Although I have no tattoos myself, I've always found them very interesting. How does one choose his or her tattoo? Is there a special story behind it? How do you decide where to place it on your body?
Last Saturday I went with my friend Amber to a tattoo parlor in our hometown, Red Lotus Tattoo and Piercing, to photograph a tattoo she's been looking to get for a while now. She waited until our work schedules aligned (which took quite a few weeks) so that I could come with her. Not for the moral support really, she's no stranger to getting tattoos. No she just knew this was something I'd always wanted to capture after taking some shots of her getting her tongue pierced back in high school. This time it was a rose on her left hip, for her namesake, Amber Rose.
Her tattoo artist, Hayli A. Marquiss, was really nice and encouraged me to get up in her face if I needed to. So I did, shooting beside her, above her head, over her shoulder...I just wish it hadn't been a florescent light but whatever. Hayli (HAM) also answered a lot of my questions about getting tattoos, the kinds of people that she's met through her work, the kind of tattoos she's done, and what it really feels like to get one.
She asked me if I wanted to photograph some of the tattoos of the people she worked with. Although a nice offer, it occurred to me that photographing an already created tattoo just didn't do the trick for me. I want the process, I want to see the artist in action.
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