I first talked about this series back in October 2009…perhaps some of you have seen a couple of images posted on my Facebook page. I simply never found the right moment to post the whole series…I felt it was going to drown among paintings, drawings and random events, and would never get the attention I thought it deserved. But now it has passed way too much time and I feel better to post it now than to forget the pictures in my infinite photo archive…(click to enlarge).

I loved taking these pictures. The model is Clara, a friend from hometown who has already posed for several paintings of mine (e.g. Photo Frame and Armchair). She lived in London for a year until December 2009. Being that we were both living in Europe at the time, we agreed we should take the opportunity and meet in Paris for a photoshoot. We met on a September Saturday morning, only for a few hours. We didn’t plan much, I even thought we weren’t going to find a place to take the pictures. I deeply thank Kirsty Mitchell, who I met the same weekend, for helping me with that, and her partner Matthew Stevenson for carrying the heaviest and most expensive watermelon I’ve ever bought. Oh yes, the watermelon is the only prop I planned in advance. I couldn’t help but visualize Clara’s ‘Lydia-from-Beetlejuice’ features with a juicy watermelon. It turned out it was her favorite fruit so she was extremely happy to eat the entire thing  -swear I didn’t know!