the gallery to see the other work on display, so many people started pouring in. Some who I see nearly every day and some I haven't seen in years. I don't really know how else to put it, but I felt a bit like a bride trying to see everyone at the end of a long receiving line. At least I didn't have to throw the bouquet! But seriously, it was simply humbling to see everyone and feel so much support from so many people. Did I mention that it was one degree out there that night. Amazing.

There were so many kind words from so many people that hopefully the next time I'm feeling a little down I can break the glass on that particular memory and roll around in all of that fluffy marshmallow goodness that spills out. I really have spent the last two days walking around in a bit of a Happiness Bubble™. So much better than a Misery Silo™!

I sold one of my pieces to a very important Chicago art collector and buyer and she really had some amazing things to say about what she found in my work that made her have to have it. It's times like that that really inspire me to continue on this path. I shoot what I shoot to please and express myself first and foremost. It's something I simply have to do as much as breathing, but to get validation like this really makes me know I'm doing the right thing. We artists are sometimes a bit fragile and an encouraging poke from friends and important art buyers are the food we need to keep going when we lose our way.

Saturday, February 18th will be a day I will remember for a long, long time. There were so many things that were special about it, but I think the thing that really made it for me is that I got to share it with so many friends and people that I really care about. It's like if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound if no one is there to hear it? If I was standing in that gallery and I didn't know anyone there, it would still have been pretty amazing, but it wouldn't have been the same as... well let me put it this way. All night, no matter which direction I looked I could see the faces of people I knew, talking and laughing and having a great time. And even though sometimes I only had a few minutes to say hello to everyone, just getting a moment here and there to make eye contact and smile an unspoken communication of thank you and nice work and I love you and it's so good to see you, made me feel so warm and loved and wonderful.

By the time Morgan and I walked out of the gallery after everyone had left and the after party was winding down, I don't think my feel were touching the ground. We went back to my place and had a few cosmopolitans and talked about all the wonderful things that had happened that night to both of us. Both of us you say? Why yes, but I'll just say you'll have to keep an eye on Morgan's world over the next few months, because I'm not one to steal anyone's thunder! I think the future holds amazing things for both of us.

This photograph is one that I sold. It's funny, it's the only one from the show where we pulled the curtain back and you can actually see a bit more of the setup and how we did everything. You can see the large thirty by ten foot piece of felt that we put on the bottom of the pool to create a backdrop we would shoot against. Melissa, one of the models I was photographing that day said, "Hey, get me doing a back flip into the pool!" And I remember thinking to myself that I wasn't on my usual perch of on my stomach on the diving board shooting down into the water below, that we would see too much pool area around her, but I decided to give it a try and she did a few dives until we got the timing and composition just right. And when we got the film back, I had to admit, she was right about trying it. It was a really amazing photograph. There was so much happening at that moment from the way the splash almost becomes a skirt to the idea of her breaking through into some other world to her perfect form to the way she is entering the blackness. So many things.

It's funny, the buyer asked me if it was okay if she could see the photograph turned on it's side and so I carefully removed it from the wall and turned it sideways. I think she was worried I might be upset that she wanted to change the perspective but I told her I had already turned the image upside down in the first place to get Melissa to be breaking through some imaginary ceiling or something. That's one nice thing about working with nudes is that you can rotate the images and come up with completely different feelings depending on the perspective. I always rotate the photographs when I'm trying to decide if I really have something in an image.

Well I feel like I rotated my own personal world a bit this weekend. It was nice to look at it from a different perspective. I can promise that it won't be another five years before my next exhibition. And I think I'll begin putting feelers out to see about showing in other cities as well. On Saturday I received flowers from my great friends Bob and Sue and two smaller little gifts from Mark and Morgan. Before we left for the opening, Morgan gave me a little eraser with the Eiffel Tower on it. Just a little something to remind us of our time in Paris. And Mark brought me a little souvenir of the Statue of Liberty from New York. No coincidence that those are the two cities at the top of my list to show my work at in the near future. Both of those small gifts will be placed in my sight line at my computer to remind me of my future path that became a little clearer on that very cold Saturday night. But somehow, I never felt warmer.

Thank you all. I love you.

Tonight is the Night!

In less than two hours, I'll be at Echo Gallery for my first photography exhibition in a long time. I'm in a very happy place today. I woke up a few moments too early from a very vivid, pleasant and unusual dream. So besides a slight irritation that I wanted a few more minutes to finish my dream, I woke up smiling.

