Taking a moment for friends

Today I found out that a woman that I knew and used to work with died two days ago. She was only 37 and that's way too young to be gone from this world. Her name was Mandy. She produced a film with me called Ruth's Journey that was nominated for an Emmy Award and that I had the honor of winning a few awards and even screened at the Berlin Underground Film festival, which I had the pleasure to attend in that wonderful city.

It's a time when the email tree goes out to everyone who knew her, and we're reminded of how short and cruel life can be some times.

I sent the sad email to everyone I knew who worked with her. And we all took a moment to realize how short and precious life can be.

And tonight I got an email from my friend Jill that I think encapsulates what we're all feeling. I know she won't mind that I'm reprinting it here because I think it reminds us of things we should say to people in our life before it's too late.

In the last year I have started to tell people how much I love them so they know unequivocally. You Billy -- why don't I just take that opportunity with you now? THANK YOU for being such a memorable and integral part of my life in Chicago. Chicago was really my "college" -- it was that experimental and intensely social time of young life that everyone should have. You were a big part of it, and those years are full of memories of you and your apartment and our photo shoot with Marcia; of you on your bike (and immortalized in cement); of seeing movies with you on holidays so we wouldn't have to leave the city; of your infectious laugh; your fondness for Dao food; your fondness for leggy supermodels; your leather jacket & ever-present satchel; your warmth, fierce intelligence, and abundant wit and sense of humor. And your eye -- your amazing, incisive eye for beauty and form. If you or I die tomorrow, let it be known that I loved Billy Sheahan in my life then, and still do.... For all those reasons but -- stripped of all that, just because you and I connected on some soul level at certain place & time in our lives that I will always cherish.

Thank you Jill. That means a lot today.

The picture you see here is of me and my friends Mike and Katie who I've been spending a lot of time with lately. The times that we have with our friends we some times take for granted. The fun that seems will last forever sometimes ends abruptly.

Let's all remember that it is taken from us all too soon and it's times like these that remind us to say "I love you," to those who are close to us. There may not be a chance to say it tomorrow.

Talking

I've been talking a lot lately. There's nothing I like better... well, few things I like better, than talking one on one with someone who I'm connecting with. As humans, it seems like we sometimes need time alone and sometimes need time to connect with each other.

I'm definitely in a connecting period right now.

But I find I'm working from a slightly different place than I feel I've been in the past. There's a lot more honesty pouring out of me. And I don't mean that I've been lying all my life, only simply that as the years go by I find I have a very good idea of who I am and what I will and won't do.

It also means I'm not afraid of hiding mistakes I've made along the way.

I've certainly made a lot of them.

I used to think mistakes were weaknesses. But I don't believe that any longer. It means I'm out there living... and trying... and pushing myself.

I found myself in a club the other night talking to someone I knew a bit, but not someone I would consider a close friend. Yet we began to have a very honest conversation about very personal things. Not in the "too much information" way, but in a fearless way.

I talked about things I had been through in the last year that were difficult, but I got through them and I'm happy where I am on the other side. And then I listened to the story coming from the other side of the table.

Both very human stories. But like I said, there was a fearlessness. I could be embarrassed about mistakes I've made, but I think it's better to just own them. I put them into my art. They also help to define me as I move forward in life.

I was having a similar discussion with Stella, a model friend of mine whose long beautiful legs are featured in this photograph of a pair of Kate Spade heels. There is so much unknown in our lives that it's important to know who you are as you have to deal with the bumps along the way.

Stella has a very good sense of who she is, and I enjoy photographing her for that reason. She's very competitive and is constantly challenging herself, something that works very well when we're trying to create beautiful images.

Spring is finally here in Chicago and I find that very inspiring as well. Everything seems fresh and the possibilities stretch to the horizon. I like the view.

Do you know who is taking your picture?

A few more random thoughts....

I just got back from a great night at Sound Bar in Chicago. My wonderful friend Katie is a bartender there and she put me on the guest list so I could avoid the velvet rope lines and I really had an amazing Friday night there.

It's funny. So often groups of people come up to me with their camera and say, "Could you please take our picture," this time being a group of girls celebrating their 21st birthday. And I do. And I often wonder, do they realize who is taking their picture?

They have an original Billy Sheahan and they don't even know it.

Makes me smile sometimes.

I have a shoot in 8 hours so I should get some sleep, but I am amused by it all. The randomness of life. It's good to be living it right now.

Spring Restlessness

Some random thoughts:

It's the fourth anniversary of the US-Iraq war today. Yes it's the Bush administration's fault that we're in it. But are those of us who have been against it from the beginning making enough noise to end it? W and his incredibly inept bunch of power hungry bastards got us there. When does it become our fault - the ordinary people of the US - that we're still there? Soon I think.

I think I'm outgrowing my world again. Every few years I have to do something to shake it up. My ambitions are hitting the ceiling once more. Maybe Chicago is too small for me. I've been getting ready to send out new photographic work to some pretty hard to get into places. But I have always been lucky that way. Or maybe it's actually talent and hard work that I keep mistaking for luck.

It is a funny time in Chicago right now. That time of year when we get a few days in the 60s and everyone goes crazy. Wearing clothes more suitable for July. It's like the city has spent the morning eating candy and by noon is running around on a city-wide sugar high until the crash of the inevitable 30 degree weather returns in a few days.

I'm tired of recurring subscriptions to magazines and other things that automatically charge your credit card again without you noticing. I'm making it a point to never again subscribe to anything that doesn't allow me to subscribe for one year at a time without it automatically renewing. You should too.

