Witches Pond by Summer '07 contender Andrew Rhea

For a film class, I once did a scene from Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law where I took on the part of Laurette (originally played by Ellen Barkin). In the scene, I was kicking the character of Zach (played by the radical Tom Waits) out of my house by aimlessly tossing about his belongings. To successfully capture my rampage on camera in a small, window-less acting studio, my teacher decided after a few takes that we would proceed filming the scene as a close-up, meaning I couldn't move wildly out of frame and somehow had to contain my angry impulses within relative stillness. At some point in the heat of passion, I slammed my open palm down on a black wooden box (which, in acting school, translates into a ubiquitous and multi-functional piece of furniture) and did something like pop a blood vessel in the center of my palm. Needless to say, it hurt--after all, I was acting hard, but more importantly, it was bad ass.

This memory, which encompasses a number of bad ass associations, runs parallel in my mind with the above photo by Virginia-based photographer Andrew Rhea, and not in the sense that the nudie girl has a bad ass, but in the sense that she looks so bad ass sprawled naked on that bare mattress. Maybe my film class memory arose because there is a seedy-motel-room-thing going on here, which reminds me of throwing my scene partner's records out of our imaginary Louisiana abode. Or maybe because there is an overwhelming Jarmusch-ian (?) quality to this photo that includes loss, sexuality, and an inexplicable coolness.

I'm somewhere on the page with Rhea about the moodiness of his photos. He says, "I want to take pictures that have the same feeling that Tom Waits' songs do." Let's only hope he isn't being literal and referring to songs like "I'm Your Late Night Evening Prostitute" or 1992's "All Stripped Down". If there's any Waits song that this picture reminds me of, it's "Poncho's Lament":

Well the stairs sound so lonely without you
And I ain't made my bed in a week
Coffee stains on the paper I'm writing
And I'm too choked up inside to speak

Of this Waits-like quality, Rhea explains:

I just love the way he captures a dark and strange America, where you can hop trains and hang out with seedy carnival folks in empty bars. Just on a personal level, I feel like a lot of the mythical aspects of America are gone; there’s no moving out west, there’s no fighting heroic wars, and there’s no big city metropolis, with all its culture and glamour for kids in small towns to dream about.

Having not yet read Rhea's bio, it was these words of heightened romantic idealism that made me realize he had to be young--at least one of the youngest entrants to this season's competition, and its great to see photos imbued with this youthful quality to them. His images are alive and passionate. They are emotive, too, but they are not overwhelmingly sad or nostalgic, at least not primarily so. It's exciting to feel the still-beating heart in someone's work.

Of where he currently stands in the field of photography, Rhea says:

Now we live our lives on computers and through text messages, and I want to take pictures that make me feel like there’s still mystery and adventure to be found in America. I don’t know if I’ve done that yet--captured my views on my country, but I hope to some day. Right now I’m just trying to document my world, and remember the parts of it that are exciting and strange to me, the parts that romanticize being young and confused and in love.

The quality I enjoy in Rhea's photos is the same quality I adore in Jarmusch's films and in Godard's early films--this sense of play and romanticized storytelling. And it's even nicer to find it in an unpretentious embodiment. I also want to add that my boyfriend totally said I should post this photo, but that's just because boys like nudie girls. And his name is Andrew, too.

I'm guessing that this Andrew, a 20-year-old college student from 25 miles outside of Richmond Virginia, also liked nudie girls since he submitted the above photo. In his biography, he states that he grew up in a small town called Chester. "[It] was once a weekend destination for wealthy Richmond-ers," explains Rhea, "[that] over time because like any other suburb. That's why I like living there, [because] it's the kind of place where you are forced to be imaginative and creative, instead of having fun handed to you on a silver platter." Knowing that his idea of fun would make us here at the jb curious, he extended an offer to visit him in Chester, where he would take us to the rope swing and to get milkshakes at the Chester Village Grill, and honestly, I don't have it in me to resist a Virginian milkshake.

I have to go to work now. Unfortunately, we don't serve milkshakes there. But, you can get one for me somewhere in your hometown. And then, you can spend your free time entering the competition.

P.S. I had to include this awesome and totally relevant picture somewhere.