This is the fifth in a series of posts detailing my 2010 photo series ‘Roughing It.’ The images are based on characters and scenes from Mark Twain’s eponymous volume about his travels and adventures in Nevada and other Western states.
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“And while upon this subject I will remark that once in Star City, in the Humboldt Mountains, I took my place in a sort of long, post-office single file of miners, to patiently await my chance to peep through a crack in the cabin and get a sight of the splendid new sensation–a genuine, live Woman! And at the end of half of an hour my turn came, and I put my eye to the crack, and there she was, with one arm akimbo, and tossing flap-jacks in a frying-pan with the other. And she was one hundred and sixty-five [Being in calmer mood, now, I voluntarily knock off a hundred from that.–M.T.] years old, and hadnʼt a tooth in her head.”
Credits: Steph as the old woman. Makeup by Kari Vandenberg.
You may be wondering about my new logo. Here’s the background. My initials, of course, are A.G. In addition, I live in Nevada – the Silver State, and although it isn’t used as much anymore, silver prints were the standard in black and white photography for a very long time. Ag is the designation on the periodic table of the elements for silver. And of course, the Polaroid-esque frame ties everything back in to my profession.
The biggest event of the last few months, however, was the move into my new photo studio. Although I’ve had a studio for several years now, this time I devoted a lot of time and energy to construction a 40 foot cyclorama. This endless backdrop is a joy to work on. Where my old studio was limited by the size of backdrop paper that I bought, I can now photograph a motorcycle, a car, a small elephant…well, you get the idea. 