I took a nice long hot bath and read a little. The perfect way to start the day when it's 1 degree outside. I had to laugh. It figures my opening would be on the coldest day of the year. It's the kind of weather that makes anything that happens even more of a story, so I'll take that. I've lived in Chicago my whole life. What do I expect in February, anyway!?

So yes a hot bath and then I picked Morgan up and we had our nails done at a lovely place called Kaya Day Spa. Today is definitely a day for pampering and it was very nice. We had our own private room while Isabelle and Rose attended to our fingers and hands.

Some lunch, discussion about what to wear to an art opening when it's 1 degree and a little more relaxing. I took Morgan home so she could get ready and here I am just enjoying the unknown of what should be a very wonderful evening. The support I've felt this week from so many people has been so very soothing and energizing all at the same time. It has been a challenge getting everything ready, and I've had my share of panicky moments during the last 45 days. But my friends have really helped me through all those moments and I'm here tonight, peaceful, relaxed and contented because of them. Thank you.

So now I'm going to go and get dressed and enjoy the next hour or so of quiet before I go collect Morgan and we're off to a wonderful night. I feel I'm a very fortunate man this evening.

Reconnecting

My good friend Monkaey over in the UK asked me to post a few extra blogs this week leading up to my photography exhibition this weekend, and so I am. At nearly the same time, Morgan made an interesting observation that, and I'm paraphrasing, when she writes in her blog, she reminds herself that she should really not be writing about what she's feeling and thinking to the cold internet, but she should be actually having conversations with her warm friends about what she's writing.

Interesting observation.

I think as long as one follows the wise quote, "Everything in moderation, including moderation", I think we'll all be okay. In other words, yes, absolutely talk to your friends about all kinds of things on your mind, but since I consider writing or journaling or blogging a form of self expression, I think it is healthy and valid as well, as long as you don't ignore your in-person friends in the process.

To me, writing allows you to slow down and think for a minute. Your brain thinks a thought, and your fingers type it and then your eyes read it and send it back to your brain. A nice little circle of self-awareness if you ask me. And of course, you didn't.

Now do these thoughts all need to be in public? Probably not, including my own here. In fact sometimes when our inner voice spills out onto the internet for all eternity... "Clean up in aisle 4!"

But that's not exactly the reconnecting I'm talking about here tonight. No, to answer Monkaey's request about how I'm feeling about the show as it gets closer, I think I'm feeling relief that there is no time to make any more changes, or decisions or add or subtract anything. The books of my underwater photography won't make it back from the printer on time, which is only unfortunate in that they cost a lot of money to get printed and they'll most likely arrive after the second reception, just in time for... well... nothing. But I guess I'm even fine with that. There will be another show and another time to offer them for sale. And I'll have them.

But the main thing I'm feeling is this sense of reconnecting with a lot of people I haven't had the chance to in quite some time. It's like sending out invitations to the show was an excuse to contact them and it gave them an excuse to respond back to me. I know we shouldn't need a gallery exhibition to do this, but maybe because it seems like a special occasion, we're all reaching out to each other. It's been a very humbling experience for me. I feel very well supported.

And another thing I keep hearing from people is something along the lines of, "We're excited because we really don't get invited to art openings," or "I haven't been to an art opening in I don't know how long," or "It sounds like a nice excuse to get out and do something different for a change." So it feels like everyone who I talk to about it is really excited about getting out from behind our computers and to experience something together as a little art community. I'm very happy to be a bit of a catalyst for that. I know it's something different for me as well because my photography is my ultimate form of expression and getting a chance to do it in such a positive setting is really... well... both rare and exhilarating.

And so I'll get to reconnect with friends I haven't seen in a while and even those I see almost every day, but in a much different setting. And if you can't make it, I am told you'll be able to tune into the webcam by following these instructions here.

So yes, there is nothing better than real face to face interaction with another human being. In fact, my preferred interaction is one on one. I love sitting across from someone I care about or someone who is interesting to me and spending hours talking and listening to what is in our respective heads. Call me selfish, but I tend to tune out when I'm in a large group of people because it's not the same as really focusing on one person. You can never really give everyone the attention that you want and they in turn are distracted as well by the other humans around them. No, give me one on one, a couple of cocktails and no where to be in the morning and I call that a perfect human connection.

It's all about the mind. I make beautiful images of stunning women, but it's the ticking behind their engaging eyes that really keeps me coming back for more. Reconnecting. Click.

Here's one of Jillian Ann. Definitely someone home behind those eyes!

5 Minute Blog

This blog will be whatever I can write in five minutes because my show at Echo Gallery opens in three days and I need my sleep.

