"early work" - loooong time ago

Today I received an email from one of my patrons  asking me who was that model that appeared in one of my tumblr-archives  and if there was more of her somewhere...

Well, this wonderful  woman with that spectacular black bush is Patrizia and I took those  photos on film more than 25 years ago with my Hasselblad and using two  battery flashes.

When internet came up I scanned some of the  prints for my "Hot Gallery" in the "huge" format of 800 pixels. It was  the time when we still connected with an analogue modem to the internet,  you remember: beeep beeep... Loading such a large photo took several  seconds and filled to entire screen of the top modern SVGA CRT displays  of 600x800 pixels that were standard until around the year 2000.

Patrizia  is an Italian woman who lived near Basel where I had my studio. She was  30 years young at that moment and I was totally fascinated by her  strong expression (and the wonderful details of her body, of course).

I  met her in a Restaurant where my ex-wife and I had dinner. She was  sitting on the same table together with her partner and I gave her my  card...

B.t.w. this is one of the things I miss here in Spain:  sharing tables in Restaurants. In Switzerland when a Restaurant is quite  full but there is some place on occupied tables, you ask if the chairs  are free and sit on the same table. Here in Spain a table is considered  strictly private zone and if you try to sit to somebody on the same  table you literally enter into the the most intimate zone. So you don't.  Despite the fact that the owner of the restaurant can't profit from all  his places (often one or two persons occupy a table for 4 or 6) it also  makes it much more complicated to come into contact with people you  don't know...

The photos you see in this little series are from the first session with her. I had some more sessions with her years later.

Although  I was very excited about most everything on her I always kept my  professional distance. I didn't want to lose such a wonderful model by  making her feeling uncomfortable and letting her know and feel how much I  liked her. I never touched her not even "a bit", of course, and I never  made any inappropriate comments. I simply behaved as usual and as you  would expect it from a professional photographer, and concentrated on my  work.

But in the very last session I had with her I noticed that  she opened very much and got very wet. Of course I liked it, but I  didn't say anything until the end, when she was already dressed again  and I collected the film rolls and packed my camera when I said: you  really enjoyed this session, didn't you? I noticed you were quite  excited...

Her answer was: Yes, I was. But you behave so fucking  cool all the time, I could believe I am in front of a deep freezer! This  is not exactly pleasant for a woman, when you give everything but feel  that you don't have any impact on your vis-à-vis!

In fact she was angry. Angry because I behaved professionally and kept my personal feelings for myself.

I tried to explain, but it was too late.

It  is a situation that I live quite often - the discrepancy between what  is asked for and what is expected. Especially now that "sexual offense"  sometimes is seen already in some words and one has to be extremely  careful, and on the other hand women want to feel that they attract and  excite us. Those are very fine lines and it is not always easy to do the  right thing.

For me it is just natural that I don't try to  "access" a model, not with words and even less with actions. As crazy as  it might seem, but because of this more than once I was really  insulted, called "impotent", "unmanly", "arrogant".... Women can be cruel  when disappointed.

Still, in sessions I concentrate on my work. I  try to be nice and friendly, to establish a warm and comfortable  atmosphere maybe with a little bit of erotic sparkle but within very  strict limits.

It can only get to something more when the  initiative comes from the model and is direct and unambiguous. For my  luck this happens from time to time. :-)