From the light of a different sun

[sauvin]

Would you have seen them if you hadn't suspected there might be something besides the eyes and the pallor to see?

[ltroifanatic]

That's a beautiful shot.I did see a few of the creatures at first.(mainly because I know your pics are often more than they seem.. .) Would you be able to do one like it with Eli as the subject? I think she would look gorgeous done in that style.

[dongregg]

I saw the snake and the tiger without being prompted.

Another vote for an Eli portrait like that one.

[sauvin]

I tend to use images of Chloe (even her age is just a little off at times) because they're very easy to find. She's an American superstar, you'll find her in magazines, newspapers, billboards, basketballs and bottles of perfume everywhere. Images of Lina are a lot rarer, which is a genuine pity from my POV because hers is also a rarer beauty.

The thing of it is, she's Swedish. One of my two high school girlfriends was half German and half Scandinavian, and I think that part was Norwegian. Folks from that peninsula might beg to differ, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference that I can see; northern Europeans from the Germanic language family tend to be of a kind from the perspective of a man whose other major language is babbled all over a sizeable chunk of the Mediterranean beachfront. She was outwardly wooden, stoic, almost icily reserved and mercilessly controlled, and I loved every little single minute of the two years or so we had together. Still do, in fact, 40 and 45 years on. She'll still be very much alive in my heart when I'm festering in a box in the ground under a cold stone.

Man, I probably shouldn't be BB'ing and drinking at the same time. Happy nearyew or yewnear or something!

This probably factors into what i mean when I say that Abby is a bit "slinkier". Cool, yes, reserved to an extent, yes, resigned or outright depressed, yes, but Abby is also a lot more open to physical affection than Eli is - a lot more giving, truth be told. The one thing I only ever saw Anne do once is cry. Even then, when she was busy shaking and soaking my shoulder with tears and slobber on one (and only ONE) single occasion, she was quiet. There was no boohooing, no screaming, no moaning, there was nothing but a few very muffled sniffles and quiet huffs, but make no mistake, she was hurting, and she soaked my shoulder right proper.

Eli ain't Anne (and Anne, I promise you, ain't Eli), but there are some resemblances. Another reason I like Eli better than I do Abby is that she kinda resembles my daughter. That Lebanese thing, you know, and I think that's what got me strongly preferring girls with black hair more than blondes or brunettes (and I'm the idiot who won't realise half the time the girl I'm oggling is herself "black" or "mexican" or something).

All of that is personal crap, and it's really only germane in my living room, but here's the thing: the scene on Jocke's back notwithstanding, I just can't see Eli crying. I also can't see her playing the "little girl" game that may (or may not) have been part of Abby's seducing the jogger under the tunnel. Either girl is vulnerable to her boy's judgement, and probably very much in equal measure, and either girl faces that judgement with the same magnitude of strength, but with a difference of character, if that makes any sense. It's not something I can articulate, Eli just seems to be grimmer and more icily determined to endure and survive, where Abby just seems determined to get it over with and face her doom.

Nothing in this image is hidden. What you see is all there is. She might be decently dressed and all cleaned up to a nice little polish, but this Eli just about as naked as she's ever been since long before nudity stopped meaning anything to her, and she isn't lumbering or ambling or shuffling to the living room, she's actually striding in a slow, measured kind of way. She knows the ambulance people might be picking her up with a sponge, a pancake turner and a vacuum cleaner in just a few minutes, and she's clearly not ecstatic about the possibility, but she's not going to back out, back down, change her mind, or beg.

And, like Anne, she'll make virtually no sound at all on those very, very rare occasions when she can't suppress a cry.

[dongregg]

Thanks for sharing about Anne.

I can't stop looking at Eli's picture.

The red shirt works better than the bland off-white one. BTW, she's wearing new denim bellbottoms. You see that when she hands her shirt and pants to Oskar. Or not. That's what I think I'm seeing.

[sauvin]

Apart from some vaguely intentional blood symbolism or some sort or other, I turned her shirt a darkish red in order to enhance contrast. Her surroundings are dimmed for the same reason. A "deathly pallor" is hard for me to pull off in bright light. I can play with the cyans, yellows and greens all day and not hit something I'm happy with.

[ltroifanatic]

What a great pic.It's one of my favorite scenes in the movie and just by chance I'm reading that exact scene from the novel.Love it to pieces.Thanks for sharing.She's so beautiful inside and out I could stare at her forever.She has an inner strength and beauty but also hides her pain and loneliness behind that stoic exterior..Sublime..

[PeteMork]

I agree, it's one of the best scenes in the film, as well as the book. The enormity of the sacrifice she's willing to--almost off-handedly--make for Oskar at this point, describes exactly the steely character Sauvin has described above.

[sauvin]

Some playing around in progress, but I thought it would be worth sharing in its current state. You can tell it's not "finished" because I didn't crop it.

The general fuzzy idea was to depict Abby coming out of a wall. Not too sure how well that effort has succeeded, and this wouldn't be the first image that ended up being something very different from what I'd planned.

What sort of "caption" do you suppose an image like this might evoke?

[ltroifanatic]

How about this one?..It may be too long though."Owen,I grew to understand that people don't always build walls to keep others out.There are times it is done out of necessity to protect whatever is left within".Or maybe something by Isaac Newton? "We build to many walls and not enough bridges".Another great pic btw.