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When conversing with someone unaware of his fame,
the fine-art photographer David Fischer is often
asked, “What kinds of photos do you like to take?”
Fischer might hesitate and look away and then
look back and then might say, “Kodachromes.”
The answer, while true enough, is incomplete. And
it puzzles people. So Fischer more often, and with the
same timidity, offers something more concrete. “My
favorite subject,” he says, “is female nudes.”
No one ever asks him why.
The first time he ever made that claim Fischer had not
yet shot one frame of a naked lady. The year was
1967 or ’68, and he said it to a co-ed he hardly knew,
in a college cafeteria line. She didn’t flinch but calmly
looked him in the eye. “Sounds like fun,” was her reply.
And so, soon after that, in a dorm room with poor light,
with the door locked tight, the young woman and Dave
Fischer created art of sorts. She had posed before,
she said, for a figure drawing class. While Fischer
fidgeted with his gear, the woman removed her
blouse and skirt and underwear. Then, from her
purse she brought out a flask, of olive oil, she said.
The sketchers had needed highlights, which the oil
supplied. Fischer yielded to her judgment. She
gave herself a gleam from clavicle to ankle
and declined Dave’s offer to lend a hand.
None of the pictures produced that day deserved
enlargement in the darkroom. But from the session Fischer
learned some lessons, of olive oil and other light enhancers.
And he tenderly recalls that the model and artist got along.
They felt friction-free all throughout the shooting.
♦
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