Thank You Marta
Copyright 2009. Marta Gornicka.
As you’ll see from yesterday’s post I had a photoshoot in the city of London or as near as as we wondered from Brick Lane to Bishopsgate Churchyard.
The picture here was taken while we were trying to track down The Bath House restaurant. The light was coming from a high-rise office block and made some striking patterns on the walk way.
Picked this one as my favourite – may be there’ll be more to come. Hopefully, the ones Marta took with a Hasselblad in the cafe on Brick Lane will be useable, we’ll see. Having met Marta once I’d be very happy to repeat the exercise again when there’s more available light.
Again, if anyone’s interested in doing a male/female shoot with Marta she’d love to hear from you – see previous post for more info. her email addy is marta [dot] gornicka [at] gmx [dot] de and her website is at www.martagornicka.de although it’s just a holding page at the moment.
Thanks again, Marta.
BTW, jacket, dress, clutch-bag and shoes from www.boohoo.com
Tomorrow, I’m off to Coco’s to reccy her place for photo opportunities. As some may know, Vanessa and I had embarked upon a makeover and photoshoot venture a few months before she landed a job in the Royal Navy.
That meant I lost the venue for the shoots. But now it’s looking like Coco’s country residence will make a fantastic alternative, and I’m so excited about the possiblities.
There’s five bedrooms with four-poster beds (the genuine articles) a large drawing room, an oak-panelled room with a log fire and there’s the garden, too.
So, if you’d like a photoshoot, and appreciate the finer things in life then why not drop me a line and we’ll take it from there.
Adventures in the City
It all started less than a week ago when I checked out the Transmission website, which has been dormant for quite a while.
I never did get to any of their monthly club nights even though I promised myself I would. It definitely had a buzz about it and I was more than a little disappointed when I heard of its demise.
So I guess I keep coming back just to make sure there hasn’t been a re-launch. This time round I spotted something on the ‘latest news’ page. An ad from a female fashion photographer wanting to photograph transvestites and drag queens for an art project. Sounded quite interesting so I dropped her an email.
The long and short of it was I drove down to London yesterday to have a photoshoot with her. A photoshoot with a bit of a difference – for me anyway. First off, Marta wanted shots of me in the same location (it turned out to be a cafe in Brick Lane) in male and female mode.
I was going to have to think on my feet, because I wasn’t sure about her suggestion that I could change in the cafe’s loos. Back peddling a bit, it was a nightmare finding parking and I was half-an-hour late for our 3pm meeting, which meant the light was failing fast.
We did find a cafe, went in, and although they hadn’t opened yet Marta persuaded the woman behind the bar to let us use the seats by the window – we needed all the light we could get. Marta got her shots of me in male mode first off, then I took my bag downstairs to the loos.
Thinking the lesser of the two evils would be the Ladies to change in and do my make-up I set to. I used the washbasin, which fortunately had a good-sized mirror, but the light was pretty grim.
Just as I started to apply foundation a very pretty, long-haired blonde girl walked in and got the shock of her life. Asking one of those really obvious questions to which she knew the answer to almost before the words left her lips, she asked me if I was putting make-up on, duh.
Quickly explaining there was a photographer upstairs waiting to take some shots of me in a dress she smiled and said, “Cool.” And then carried on. Nice one.
I threw the slap on praying I hadn’t done too bad a job it, then shut the cubicle door and got changed. In under half-an-hour I was ready and returned to the ground floor.
It was quite enjoyable sitting in the window watching people looking at me as they passed, and for once I was chuffed not to have spotted a single look of recognition of me as a guy. Did I say it was getting dark?
Just for the camera geeks, Marta was using a HasselBlad 500c. Unfortunately, she’d chosen colour film and I’d loved to have seen black and white shots, but never mind. She also took a few with a poloroid and finally a Canon 20D.
We didn’t have much time where light was concerned with the Hasselbladd, so she didn’t waste it, and we were soon on our way. I was going to a muggle meeting discussing issues about identity afterwards and suggested Marta could come too if she wanted to, and she agreed.
We walked to the car park to get rid of my bag then made our way back to Bishopgate, with Marta using the digital camera to get more shots of me in the street. We were looking for Bishopsgate Churchyard. If you ever need to find it allow an extra hour, it’s buried deep in high-rise territory. The meeting was taking place at the Bath-House restaurant, but we’d arrived half-an-hour before they were officially open, so we went for a short walk.
Marta wanted to know why they didn’t just offer us a drink and let us wait there. I explained the UK licencing laws, which she found quite amusing as she wasn’t aware of the equivalent Polish laws. Anyhoos, we wondered around the churchyard, Marta taking yet more pictures before we found a seat and she told me abit more about what she’s doing here in London.
Having got a BA (or the equivalent) in photography she came to London two months ago to start an MA in Photography. She’d already got to know transvestites and drag Queens in Poland (where they have a very much harder time) and she has this desire to put together an exhibition to be displayed hopefully in London and Germany. It’s going to take about a year to complete, and I’m one of the first few she’s photographed. She’s aiming to shoot a collection of 100 TG people so she’s looking to shoot two people per week. I’m guessing she has a fascination for the TG community and was very easy to get on with, in no small part due to her excellent english-speaking skills.
