Chad Michael Ward

[Wednesday] From the Archives: "Midnight in the Room of a Thousand Decisions"

Added 2015-07-15 17:13:58 +0000 UTC

I met Katie West online in the late 90s. She was a college student in Canada with a penchant for nude self-portraits, I was an aspiring comic book writer. We both had a love of author Warren Ellis, and met through his message board.

Nearly a decade later, we finally met in person. I photographed her naked on top of my loft's rooftop overlooking downtown Los Angeles, she took nude self-portraits in my living room.

Now here we are, another decade nearly over, sitting together in a swank hotel suite in Hollywood. Katie is naked again and I, of course, am on hand to photograph it.

The thing with Katie and I is...we never plan our shoots. We just show up and figure it out in the moment. It's well after midnight, we've already spent most of the day traipsing about the city taking photos, gorging ourselves on Mexican food and exploring the Old Zoo.

"Now what?" she asked me, not wanting the day to end just yet.

I rummaged through our prop bag, found the Tom Banwell bunny mask that I had been dying to shoot. Now seemed like the perfect time to bring it out.

"I want something vulnerable," I tell her.

Those are the last words we speak for an hour. She pulls on a pair of pantyhose, opts for a pair of white tennis shoes and takes the mask from me.

We sit in silence, Katie moving through poses, lost in her own head. I follow with my camera, falling in love with her with every new pose as I always do, as though I'm only seeing her for the first time all over again.

And then it's over. The moment has passed.

It's well past midnight now. Time to give in to sleep, to recharge and see what tomorrow brings.

Technical Details: Shot with a Canon 7D and 5DmkII with a 16-35mm f2.8L II USM lens. Lit with a single Einstein head with 3 foot Octagon soft box.