Inspiration hitting, Emilie Autumn, and Time for Tea

I try to avoid strictly duplicating any one particular artist or influence. Because that’s just not fun. But it’s quite daft to try and insist that you are fully original. Because, honestly, to go on about how original you are and how nobody else is like you is quite pretentious.

So if you look at how I use lights, you’ll see large amounts of Broadway musicals and rock concerts, ballet shows. And music is a great bet because the image it builds in your head is going to be personal and individual and unique.

I mention this from time to time, but I have an interesting view of femininity, despite my known predilections towards photographing women in lingerie or less. I use the response from wife or my female friends as a guide to how successful I am at portraying women. Because, most of all, I like it when I make a woman in lingerie look like she’s also capable of plucking your eyeballs out if she needs to.

This is why I’ve had models pose with weapons. And, granted, I don’t always succeed. Sometimes all I can manage is something sexy.

Anyway, I went to see one of my current favorite musicians live this last week and it left me a bit raw. In a good way. But in a “Oh my god, I can’t get that woman’s vocals out of my head,” making me feel randomly like I’m going to get weepy in inopportune moments sort of way. This favorite musician is Emilie Autumn and this is the tour to promote her upcoming album “Fight Like A Girl.” And her lyrics fixate on themes like how we’ve changed the way we treat women has only marginally improved since the Victorian era, especially if they happen to be a bit troubled. And it’s very personal and beautiful and written from her perspective, yet it’s so passionately done that when she sings it’s like it’s happening to me.

And, frankly, some little bits of her story have happened to her has happened to me as well. So it makes the parts of her story that I have not experienced a bit more poignant and conscious.

So, I’m feeling raw and, in lieu of watching the Super Bowl, I had a model over. And the model mentioned a story that I don’t feel is not my story to tell, but it involved a guy. And I felt basically no sympathy for whoever the guy was. Thus, the concert bled over into the shoot.

But one of the lyrics was “It’s time for war. It’s time for blood. It’s time for TEA!!!!!” And there was a segment where Emilie Autumn’s dancers were throwing teacakes at the audience and drinking tea. And I’ve made models pose with weapons before, so I figured I could bump it up more, so I got out some tea service as well.

And so I decided to work with the those lines, although, honestly I mostly had another one of her new songs playing crystal clear in repeat-mode in my head: