Embracing the Moment: Embodying Mystery, Curiosity, and Generosity as an Artist
Image by @rgaleriacom
“I hear you say, ‘Tell a story with the lens.’ I get telling a story as a writer, but how does a person do that in a single moment or frame?” I say this to the award-winning cinematographer and photographer Scott Bosworth, who happens to go to church with me. Before Sunday service, he agrees to talk craft over coffee.
He tells me how a mediocre test shot, the first in an hours-long photoshoot for an album, captured a model with her guard down. It ended up being the album cover.
“You don’t have to take great photos. Skill is great, but what you want is that moment of connection with a person. You want to see into their soul,” he says.
We spend an hour together. I mentally store the wisdom he spouts,
“Mystery and uncertainty are the artist’s friends. It drives other people crazy, but it’s what we need to do what we do.”
He finishes with a story that changed his life. Early in his career, he was on an assignment to visually capture the ongoing destruction of slum houses made of trash in India. As he was leaving, a throng of children gathered around his car. In the middle, a young girl’s gaze bore straight into him. In perfect English, she asked, “Why are you here?” That moment changed him.
“Know why you’re doing what you do,” he says.
Besides wishing I had recorded our conversation, I am grateful to receive his final charge to honor people and their stories. A moment of serendipity, a flash of unplanned but deeply meaningful connection, is quite familiar to me as a writer. It helps me to hear what Scott means by “the moment” in his own stories, a form that conveys any concept in experiential terms, whether in word or frame.
A few hours later I find myself in Kansas City’s Crossroads district with photographer Jenaé Weinbrenner. She’s allowing me to shadow her for an outdoor portrait session. When I tell her about my project, she offers me a fascinating lead into black women’s theology, which could be informative to my project. Then she invites me to ask questions.
On the shoot, I observe carefully how she interacts with her model. The model brings her cat Cha-cha, who also becomes a part of the shoot. Cha-cha attracts some bystanders. They also become a part of the shoot. So Jenaé goes with it. She’s laid back, extremely flexible, and moves with a subtle sense of purpose. I also notice her clarity of confidence. She knows what she wants, trusts her instincts, and adjusts when necessary.
Over chips, salsa, and coke afterward, Jenaé shows me the shots on her camera. Her photojournalistic training has taught her to be interested in a person without taking on their mood too much or trying to fix them, which she admits is hard.
At a recent photo shoot at a middle school, she witnessed 13- and 14-year-old girls verbally degrade their appearance. The mom in her wanted to shake them awake to their innate beauty. “Older women do it too,” Jenaé says. “‘Can you take off 10 years?’ they ask. I say, ‘Why?’ but only if it’s the right person. I don’t want to worsen their shame.”
No matter what someone brings to a photoshoot, she encourages, “Be curious.”
This connects with what Scott says earlier about honoring a person’s story. Mystery exists in the moment and the connection between photographer and model; both are essential to the artist’s work.
Both Scott and Jenaé are incredibly generous: with their time, advice, and heartening words. They are also genuinely interested in my work and affirmed the significance I feel with telling women’s stories through portrait and poetic story. That is another level of generosity not every artist can give.
As I drive home, I am invigorated by being with fellow artists who follow mystery and curiosity. I muse, “They speak my language.” The language of attentiveness. They practice it in their bodies as they do their craft. It overflows in their words and actions because it’s who they are.
That moment of connection, if we are paying attention, often happens when we step into unknown spaces. This is a diehard conviction of mine. Thanks to Scott and Jenaé, I have one more word to describe it: generosity.
*Scott Bosworth: photography, cinematography, Instagram.
