Ivan Grundahl Night Model

I few months ago I bid on an amazing Ivan Grundahl coat on eBay. Much to my surprise, I snapped it up for about $140. It retailed for much, much more, but a brick and mortar store was selling last year’s inventory online.

Ivan Grundahl is a stellar Danish designer. The lines are sharp, the silhouettes are dramatic. His work is often asymmetrical. It’s deconstructed yet simple. To me, the pieces are very artistic.

I wore the coat to a movie a few weeks ago. Last night, out of the blue, my husband said, “can you put on that coat and come with me?” It was after ten pm and I wondered what he was up to. He grabbed his camera and tripod, an umbrella, and a stool, and took me to Ballard, a Seattle neighborhood.

He hoisted me up onto a loading dock by a set of train tracks and set up a shot. He wanted a model for an idea he had. Here’s what he created:

The photos are not manipulated. I love how they almost look black and white, but aren’t. Because we were out after dark, he used an exposure that opened the shutter for more light. The photos are slightly grainy, but that’s one of the things I love about them.

On the way home, we stopped in the Cascadia neighborhood and he took this shot:

Then we found an empty parking lot downtown Seattle, and he took a few more shots:

Finally, I convinced him to join me. He set the timer and we posed for a few shots together:

Usually, I’m the one with the tripod and timer. For this blog, I’m my own photographer. So it was nice to be a model for a night and follow someone else’s direction.