It's been very exciting the past few weeks. People are talking about the opening and telling me they're making plans to come. Even if they don't because other things have come up, it's been nice to talk about it and the support is really lovely. A few people are even flying in from out of town. I'm quite humbled by it all.

I'm fearing the books will not arrive back from the printer in time to sell on opening night, but I'm okay with that. The art on the wall is the most important thing and I'm very happy with that.

I finally ordered some new clothes. I have been swimming in my old clothes as of late and I ordered a couple of pairs of pants six inches smaller than my current ones. I tried on a pair tonight and they fit perfectly. It's possible I could have even gone eight inches smaller, but that's okay. That's why I only ordered two pair. Six inches smaller in 9 months. Not bad. I'm motivated to continue.

Lot's of other exciting things going on, but I'll have to save that for another time.

Three days and counting until opening night!

Bonne nuit!

A Beautiful Vagueness

This will have to be quick as my muse will be here in less than three hours and the studio is not quite ready to shoot, but I have to pause for a moment and say that the positive energy I'm feeling this morning is absolutely off the charts. Something big is on the horizon. I can't say what it is, except that it is a very strong feeling.

Everything is done for the show. No more deadlines. No more scrambling, rush charges. What is done is done. And I am very pleased with it all. I'm happy to live in a neighborhood where I'm a 10 minute bike ride away from a 24 hour post office. I got the February postcards in the mail last night before a 7pm pickup and so it's very possible they may begin to arrive in mailboxes today. I always send myself one as a test to see if they are arriving when I think they will.

The books are printing. The last of my mad scrambles to lay out and upload a new book of the Underwater work for the show to hopefully sell as well as the prints. That took place on Thursday night into the wee hours and I'm very pleased with how it looks... at least on my computer screen! If I've timed it right, those should arrive back in Chicago either Thursday or Friday, in time for the Saturday the 18th opening. And if not, there's always the reception on the 25th.

So this positive feeling...

I get it usually just before I am swept up in some current that takes me places I have always dreamed about reaching but was never sure exactly how I was going to get there. My mantra for years has been, "The answer is something you can't yet imagine," and it has served me well. I tell myself to just do what I believe in my heart... and inevitably things work out in strange and wonderful ways. Beyond my wildest dreams.

Admittedly my dreams have resurfaced with a new sense of urgency as of late, like a butterfly ready to shed it's cocoon. I'm laying the groundwork for something amazing. I just know it. It seems like there are simply too many forces moving in the same direction now. Too many chance meetings, too many offers of assistance that I'm going to finally take.

I find myself looking back at the last nine months and from here it looks like a road map being laid out in a very specific direction. When I look forward it's still a little fuzzy but I do see very specific shapes ahead of me. A beautiful vagueness. It's bright and blue and warm and full of clouds like we saw from the top of la Basilique du Sacré Coeur on the top of that beautiful hill in Montmarte looking down on Paris below.

Derek and Veronika at Echo Gallery wrote a very nice little something about my exhibiting there in their invite which made me so happy I just have to reprint it here:

This is the first exhibition for Chicago Photographer Billy Sheahan in over 5 years. Billy has been a great friend and supporter of Echo and we are honored to be the first to exhibit his breathtaking new series of work.

Delivering the show to the gallery this week was such an accomplishment. But I would be disingenuous if I even suggested that it was all due solely to my own hand. This show is the culmination of hundreds of hours and the support of countless people over the past five years. From the generosity of the models in the photographs for the show, Melissa, Jill and Jillian, to Charlie and the Campbells for the pool, to everyone who continued to ask, "when are you going to show again?"

Being my friend is not always easy. It's great to be with me during the highs, traveling and talking and feeling like we're on top of the world, but with it come the valleys of insecurity and loneliness that I know we all go through. Except that as with the highs that are very high, the lows can be just as intense and I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have a group of people close to me that continue to stand there with me, even when the planes have landed and the echo of last call is long gone. These are the people that give me the strength to continue to move forward in a positive, creative and healthy direction.

I'm picking up my French classes at Alliance Français again beginning next week after a chance encounter with my first Professeur on the street the other day. Or was it chance? I thought the next term was beginning a week later than it was and I would have missed it had I not run into him. As he waved and said "Bonjour Billy!" from across the street I began to walk toward him and we talked about how I had to drop out of my second level classes just a few weeks earlier because I had fallen behind. He was so encouraging and I really can't imagine going on now with my life without continuing to learn French. It's such a beautiful language and like everything else going on in my life right now, it seems necessary to learn it. I will need it in the future. I'm as sure of it as anything.

