Absolute Cure for Loneliness, by Tim Gallo
Following text and pictures by Tim Gallo.
“We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds”
F. Kafka
In fact I hate nude photography. So far it destroyed my private life, brought me attention I don`t deserve and put me in a creative struggle I never experienced before. Nude photography stays on a thin line between art and anything else. If the girl is “likable enough” then it doesn`t matter if the picture is good or not – cause you watch it out of desire. I hate it.
But on my creative way as a photographer and movie director, I realized that if you hate something it doesn`t mean you have to ignore it. On the contrary, doing something you hate helps to understand yourself and to find a subject that is as interesting as disturbing. So when I met Cay for the first time I knew that she was the perfect one to guide me through the dark tunnels of my soul.
We met at an exhibition, she was looking at a portrait of herself taken by another photographer. I made a few comments about the picture and so our relationship started. Cay is a one of the top class pole dancers in Tokyo, she is also slowly becoming famous as a V-Cinema actress (mainly R-Rated yakuza movies, that go straight to dvd). I have to tell that pole dancing here in Japan is not like in other countries. First of all girls don`t get naked and the show is more concentrated on the dance itself. Funny thing I never saw her dancing, but just by looking at her you could tell she was one of the best…
As I usually do before any private shoots (when there is only me and the model) I ask my model for a date. And so I did with Cay… we went for a lunch now and then, talking about different stuff. Cay was different from all the women I had known before – fearless, over intelligent, lost in life and full of pain, that forced her dance to be more expressive and thus more entertaining.
Slowly we got to know each other and when she felt comfortable enough I talked her into the shoot. At first when I told her that I was interested in shooting her naked she refused, but when I explained that nude photography is something I don`t like and my reasons about it she said (as I expected her to say) that maybe it`s time to open a new door. We didn`t discussed the details of the shoot thus making it more exciting. I told her only one thing which was the hardest to say – that after this shoot I might loose interest in her as a model and that our friendly relationship may change after that. More to it, if our relationship don`t change then probably we did something wrong and I definitely will fail in creating good pictures. Now it`s always hard thing to say, but I`ve been taught by my sensei (teacher) to always be sincere with the model, slowly getting from her something that she didn`t expect herself.
I chose a small and cheap love hotel in Kichijoji, administred by two old ladies and called Inokashira Hotel. It is a perfect place for a shoot – old-fashioned, unpredictable – all the rooms are different and you never know what room will be introduced. Since shooting inside love hotels is a prohibited thing I had only one umbrella light (300w, Comet monoblock), which was easy to bring unfounded. I took zoom lens and 50mm lens.
I installed the light, made few test shots and we started…
Cay was moving around me, slowly getting her clothes off, smiling and giggling to me. I moved around her with the camera, changing position of the umbrella according to her position, bouncing light from walls, mirrors, tables, even from the tv screen.