However, one of my favorite subscriptions just started again (manually with me sending it in when it expired!) and it makes me happy. Paris Vogue. My French has gotten a little rusty in the past six months, but it's good enough that I can still more or less read it without having to look up too much.

And I've been watching Lost in French as well these days. It's amazing what you can find on the internet. It's things like Paris Vogue and Lost with French subtitles that are keeping my language skills fairly up to date. I even had to speak Spanish the other day, and it was surprising how much I could remember. I speak French more often than Spanish, but it's still there in some dusty part of my brain.

This morning, I downloaded the first album I ever bought as a little kid. I remember I bought it in the record section of Carson Pirie Scott. It was a safe record, parent -wise. Homecoming by America. Sort of 70's folk rock. It's been fun to listen to it today. Just as I remember when I was nine years old.

Of course, the next record I bought was Kiss - Double Platinum. Not a parent favorite.

It's funny how some of my monthly postcard generate more interest than others. The March one of the Roberto Cavallis seems to be one of those that is spiking with a lot of interest. Funny, I was planning on going with another image of a different model when I switched it at the last minute. Interesting how those things work out.

The image above is some a recent shoot high above Chicago. I've been shooting in some new spaces recently and it feels good to stretch a little bit that way as well. Once it gets warm and I mean on a regular basis, it will be back to shooting outside again. Looking forward to that.

Instant Karma

It's funny how things work out. Because my postcard mailing list got so huge (expensive), I switched to free monthly email postcards and began charging a small fee for those who liked to get the physical ones.

It made me a bit sad to do it, but it made good business sense.

However, three months into the email versions, I'm finding a nice little unexpected pleasure in them.

Instant feedback.

It used to be that I'd run into someone on the postcard list and they'd say, "Oh man, I loved the one from May," or something like that. Now, people can tell me instantly with the click of the reply key. It's been a really nice surprise.

For example, my friend Jill from California just wrote and told me about something she noticed in the Roberto Cavalli image.

"I also like that the heel section of the shoe is nearly flat on its side, because it clues you into the fact that the woman wearing the show is gazing at it from above and wants to see how the heel looks from her vantage point so she is twisting her foot in order to see it. It's indicative of her appreciation of them, like she's not really "posing" the shoe for the viewer, but rather, has been caught in the act of her own enjoyment. Nice subliminal bit, Billy."

She's incredibly observant. Always has been. And she's right about everything except one thing. The model is not looking at the shoes from above, she's looking at them from below!

Yes, she's actually on her back on a velvet covered chair and her feet are up on the wall. I was standing over her with the camera and even though we made some images that included more of her instead of just the Cavallis, we both decided that less was more in this case.

I think we were right. And as Jill so perfectly observed, sometimes you can tell a lot about what's happening outside of the framing of an image if you look close enough.

Well played, Jill.

And nothing like moving to change your perspective on things. The film editing company I also do work at, after 25 years at the same location has moved to a new space. Well actually I should say is moving. It's such a big company that it will probably take two weeks to completely move everyone from two and a half floors of one Michigan Avenue high rise, down the street two blocks to another Michigan Avenue high rise.

But the funny thing is that I already feel like I've lived there for a while.

You see, as the interior started to get decorated over the past month or so, but before the furniture began to move in it was really a very interesting space photographically. I knew I would have a small window to get in there and shoot between when it looked cool and empty and when there would be too many people there to get away with anything photographically that I wanted to try.

So twice last week, me and a different, but equally fun model, went up to the 25th floor and pretty much shot all night. We started at 6pm and shot until 5am both nights. It was great fun and it was an incredible space to shoot in. And even though the company will be all moved in in short order, I think we may have to sneak back in late some night and finish shooting a few ideas we just didn't have time to shoot.

We shot thousands of pictures in those two nights and it's (I know I always say this) going to be a while before we get through and edit them all, but our first looks have yielded quite a few favorites so far.

Also it's time to begin planning for another show. I have lots of new work these days to choose from and more to come in the next couple of months, so it's been in my mind to pick a theme or something that will work with what I've been shooting.

And I think I'm going to have at least one of the shows in a vacant space again, rather than a gallery or my studio. I did that with another artist friend of mine a few years ago in a vacant raw space behind the Marché restaurant. It was one of my favorite exhibitions. Something about a raw space begin turned into something amazing for one night. I loved it.

So I think I'm going to do it again.

It's good to work in new spaces... literally and figuratively.

Billy Sheahan Photography March Postcard

As Carrie Bradshaw once said, “It's really hard to walk in a single woman's shoes -- that's why you sometimes need really special shoes!

I’ll admit that I’m probably more comfortable shopping for couture than sitting in a sports bar. I’d rather be at Fashion Week than the Super Bowl. I can tell you when the fall collections debut in Paris, but I’m not entirely sure how many players are on the ice at any given time.

I was never much of a still life photographer. Not so much for the fruit in a bowl. But I find it very interesting to make a compelling photograph of shoes. It’s a challenge to come up with an idea and a composition that feels fresh.

I was shooting with one of my new models this year and opening up box after box of shoes until she removed the cover off a pair of Roberto Cavallis and I could see by the look on her face the search was over. There’s nothing more fun to watch than a woman try on a pair of shoes she loves. And she loved these.

The thing I like most about this photo is that the way it’s composed it takes both shoes to get a full picture of one. I like letting part of the subject leave the frame. And since the other shoe fills in the blanks, it’s a photograph that makes you work a little, but not too hard.

And that makes the ”special” even more so.



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Billy