I realized after this most recent photo shoot that it had been a solid year since I’d had a solo shoot. I have mixed feelings about most photographers, and I can get awfully choosy about who I want seeing me that close up. I want to love their photos, I want to like their style…I want it to feel right in intimate ways, kind of like a first date.
Eddie felt right. Eddie Pinto of Whiplash Studios fell into my lap at my first show back in North Carolina, when he took some stunning shots of me. I loved the sigh of antique gothdom heaved by his photos and wanted very much to be one of his strange, strange girls. I asked to have him all to myself for a few hours for a photo shoot of one’s own.
Eddie is stylish, impeccably so, but he’s kind and calm. He doesn’t have that unapproachable razor-sharp edge that sometimes protects self-proclaimed “creative” types like barbed wire. And he doesn’t give constant direction, which I love. When I work with photographers who tell me to move my elbow this way or lift my chin up, I get angry and self-conscious. Angry because, seriously, let me do my job and you do yours, ‘kay? And self-conscious because, no matter how I try and rationalize away the feeling, having someone direct the minutiae of my body’s movement and angles makes me feel like I’m not doing it right.
Eddie was perfect. He encouraged my desire to crawl around on the ground and pour soy milk on myself. He wasn’t afraid to trek the midday Raleigh streets with me (in a corset) to suss out the best spots and backgrounds. He was in it to win it, and I adore him. Not to mention the shots that came out of our afternoon adventure.
I love it when photographers get down n’ dirty with me like he did, sprawling out on the pavement to get just the right angle. It reminded me of the shoot I did many years ago with Paule Saviano in Dumbo, BK. I rolled around on cobblestone streets and got so dirty that immediately following the shoot I went and got in the water to wash off. You know you’re pretty nasty dirty when you think the East River is cleaner than you are.
Eddie took me to this little alley next to what can only be described as the jumpin’-ist little mom n’ pop hot dog joint I have ever seen. There was a line out the door and around the block, which may sometimes happen at Magnolia in the West Village, but something I ain’t never seen the likes of this side of the Mason-Dixon. Turns out they were waiting to get in to The Roast Grill, famous for grilled hot dogs since 1940. We parked our gear in the alley and began shooting, much to the interest and confusion of all the nice, certainly good Christian families waiting in line.
15 minutes into our shoot, the side door open and out stepped a man from the back of the restaurant. I expected him to shoo us away, worrying that such an unwholesome sight would be bad for business, but he kindly motioned for us to finish shooting, inviting us in for hot dogs when we were done.
Turns out this sweet man was none other than George, the proprietor of The Roast Grill, which I found out post-shoot while I sat on the vintage bar stools at their counter. I typically don’t eat hot dogs, but I had nothing but coffee for breakfast and had been strapped into a corset until 3:30pm. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to pose for a 2 hour long photo shoot, on a street, in a corset, but it’s hard to breathe and you work up one hell of an appetite.
So, I sat down at the counter.
“How many hot dogs do you want?” he asked.
“Um, one?” I said.
He nodded. “Okay, but you’re going to want another one. What do you want on it?”
“Um, mustard? Ketchup?”
“No ketchup. Don’t need it ‘cause the chili’s so good. Best to get it with chili and slaw on it.”
“Okay then, I’ll do that.”
He fixed the hot dog and sat it down in front of me. “Want a Coke?”
I also never drink soft drinks, especially not of the non-diet ilk, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. When in Rome…
“Okay. Yes please.”
The hot dog was incredibly delicious. And the Coke was tiny and came in one of those old-school glass bottles. I happily stuffed my face while George told me about the place. That it had been around for quite awhile; that they only served hot dogs, but had never served any ketchup. “If you really need it,” he said, “you can bring your own.” I thought about those commercials from the 80’s where the woman pulls her own salad dressing out of her purse, and it made me giggle. While we chatted, a preacher came in to pick up an order of 22 hot dogs, which seems like an awful lot to carry, but nobody blinked an eye. Bulk orders must be common.
The day was about as brilliant as it could be, and it opened up a side of Raleigh that I hadn’t seen. One of the things I loved so much about my little Brooklyn neighborhood is that I could go exploring. Long walks each weekend uncovered some new little store or café that had opened up in an innocuous sidewalk nook. One of the things I was reluctant to come back to were the static, obvious layouts of certain Southern cities. There would be no mystery, no intrigue.
Now I know differently. I’m “discovering” all kinds of new faces to the cities of The Triangle that I thought I knew so well. And I like my face against that backdrop, not to mention the delicious hot dogs I get as a reward for my hard work afterwards.
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