JUMP SHOOTING
Strange, exotic creatures. Super feminine: dependent, docile, needing
support… yet shy, self- effacing, beautiful, soft. New York City’s
streets are bountiful. One in every three lunch times or after work
walks yields a sighting, a hit. They limp, swing-through, rise and
compress: blush. I am ecstatic. It is the end of the polio era, there
are still many post polio women around, just maturing – nubile. It
is the season of the mini-skirt. Rarer, amputees are like the white
leapord. My joy knows no bounds.
Never a commercial allusion to them – only pictured impersonally, coldly,
sterile in medical journals (black rectangles over their eyes – denied
an identity, objectified: brave little creatures) in Telethon ads and
March of Dimes posters. Alluring, yet asexual the desire to help them
is okay, but never as objects of desire. As soon as they mature they
are shunned. Then pity and fear are acceptable. It is okay to admire
their courage, but never to touch.
I don’t think I coined the term ‘jump shooting’, but wandering around
Manhattan, camera pre-set and cocked, Tri-X loaded, hanging from my shoulder
is what it was. I learned to scan crowds looking for a diagonal or the
glint of medical stainless steel. A glimpse would send me into action,
heart pounding, adrenalin rushing.
Most never noticed me aiming my 135mm lens at them. I needed that distance
from my desires then. If they noticed me at all and saw me aiming my
camera at them they flashed back quizzical unbelieving looks. Is he photographing
me? He must be photographing someone else. I must be mistaken, why would
he be shooting me?
Eventually my guilt (or is it my desire) overwhelms me. I must introduce
myself: Hi my name is…. Rather than the crowd I still hide behind sociological
entrapments citing a crusade against discrimination. Isn’t it time to
be seen? Some glean my ulterior motives some agree to meet and be photographed.
Some are just curious. This is my transition to my Early Studio Years.
EARLY STUDIO YEARS
The Street becomes too confrontational, too aggressive and intrusive.
I must out myself. I begin to introduce myself, state my case (though
still shrouded and oblique). Some refuse flat out, most are incredulous.
Some are flattered, others fearful. My favorite had fears (only expressed
well into a year long relationship) of being slashed. Reticence leads
to dinners and drinks.
My studio is on east 37th Street. It is where I hold my regular job.
It is a sky-lighted studio where art and design were still done by hand,
but my bosses don’t mind the back drop and lighting paraphernalia. The
sessions are always after hours and two flights of stairs beyond the
elevator. My models handle the difficult stair climb with
aplomb, as if to demonstrate their total ability or that they can compete
with any other woman given the chance…
When they are isolated on the seamless, I am in heaven. I can smell
their perfume, smooth the wrinkles in their skirts, watch and assist
as they change their clothes. The photography was primitive, lighting
incandescent: hot and indiscriminate. My ladies rose above my ineptitude.
Some are desirous, some need alcohol. Did they sense my desire, my lack
of Sontagian remove? Some wanted me as much as I wanted them. My hunger
unleashed their quiet need for acceptance. I wished to have them all.
I learned quickly that most accepted my advances as normal for to deprecate
my desires for them would mean that they lacked worth