So now after this not so brief blog entry (they never are, are they?), I'm going to get back to my day and enjoy the moment of a wondrous unknown horizon as I sip an espresso and try to focus on those positive vague shapes ahead of me. They are most definitely there. Still a bit out of reach for the moment, but they're waving at me from across the street and saying, "Bonjour, Billy!"

Billy Sheahan Worldwide

Yes, I'm afraid we've created a little empire. This was going to be the night I actually got to bed at a decent hour and caught up on my sleep, but I was reminded that I'm selling books as well as photographs at the Echo Gallery show which opens a week from Saturday on February 18th, 2006. So I retrieved the original galleys from a little book I created a few years ago and updated it with new color corrected and retouched images (thanks Heather Hay) and updated the copy.

And now through the miracle that is the internet, it's uploading to the printers as I write this to make enough copies and hopefully get those back to me by next Friday to sell at the exhibition. Yes, Billy Sheahan Worldwide is publishing now as well. It will be a book of the Underwater part of the Echo show and will include many photographs that won't be in the show simply because... well you can only show so many at an exhibition... and I'm already showing 20 photographs.

And of course I was so busy getting all the prints ready for the exhibition that I've neglected to get postcards made to publicize the show and so a rush order with the standard 100% rush charge went in today, and hopefully I'll get those postcards tomorrow (or should I say later today since it's almost 2am) and get them addressed and metered and in the mail before the last pickup on Friday night so they will hopefully begin arriving to the people on my mailing last perhaps as early as Monday, just a week before the opening.

It it sounds like I'm bitching, I guess maybe I am a little, but I guess the constant stream of deadlines has gotten to me. My amazing friend Mark Munson, an tremendous ceramic artist in his own right, helped me transport everything over to the gallery tonight. And as I joined the other artists filing in with their carefully packaged works of art it felt like I had actually made it... until I was reminded about the books.

But if I just stop and take a breath for a moment... and enjoy this very moment... I have to say I'm quite happy. I have wonderful friends, many of who are on the staff of Billy Sheahan Photography, and they have been incredibly supportive throughout all of this. I certainly couldn't have done this without them.

I think it's official. Billy Sheahan Worldwide will have our Christmas party in July this year, simply because I hate rushing around during the holidays and it will be nice to only have one holiday party to go to during that month. Secret Santa will be a little easier as well. I haven't quite decided whether we're going to have the party here at the studio, or at some swanky private room, or maybe as Oprah does, I'll fly the staff to Hawaii for a week. They certainly deserve it.

Here's another one from a recent shoot with Morgan. It's the closest we been to going out on location since technically it was outside my studio, but in reality it was in the elevator in the building, so since we didn't even make it outside, I'm not sure if it qualifies as on location! I think we're waiting for it to warm up a bit before I subject her to the cold in fabulous, but not very warm couture!

A Creative Milestone

Funny, I've spent a few minutes here trying to write the first sentence to this entry and I just decided to head at it from a different direction.

Somewhere back around 1993, I was trying to find my way in several styles of photography. I felt like I had potential, but the reality of my images were not quite up to what I was imagining the would be when I snapped the shutter. I was using books from photographers that inspired me to learn from. I wasn't copying their photos, but I was trying to find in my own work what I liked about theirs. Herb Ritts was a huge influence on me at the time. Still is, and I'm sad he's gone.

But I remember laying out about 15 contact sheets on my small apartment floor and my model friend Shawn and I were on the floor on our stomachs going over the hundreds of images. Funny that a decade later my models and I are going over images on a computer screen. Contact sheets seem downright primitive in some respects! But back then, it was the cramped apartment floor and a couple of loupes to look at the tiny images and mark what we liked with grease pencils.

On that particular shoot Shawn was really being creative with paint and mud and all kinds of facial expressions and body poses and as we passed the resulting contact sheets back and forth I realized the images of her did have a certain Ritts quality about them. It was the first time I felt that I really achieved a look or a feeling that I was going for that was inspired by one of my photographic idols. Looking back on those images now, I don't think anyone would mistake them for the lost negatives of Herb Ritts, but I did feel like I had created something very special with Shawn. She was very happy with what we did and I remember telling her as we lay next to each other that what I saw in these images was the same thing I saw when I would pour through the pages of my Ritts books. It was a milestone for me.

