#90 The making of a photograph

Anne decided that she needed some very delicate fabric for one of her shoots. Despite an extensive search, the right fabric was not to be found in the usual shops or the suppliers we deal with.

Dawn, Anne’s prop maker sourced some material but it needed modifying, needed to be more sheer than it already was. That is to say that every second thread had to be painstakingly pulled out in one go without breaking the thread (and we are talking about very fine threads).

There were about ten meters (just over ten yards) of the fabric, it doesn’t seem like all that long, but when every second thread needs to come out, it’s very, very long!

Initially, Dawn and an assistant spent about a week working on it, but needed to start work on other props, so the task was handed over to Anne’s two daughters Stephanie and Kelly. As you know from previous blogs, both work for Anne in the studio. They spent every spare second they had working on it as the deadline was looming. There were many sighs and groans coming from the work-table during those long days of thread pulling.

On the actual day of the shoot because the job was not quite finished, there were about seven of the team working on it that morning, including the nurse who works with us when we have children in the studio.

Even if Anne did not like the result, I think she would have been too frightened to mention it, it could have meant a mutiny in the studio. She did like it!!!

She joked with her daughters that she thought it might be a great idea to cover the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the fabric…in the style of the artist Christo…imagine how long that would need to be and how long it would take. I think the girls would be looking for alternative employment if that were the case.

The photograph is Kelly working away and actually looking rather happy about it!