We returned to the restaurant, settled down and ordered drinks. Shortly after that, Michelle Newell, the organiser of the evening, arrived and introduced herself. People started drifting in and most people introduced themselves to me and didn’t bat an eyelid. Once the guest speaker, Clive Carswell, a psychoanalyst and counsellor, arrived the meeting started.
Clive talked from a psychoanalytical perspective about the role of mirroring from primary care givers in early childhood development and how a failure of this process leads to narcissistic injury and the development of a false self in order to meet the needs of others and prevent the annihilation of the true self. Fortunately, he explained the jargon as he went along and proved very interesting.
Debate was quite lively and after a while a split into groups to carry out little exercises. I think what most of us got froom this was that we didn’t fit into neat little psychological category, but were a mixture of personality types.
Marta had to leave about 8.30pm as she had an early morning photoshoot as part of her MA work. She’s going to send me copies of the photos, which I’m really looking forward to.
After the meeting finished quite a few of us stayed on chatting, and I answered quite a few questions about who I am, but it was all in a very relaxed atmosphere – and the women (the men never actually spoke to me directly, other than Clive) seemed totally unphased. And I got to ask them questions I ordinarily wouldn’t have the cheek to ask.
It really was a wonderful evening, and Michelle does a great job of hosting these events. I’d love to come to some others, but London is a fair way for me to come, but we’ll see.
I’ll just finish off by saying if you feel you’d like to volunteer to act as a model for Marta drop her an email at marta [dot] gornicka [at] gme [dot] de - she’d love to hear from you.
The only down side of the whole day was the blisters I picked up – lovely shoes, but not suitable for walking round London in!
New Clothes Nowhere to Go
Two dresses, handbag and a pair of shoes – snakeskin 4″ heeled strappy sandals arrived yesterday from boohoo.com – possibly my favourite online clothes store.
Only one mistake, the shoes are going back. Think mutton, possibly tarty. Can’t get away with that anymore – they’d probably look fantastic on a twenty-something.
Anyhoos, tried them all on which only made me want to go out. BNO was out of the question even though I’d have loved to have gone. Too far at such short notice. Messaged Jane (local girl) on TV Chix, but she replied later saying she’d just got back from shopping at Meadowhall with her daughter. No joy there.
Stayed in and watched the concluding episode of Collision
Still, mustn’t complain – out on Tuesday. London, photoshoot – think different. Male and female dress modes. Got to sort out locations. Changing could be a problem, though. After that, going to a muggle meeting (dressed) where a group of people I’ve never met before are gathering in a restaurant/bar to discuss ‘Identity’. Emailed the organiser and she’s fine about me coming as Alex, or I’m assuming she is :)
The group meet once a month, in London, to discuss various subjects of a philosophical nature, and have a guest expert to keep everyone on the rails so to speak. It’s my first adventure of this kind – could be interesting.
Friday, I’m off to Coco’s second party. If you haven’t heard me wax lyrical about her house parties read the previous post.
Other than that been reading Joe McNally’s “Hot Shoe Diaries” – really entertaining. But not so useful if you don’t have a Nikon D700
I guess that’s all.
Partying With Coco
A party listed on the Events system at TV Chix caught my eye last week. Held at a country lodge, the pictures of the venue looked fabulous so I thought I’d give it go as it was only an hour’s drive away.
Situated in Leicestershire, maybe even Rutland, it’s an old work hunting ground of mine (OK,going back a few years now) and I loved the area, with towns like Melton Mowbray and Oakham. Mind you, shopping at some of their designer clothing outlets could put a severe strain on the bank account from what I can recall.
But back to the party, which took place on Friday. Arrived about 8pm – an hour later than planned, familiar story. Robert, Coco’s partner, greeted me at the door and before I knew it Coco was introducing herself with a glass of champagne for me.
We had a quick tour of the downstairs before being taken up to a bedroom (one of five) where Coco explained I could get changed and use the bathroom on the next floor down for my make-up. I’ve seen smaller living rooms.
Coco had a make-up artist on hand, Beverley, for anyone in need of assistance and also Michael, a wig consultant about to set up his own business in Nottingham.
He gave me some good advice about positioning a wig and getting the best out of it. As soon as he’s set up I feel a new hair purchase coming on. :)
As so often happens, a number of us congregated in the kitchen, well it’s where the drinks and food is, but a little later a number of us ended up in the oak-panelled sitting room. I quickly grabbed a spot on the floor with cushions in front of the big log fire.
Fell into chatting with Coco and she was saying that before she moved to ‘The Grange’ she was a collector of regency art and furniture, but now she’s in the process of replacing it with collectibles from the Queen Anne period as that’s the period ‘The Grange’ dates from.
One thing you may want to know is that Coco is very hospitable, which meant the bedrooms were available for those who had a need, but people were discreet and there was no pressure to ‘join in’. In fact, the gentleman were just that, gentleman. So, I don’t foresee any guests having any issues on that score and quite the contrary if that’s their scene.
I had a fabulous night with lovely guests and would recommend this to any girls/admirers wanting a fun, civilised party night.
Coco is considering holding these nights every penultimate Friday in the month and I’m really looking forward to the next one.
No doubt she’ll post details on TV Chix.