When I set up a shoot I usually have a general idea of what I am trying to produce, but not a detailed plan of what it will be in the end.  It may be a feeling or, as in the last shoot with Katja, a style I wanted to emulate.  Some models seem to be able to see that and to understand that modeling is not just looking pretty.  In the brief moment the shutter is open she is an actress, a silent film star, and her movements, her posture, her eyes all tell a story in that one instant.  Sometimes we are both telling the same story but other times she puts a totally different spin on it.  Other models simply pose and don't really put any story into the shot.  Then you get a nice picture of a pretty girl, but the narrative isn't there.

When working with a model like katja I find that the story sometimes isn't what I thought it would be but as I start to work with the images it comes to me and I see where the narrative of the shot is going.  Then it becomes my goal to realize it and bring it out.  The shot "In the bedchamber of King Herod" was part of a shoot intended to emulate the style of A.C. Johnson, the photographer of the Ziegfeld Girls of the 1920s.  In some ways it works that way but as I looked at it I began to see a different story in her expression and pose and started thinking about what it needed to make it happen.  I started looking through my old images to find the right pieces to  flesh it out.  I think the result is pretty nice and am very happy with it.  Katja brought it to life.  I think her background as an artist model helps her to do that, but I think she has a different understanding of what she is doing in front of the camera or the artist.  She herself is an artist and it shows in the pictures.