documenting fictions with abi/gael

"abi or abigael? I guess we'll never know," she said. that became a running joke on this shoot, a natural outgrowth of the concept.

I wanted the shoot direction to be exemplary of my documentary, behind-the-scenes style of photography, and the premise I came up for it was that we were doing a photo shoot on the opening night of her big movie. abigael had brought a friend with her to the studio, Billy (whomst I'm also well acquainted with and we have shot together in the past) and I enlisted him to be a part of the narrative as well. I had him play in those storytelling moments her hard-pressed publicist who would harass us throughout the shoot and remind us she had to leave for the premiere as quickly as possible. and I directed abi throughout the shoot to switch between the on-camera performance and these staged, in-between-shots moments. meanwhile, I also switched between video behind-the-scenes, direct flash images on my second camera for that disposable film look, and staged BTS with my main, tethered camera. the idea was that there was something happening, a fictional event, and I was both staging the event and documenting it. this is what I've been calling documenting fictions.

working with models, I became fascinated with the duality of their onstage person and their offstage "reality". and I realized that what happened in the studio was a microcosm for what happens in society. models know how to turn an actual smile from a silly moment or joke made on set into a performance that creates a stunning image of joy for their portfolio or for a client. and likewise, we know how to turn our best moments into stories for social media.

but this isn't new, right? like shakespeare said, all the world is a stage. the only difference is that now we have a traveling production studio, the distribution and publishing, all in our hands. and that's how I landed on documenting fictions. in a very real way, it is what we all do.

and so I stage these fictions in front of my camera, come up with scenarios and characters for my talent to become and inhabit, and then I capture them as if documenting a real-life event. the approach is founded on the question of "what is real and what is fake?---

and does it matter?"

just like in every moment of your life, there is an inward reality and an outward appearance. so, too, with this approach I am to have and to hold simultaneous realities. is the model laughing because someone said a joke or because I prompted her to laugh for the image?

does it matter?

depends on the purpose of the images. a joke can be a means-to-an-end if a client wants a commercial image of someone enjoying their product. my impeccable sense of comedic timing can be weaponized to create an image that feels organic and fresh and marketable (I'm hilarious, right?---if you've worked with me, please tell them, don't lie on me).

so we shoot you as an angel in the studio on a white backdrop, but we also shoot from an angle that exposes the setting. we see the edges of the studio and the light stands, the softboxes, the cables. all while you stand there with angel wings, or imagining we are now moments away from your new movie premiere this evening(which is also us manifesting it happening for you soon!).

and so when abigael is sitting at the posing table and looks off camera and says, "billy, why haven't we received the contract yet??" it doesn't matter if there is any contract to begin with because, in that moment, as the moment before and after, we are real. we document that we exist as we create a world that doesn't.