Tango...Obsession...Rose Blood

The tango and photography are so very similar. Each is calculated improv...an obsession by it’s participants. The dancers and photographer each have their respective audiences that they want to draw into their art. The intensity of our tango dancer was so extreme, that all caution was swept away as how she was holding the rose in her teeth during her dreamy dance affair.

Her emotions had overwhelmed her entire being, disregarding any safety zone she might have objectively needed. The same kind of safety zone that a photo breaks free of...to tell a story where any onlooker can let their imaginations run wild.

It was necessary to construct and fine tune our rose so its beauty compared with the terrific look of my tango lady. My stylist provided dozens of beautiful roses from which to choose, with varying degrees of fullness...some with small buds and some totally open. The rose we finally selected rose looked great, but its thorns and greenery weren’t aligned where I wanted. The thorns were to touch her lips in specific spots where the blood was drawn and her hand was to be framed by leaves. So after our main shoot was completed, we had photographed various rose sections for their thorns and greenery. We positioned the components from four separate roses onto our star rose from the main photo.

Big thanks to Nicole Butler our talent and Karen Lynne our make-up artist for doing the tango with me during our photo obsession session. Yes, you can have three to tango.