I won't lie, first time I saw Jesi I wanted to photograph her. Something about the curves of her face, the way her smirk electrically altered all those curves. Also, she had the most amazing full back tattoo. One of these days I'll just dive in, take photos of nothing but the heaviest of the tattoo culture. But until that day, when I chuck my job, pack my girlfriend into my car and follow, like deadheads to a Bob Wier concert, all the tattoo conventions held in the U.S., I'll just take photos of folks who happen to have awesome tattoos.

Now, all that said, I did not happen to take even a single shot of Jesi's tattoo at our shoot.

It all revolves around the nature of getting to know someone while photographing them, there's the explicit agreement that they will open up to you, for you, for these photos, and that you in turn will respect them and make them look good. I talk to my models(I talk to everyone, really, a lot, I've even noticed myself going on and on about how someone talks too much), ask them questions, share stories, open myself up to them as they do to me.

And, given all that, it seems almost...disrespectf ul to ask to photograph a large back tattoo, I almost feel as if, at a first meeting, a first shoot, I've not yet earned the right to ask for that level of openness. I tend to file such requests away, perhaps for the end of the shoot.

But inevitably I've become too involved in the shoot itself to even remember I wanted that shot, and it's only once I'm driving away I even remember that Jesi's back is inked to the gills.

But there's no regret, as the shoot was good, Jesi and her roommate Tim being, amongst all the other complimentary adjectives I could use to describe them, incredibly Decent Folk, inviting and inclusive, the kind of people that are in hideously short supply in L.A. But you do the work, you'll find them, like I did.

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lou o' bedlam

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