(This one starts a bit slow, but it leads up to a good-size group session. As always, there is man-on-man and woman-on-woman sex)
Joan sat down nude in front of the hot lights and turned away a from the camera to show the nape of her neck. "Are you getting this?" She asked Sylvia, who said "yes." On her neck was a tattoo showing two female symbols interlocked with two male symbols.
"Originally it was just two female symbols - I got it in college when I was going through a militant phase," Joan laughed. "I added the two male symbols because I could never completely give up men." Joan also had a line of poetry by Emily Dickinson circling her left upper arm: "Come slowly Eden/ Lips unused to thee/ Bashful sip thy jasmines/ As the fainting bee."
Sylvia had gathered friends and lovers for a photo collection based on their tattoos. Sylvia's interest in tattoos has been piqued when she and her husband Leonard had gotten tattoos together for their 40th anniversary. Leonard had gotten one of a woodland fairy (in reference to the name Sylvia coming from Sylvan, the Latin word for forest) on his left shoulder blade, while Sylvia had gotten one of a lion for Leonard on her right shoulder blade. True to their nature, they chose the specific images from art and literature. Sylvia had chosen the lion from a painting by Henri Rousseau of a lion pausing over ("but not devouring," Sylvia wanted it made clear) a sleeping woman, explaining that to her it symbolized Leonard's combination of strength and gentleness. Leonard in turn chose an image based on a drawing by John Charles Dollman of Titania from A Midsummer Night's Dream, joking that it was fitting as Titania was a "beautiful goddess who fell in love with an ass."
The idea was that people would pose showing their tattoos (with as little or as much nudity as they wanted) and describe why they got them, no matter how profound or frivolous the reason. Sylvia had decided to start with her friends, and if the photos were good enough she would expand it to a larger series or even a book. As an incentive to her friends, Sylvia said that the "official" photos would be followed by more intimate ones for private use.
After Joan was her husband Harry. On his right upper arm he had a Penrose Staircase, the famous optical illusion in which a staircase appears to keep ascending or descending without actually going anywhere. As an architect, Harry had always been fascinated by this image. On his left thigh he had a spider descending on a thread. This one had no deeper meaning.
"I just like spiders," said Harry with a smile and a shrug. Sylvia laughed.
"That's fine. They don't all have to be profound!"
Marie's tattoos all related to her heritage. On her left shoulder she had the shape of the continent of Africa in red, gold, and green. On her right shoulder she had a blue fleur-de-lys from the French part of her Creole background. Her husband Terry had several tattoos expressing his passion for physics, music (he played jazz guitar in a band on weekends) and spirituality. On his left shoulder he had the symbols for the Planck Relation ("E=MC squared was too obvious") while on his right shoulder he had a drawing of Schrodinger's Cat. On his left forearm he had a treble clef, and on his right forearm he had a bass clef. On his back he had a lotus flower encircled by the Daimoku written in Japanese. Finally he had a heart on his chest decorated with a grouping of eight letters, presumably initials in honour of Marie. What the initials stood for, Terry declined to say.
"It's a very private thing," Terry said, smiling and blushing as he looked to Marie.
Finally Bridget sat down, beaming at the camera. Taking a deep breath, she said "this could take awhile," which drew a huge laugh from everybody. She decided to begin with her legs and move up, all while explaining her relationship to tattoos
"I was raised mostly by my grandfather, who had tattoos from his time in the Navy," began Bridget as she sat on the stool. "One of my first tattoos was to honour his memory." Bridget kicked up her left leg to reveal an anchor with her grandfather's initials and dates on her calf. "He also loved that old song 'Lydia The Tattooed Lady' and played it for me all the time. After that I was hooked."
Bridget had planned out her tattoos with an eye for symmetry. "I never wanted to be one of those people who had tattoos that seemed random and meaningless." She indicated how she had a tattoo on her right leg with a cross and the date of other important people in her life. She moved up to her thighs, where she had a dove on her right and an owl on her left, which she explained referred to the Greek goddesses Aphrodite and Athena.
Bridget teasingly traced a finger over her pubic mound, where she had a tattoo of ocean waves framing a full moon with the zodiac symbol for Cancer ("I'm a water person, I can't escape that.") Around her navel was the loop of an ankh pointing down, and the symbols around her breasts turned out to be Ancient Greek prayers to her two patron goddesses. Finally she revealed the wings on her back: they were modelled after an ancient Egyptian solar disk.
After Sylvia had finished taking the "official" photos, she began to set things up for the "intimate" session. The studio lights were hot, so the models drank cold drinks while chatting. They had all seen each other nude many times before, but usually not with an eye towards looking at body art. Tattoos were in an odd way conversation starters, and yet it was considered prying or even rude to ask someone what their tattoos meant. The model session had let everyone learn a bit more about each other.
Sylvia walked over to the group, carrying what looked like a stack of cards. She led everyone to another part of the studio where she had set up her camera in front of a couch with two armchairs on either side.
"Allow me to put my director hat on for a moment while I explain my plan," she said.
