Tarren - Liquid Fire
Tuesday, January 08, 2019
As January loses the excitement and lights of the Christmas
season; as I forget putting out of my bedroom door my shoes on the eve of the Epiphany, with the
hopes that on the next day I would find toys, I have a few reasons to feel
optimistic for this year.
It would seem that my cameras will be having their shutter
buttons pushed and I will be having tea rests with beautiful subjects.
But it impossible to clean the slate, not only last year’s
but also all the preceding ones.
When I feel melancholy I don’t buy new shoes or slurp a
thick chocolate malt. I go to my oficina and under my section P to Z I extract
a thick file called Tarren.
On any envelope ranging from 1980 to about 2007 I can gaze
on extraordinary beauty that was not only that. I have photographer many
beautiful women. But Tarren had (and surely has) what I call presence. You can
be a magnificent ballerina with the best technique but without that almost
impossible to define presence she will only be a dancer. I saw the same in my
youth when I would go to Plaza México and indulge in my then interest in bullfighting.
Some matadors had presence. Others did not and did not interest me.
For me Tarren was (and surely is) that contradiction that I
define as liquid fire.
I may have at least 1000 photographs of her. There may be 10
that are not so good.
I believe that I am the photographer that I am today because
I met Tarren when there was little I knew about the photography of woman. With
an easy smile (and may I add sexy without being reproached?) she taught me and
inspired me.
How could I have been so lucky?
For those who may be curious here is an explanation of
the photographs. I photographed Tarren with a Nikon FM-2 using a small softbox
flash. The film was Kodak Black and White Infrared Film. I noticed that the
contact sheet has developed a nice colour as it has faded in my file. So I
scanned three from it, one at a time. With my 13 year-old Photoshop I joined
them together.