This weekend I felt that same familiar feeling. It seems like the past month or so I have been struggling with my creative demons. It's been difficult to create pretty much anything I've been really happy with. It could be the pressure of my show that's now less than two weeks away, but I think it's been something a little deeper than that.

One of the areas I was experimenting with back in the early 90s was fashion. I walked away from it then because I wasn't coming up with anything I felt was really amazing. Besides my work in travel and nude photography was really starting to feel strong to me and I decided to concentrate on what was working.

Recently though, I've been challenging myself to expand my photography and fashion always seemed to me like something I would eventually come back to. And so I have. Like anything in life, if you want to be good at something you really have to work at it. And even though I feel very accomplished in the images I've spent the last two decades creating, fashion is a completely different animal. It has been quite the challenge. It's been a little painful to not be as good at something as I want to be. Almost to the point of wanting to run back to what was comfortable just so, for at least a little while, I could feel confident again about what was coming out of my camera.

Well for better or worse, as much as I felt I needed to, time and opportunities to shoot my body work seemed to continually evaporate before my eyes. Being unable to set up shoots with my naked people became as frustrating as not succeeding in creative the quality of fashion images I was challenging myself to make. I think the longer I went without really creating something that blew me away in either area, the pressure I was putting on myself to make amazing images began to take it's toll on my ability to think creatively. It started to snowball and by mid January I was really starting to wonder where it all went.

My blogs as of late have certainly not hidden the frustration and stress I've been putting myself under. It has not been pleasant. I'm still not sure I'm completely out of the woods, but the images I created with Morgan this weekend had that same feeling of laying on the floor with Shawn and realizing that we had made something really special. Part of the reason for the success of our shoot might be the total immersion in it.

I met Morgan for dinner on Friday night and I think we both had a good vent about things that were on our minds. After an anxious wait to see what the my giant gallery prints would look like, they had finally arrived earlier in the day and the one crate I opened up to have a quick look revealed that they were indeed beautiful. I think just having that peace of mind allowed me to put that stress away enough to focus on creating new work. We made a few notes over dinner about what we wanted to accomplish in Saturday's shoot and then got a good night sleep which neither of us had experienced in a while.

After I spent the morning running around to pick up supplies for the shoot, we met at the Belmont red line L stop and spent a few hours exploring the nearby shops and managed to put together a few good fresh looks that we both felt would inspire us to create some interesting images. We returned to my studio and got to work.

I can't really explain why, but it soon became clear that Morgan and I were in a very good place to try new things and come up with ideas together that were working like crazy. She looked great and our mutual confidence in what we were doing really began to come through in the photographs. The more we shot, the better it got. And by the time we got done after midnight we both knew we had something.

The remaining crates of photographs for my show had been taunting us all day to crack the rest of them open and look at the rest of the show, but we decided to put it off until after we were done shooting. I made us a couple of cosmopolitans and Morgan put on some "opening the big show" music and we began unpacking the pieces.

Now I know I have written a few times about how big these prints are. But they really are huge. The are three feet by four and a half feet and as we began lining them up on my studio walls, both Morgan and I became more and more blown away by what was in front of us. We just stood there soaking them all in. As I told her it was so wonderful to have her there with me to see the show for the first time. It made it a little more real for me. After a beautiful day of shooting, it was so moving to get to experience this very personal moment in my life with her. This show is really important to me and Morgan is one of the many friends I am lucky to have in my life who have been so encouraging and supportive throughout the process of creating it.

Now it was getting to be about 3am and we had moved to Agavero and had managed to kill half of the bottle already, so Morgan wisely suggested that rather than heading out into the snowy cold night to get her home, she would stay and that way we could finish talking about the show and make a really amazing day last a little longer. And finish the bottle of Agavero!

I love talking all night until the sun comes up and that's exactly what we did. Those quiet hours just as the sun is coming up combined with the afterglow of an incredible shoot day and wonderful conversation made everything that had been bothering me the last few weeks just vanish. The sun finally came up and we surrendered and hit the sack.

I cooked us a healthy breakfast when we got up and I took her home and got back to the studio to finish going through all the images we made. I completely skipped the superbowl because I was so excited about what I was seeing. It was another milestone - on so many levels. I couldn't be happier about the images we made. The two I've put up here are from this shoot and are just scratching the surface of what we managed to achieve.

So I look back on that day about 13 years ago with Shawn on the floor looking at contacts and a flash forward to sitting at my computer monitor with Morgan loading the images into the computer from the camera smart cards and picking our favorites with keystrokes instead of grease pencils. The tools may have changed, but the feeling of successfully meeting a formidable artistic challenge remains just as I remember.