Friday, September 25, 2009

The Making of the Albatross Project

For those of you who follow my website or my fan site on Facebook (hi, Mom!), you might know about one of my current endeavors: the Albatross Project. Secret code name: show me your ta-tas.

The impetus for this project was just my fascination with the saying "the albatross around his neck." I loved visualizing a bird wrapped around someone like a scarf.

Truth be told, I didn't even really know how to use the expression properly. So I did some research. The phrase comes from a poem by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge called The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In the poem, a sailor shoots down an albatross trailing the ship. Because albatrosses are thought to be good omens, his fellow sailors think he has cursed the boat and, as penance, force him to wear the albatross around his neck. Low and behold, the ship does find back luck: with no wind for days, the entire crew dies of thirst when they cannot make port. Yikes!

Nowadays, the expression is used to describe something that is holding someone back. Usually the albatross is external. Maybe it is a person or a thing. Like a businessman who buys a building and cannot rent it or sell it, his money is all tied up in the building, so he can't invest in other things. Total albatross. It is important that in the example there was an overwhelming number of obstacles because the expression connotes a certain type of pervasive negative effect on the person.

So I started asking people what were their albatrosses. And I simultaneously thought, maybe I should get models to be my decolletages. I mentioned the project to my friends. I posted it on Facebook. And people started responding. So, I connected the dots. I would find people to volunteer their albatross and their necks.

Thing is, most individuals don't have a really pure albatross in their lives. I guess I don't know a lot of businessmen. Instead, people talked about anxieties, addictions, hardships, hang-ups. And maybe I will be accused of not knowing the true meaning of "an albatross around someone's neck" much like Alanis Morissette was accused of not being able to define "ironic," but what people were willing to share with me, and willing to expose was so inspiring, it didn't matter. People divulging inner strife, exposing themselves to me physically and emotionally, me printing something in response to that interaction--I started to realize this project was completely different from anything I had done yet.

I was interacting with the subject of my work. Literally for once, not figuratively. The dialogue was not just in my head, it was with someone else who had something to say. And it was really fun. People tell funny stories when they're naked. But all kidding aside, the things we talked about--the things I was meant to put around their necks--they were really relatable. Even though these were specific problems, they were also universal. And yet, every example was different from the next.


There is this one, blatant constant: everyone is asked the same question. "What is the albatross around your neck?" The best way I could interpret that structure into the visual print was to make a constant in the series. Thus, everyone poses in the same way. The parameters of the albatross question are simple, square, and straight. That's reflected in the placement of the subject and in the squareness of the print itself.

So far I have printed three subject (one of which I'd like to redo). Part of the pacing has to do with the fact I have several projects I am working on now, and part of it is the attempt to use this project as a means of experimentation with different ways to use portraiture and symbolism in my work. I want to show range with each subject. I want to express the individual. I want people to relate to a specific print because the image is touching a nerve specifically. So I am taking my time. I have maybe 6 more subjects photographed that I haven't started printing, but I'd ultimately like to do about 20 in this series. Seems like a good number.


If you'd like to get involved with the Albatross Project, go to the contacts page of my website and drop me an email.