Having Bedroom Eyes

90 Minutes- that’s the time it takes for a make-up artist to do Kim Kardashian’s make-up! EVERY DAY! Preposterous, you might think; it takes us, mere mortals, one minute?  Two?  That’s what it takes to get my face out of the drawer each morning.  What do they do?  Not much,  one would think; the child is beautiful as she is. Perfection comes with a price, it seems.

“To consult the rules of composition before taking a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk. ― Edward Weston 

It’s with this thought playing on my mind that I decided to photograph an average morning in an average home with an average person, in this case our house guest! A home where you may jump on the bed.

A stumbling block in doing this “shoot” was clutter!  I took dozens of photographs, and every time I had to move, shift, tidy, and remove more clutter.  I wanted the look to be clean, white and blue, serene and Sunday-ish; boy, was it difficult. It's only when one looks through a lens that one notices much debris lying around, especially in a confined space.

Today my eye had to listen before I looked, had to look before I saw and had to see what I had in my mind’s eye.

To apply all my make-up would take roughly 3 minutes. My bag is in a sorry state, but every lipstick, brush, lotion or cream tells a story.  A mangy blusher brush, bought in 1975, has swiped across my cheeks when I was a girl, a bride, a mother, when I was happy, sad, and inconsolable.  My mascara is a discard left by my daughter after her holiday; the only colours on my palette of eyeshadows are the leftovers, the ones I don’t use, and my red lipstick is a dream, one that’s always wiped off.

Yellowed pearls remind me of my childhood, the 50s, my mother, and being grown-up.  They’re too precious to wear every day, so I keep them for high days and weddings and especially when I’d like to look like Catherine Hepburn.

Now I know why commercial photographers have art directors, a storyboard, make-up artists, models, and scripts.  The squiggle of toothpaste on a brush is almost too much to ask for; I’m sure one needs a degree to do it properly.   Next time I see an advertisement on TV, I’ll be less critical and more sympathetic.  It's hard work, believe you me.

“Art is what we call...the thing an artist does.

It's not the medium, or the oil, or the price, or whether it hangs on a wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt, and made something worth making. Something risky. Something human.

Art is not in the ...eye of the beholder. It's in the soul of the artist.” ― Seth Godin.

Enjoy my Sunday story; it's short and sweet.

All photographs are published with permission.

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