Afterbirth

My website went live yesterday, and in its wake I feel an exhilaration, and a strange sense of post-partum blues. We worked long and diligently towards making it flow beautifully but there are still some technical glitches to tackle today. Captions to be added to photographs, small touches that will bring the viewer more maneuvering ease.

Please do take some moments to check it out: www.jillgenser.com

Our website for OffCenter Studios should be complete in 10 days. We are still shooting models and searching for new ways to dazzle with props and lighting. It is such a conceptual

idea for portraiture that our creative engines are burning constantly with ideas.

So here I awaiting the sun to rise with my cat, Oliver, who thinks our pre-dawn sessions are going to be a forever perk in his kingdom. He is a morning feline. This exhausted photographer wishes to return to being a creature of the night.

Only Beauty

This weekend, only beauty. The kind of beauty that does not stop the heart but makes it expand in gratitude.

Click. There is no greater gift as a photographer than to work with models who are full of spirit and a galactic light that can transform your world in 1/60th of a second.

Click. Dancing eyes, sleek bodies, sweet souls, each one so awake.

Suela, Evie, and Arber were the essence of humility and elegance during our marathon shoot at the studio. As Rick Peterson's co-photographer, I must now give a standing ovation to my partner. His mastery of light, staging and everything else under the photographic sun turned magical people into over 500 magical images between us.

Chosing the best photographs is like comparing a flower to a star.

Absence-Missing Mexico

It is a strange feeling, missing one place while you are firmly planted in another. I move slowly across the desert each day. Its brittle landscape and searing heat somehow scar my soul. There are moments when I have to close my eyes and listen for the songs of Mexico.

My new downtown office/gallery is lined with my photographs of San Miguel de Allende. These images are not yet familiar to me, all captured within the last six months with my sleek Canon 5D Mark II or its sidekick, the Canon G9. I often ponder my photo's as I write at my desk. When I am weary, I find myself making the gestures of a dreamer. I miss the tiny winged angels, the vibrant colors, the dance of its people. I long to sleep under a Mexican sky, to hear the church bells peal, to watch the palomas (doves) perched upon rosy canterra ready to take flight.

Yet I sit diligently at my computer in the studio and try to concentrate on something more tangible. I will be announcing an exciting new business venture soon with my partner, Rick;

my website will finally be launched within days.

The Mexican people live for Milagros, miracles. Their belief system is a complex one that is often symbolized in unsophisticated representations that are full of whimsy. There is a sense of complete devotion attached to milagro's, an unwavering sense of faith and hope.

With some sentiment, I move back into this brand new day. There is beauty everywhere. Miracles can hide at the edge of every horizon. I search the perfect sky from my window,

and believe.

San Miguel de Allende is a temptress. She seduces you with her beauty, her sorcery. It somehow gets beneath your skin. She is much like a demanding child. Notice me! Notice me!

Your senses open quickly as each door closes on the familiar. I let the colors fill me, pour life back into each void, and release that empty space that I once called home. The blue of the sky is beyond any imagination. In Spanish, Azul. Oh, yes. How many shades of yellow are there in the Mexican rainbow? Reds like a fiery lover?

The burdens I carry are suddenly lighter. In the distance, I hear laughter and then gentle music rising from the Jardin. The happiness that drifts everywhere exudes the sweetness that I soon come to know as Mexico.

I walk my own geography in an entirely different way as I move across the cobblestone streets, all with strange sounding names: Hospicio, Quebrada, Mesones, Tenerias. As I turn right onto Orizaba, I find yet another world.