Let's try something a little different today, more importantly let's see if I can keep this up for at least six to eight images. I am great about starting new projects, but if it's too lengthy I lose interest, ergo my knack for writing shorter essays and not anything that is novel length.
Recently I have mentioned in some of the aforementioned essays that I have been reviewing my unedited work from my Tar Beach [2016] series, which is the heading Trespassing [2018] falls under, it's a subset of the larger series due to their obvious connection. If I wasn't up on the roof during '16, I would have never noticed the construction happening in one of the buildings in my row, and never decided to use the construction site as another location for my photoshoots. This series wouldn't exist with out the other, that is important to state, and for y'all to understand.
Curiously I actually found images I didn't do post on, and Throne [Aug '18, Brooklyn] is one of those forgotten shots, seriously when I opened it to edit it, I was like how did I miss this one? Here is another fun fact that I don't think I have previously shared, or if so, not often, I would usually process or do post-production the very same day of the morning I would be out shooting.
Ergo I would usually be up on the roof somewhere around three o'clock in the morning, if not a bit earlier, and I would stay up there until around eight o'clock in the morning. I chose these times because I knew the traffic from other buildings to their roofs would probably be non-existent, and I was correct, during these hours I had the roof-space all to myself.
So clearly on this August morning of the year of our lord two-thousand eighteen, I edited other work that I had taken in the bathroom, and thought I had enough interior shots for the day. I went and checked, and this was at a time I still had a Flickr account so that was the destination of my post, along with right here on Tumblr. Even back then I attempted to curate a diverse set of images not getting stuck in one place or one pose too long, that is how I over looked this gem.
What else can I tell you about the location, well I call this building #3, not it's actual address designation, but I preferred to number the buildings starting with the one furthest from my building as #1, and I think my building was #6 in the row. Obviously this is when the bathroom was all but finished, it was one of the C units, if I recall correctly the units were lettered A, B & C. The C unit was the largest one with two bedrooms, several closets and a separate dining room from the kitchen. I had been through the apartment so often that I remembered that I thought the layout was very awkward. This was also probably on the 4th floor which would have gotten the best light via the lightwell, that is a term I just learned two seconds ago, didn't even realize that was a thing. All the buildings in my row, seven of them all have lightwells separating them, seven buildings, six lightwells.
In the shot I am clearly basking in the glory of that morning light trickling in through the lightwell. This was one of a series of poses in that bathroom that morning, and I thought since this toilet seat is brand new, no one has probably sat on it, the workers mostly used the ground floor toilets, not sure if that was regulation, but I could tell that those facilities had been in use. I was amused that my derrière was the first one to grace the porcelain throne, ergo Throne as the name for this shot.
The only other thing I could say about this shot is I am a bit heavier than I was when I started the series two years prior, but even so I don't look bad. I wore my hair up often on the roof just to keep it out of the way, and right here it's wrapped around my head like a crown, which also plays into the name I have given this piece.
There is a vulnerability but also a casual comfort, I wasn't actually using the commode only utilizing it as a prop, but the bathroom is a very intimate location where we maintain our personal hygiene, and pass our waste. I am not pretending I am the first person to ever take a photo in the bathroom, nor one posted up on the toilet, but for me with the tiny-ass lavatory in my studio unit, shooting in there was never an option.
Looking at other shots from this same time period, I was very heavily leaning into color celebrating different shades of brown the only flesh-tone I have ever known. Even the other shots around the unit were all in full color a stark contrast to the desaturated and monochromatic treatments of my Tar Beach series. Also I was in love with the golden sunlight that filled these apartments so early in the morning. These shots were all taken before seven o'clock, because that is the time the construction workers would come to work, and I would escape out of the same roof-door that provided my ingress.
I am not sure if I would print this image, but I am leaning towards it, it would pair very well with another seated shot I have from my '96 Hamburg shoot, and it has the same vertical orientation which I am severely lacking in the self-portraiture I have hanging in my home. If I was actively exhibiting I would totally submit this piece for consideration. There is so much more going on here than just a fine art nude, and I think that is something worthy of hanging on the wall.
Opening of the Max Ernst exhibition at the gallery Au Sans Pareil (37 avenue Kléber, Paris), May 2, 1921. From left to right: René Hilsum, Benjamin Péret, Serge Charchoune, Philippe Soupault on top of the ladder with a bicycle under his arm, Jacques Rigaut (upside down), André Breton and Simone Kahn. Date: May 21, 1921. Source: http://www.dadart.com/dadaism/dada/024-dada-paris.html Unknown author/photographer.
Guillaume Diop is a French ballet dancer. He joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 2018, and was promoted to étoile in 2023, becoming the first mixed black person to reach this rank in the company’s history.
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