Photography, poetry, and how to do book on mermaids

[pagios]

My little book, How to Speak Mermaid, in first draft nearly done pdf format. http://williammistele.com/howtospeakmermaid1.pdf
I put out a global casting call for women who could imitate mermaids. No women actually responded but I did get mermaids
who are inside women's bodies. The book has about ten different women in it. The trick in doing a photo shoot was getting
the girl to put aside her human personality long enough to allow her inner mermaid to come out.
To this end, I often interview the girl for three to ten hours getting her life history on video before the shoot. Then of course
I will often write her a poem even before I meet her meditating on her aura. And then of course there is the normal process
for anyone dealing with spirits who are from the Other Side--you have to travel at least half way to their realm
so they think you are one of them before they really open up to you. About four of the women took about two years
of corresponding with them before they reached that point of being willing to talk. After all, they had never met another
human being who understands their race much less another woman like themselves. Of course it is easy when the girl
googles "mermaid" "human" and gets my web site (williammistele.com/videopoems.html) and discovers I am the only one
she has ever heard of who understands who she is inside, like Serena Brooke, two time second world champion pro surfer
from Australia who emailed and wanted to meet me, go swimming together and meditate together.
The visual image actually, to get the photo right, requires that I "fall in love with the girl" during the shoot and also separately gain
her total trust so she lets down all her barriers during the shoot. Then her inner mermaid can be seen. Of course,
it helps to have trained for thirty years in meditation and magic so you can mentally become one with her as you
look through the lens. Otherwise, the photos would simply be external shots without the real chemistry of the Other Side shining through.
Oh, I didn't mention--it helps a great deal to get the mermaid queens to okay your photo shoots. If I try to use a model
who smokes cigarettes or who is a human woman they will either see that my camera falls into the water
or that mysteriously the shots do not record correctly. And then the water is a problem. With mermaids coming to watch the shoot,
the water even though warm here in Honolulu where I shoot is always cold for the girls. Even Serena who surfs off Ireland in a wet suit
said the water was really cold. So I save them getting into the water with their full bodies until just the end of the shoot.
The only other point that presents difficulty is that every single mermaid woman I have done a shoot with is uninhibited beyond
human understanding regarding nudity. They simply do not like wearing bathing suites. And they do not like pictures of themselves with
clothes on. Consequently I have had to specialize in doing "implied nudes" in order to stay within their comfort zone
and also get photos that I can actually use in a book.
Oh yeah, and your publisher will think you are making it all up and are doing a kind Sport's Illustrated model thing. The remedy
for that is to have your publisher and his wife meet a group of these mermaid women. They then realize that they have never
met women like this before in their lives even though they have already met and published books by maybe 500 New Age Authors.
Oh yeah, men are a problem. I haven't figured out yet how to have human men around mermaid women because they inevitably
become obsessed and start acting irrational due to their obsession. I haven't quite figured out how to solve that problem yet other
than to never have men around doing the mermaid get togethers. I am working on that. The one or two mermen I have interviewed, however,
do not have those problems though they have separate issues unique to them about being here in a body of a Homo sapiens.
Yours, William Mistele reporting from Hawaii.


http://williammistele.com/howtospeakmermaid1.pdf

[Lily]

with one exception, there are only pictures of semi-naked, young females conforming to the current standard of beauty.

where are the full bodied and older merwomen? oh wait. you did say mer-maid, so older is probably out.

[Bracken]

No. "The girls" (ach!) are not mermaids but young, slim, white women with an apparent Max Factor addiction, prepared to get their collective kits off for your unimaginative soft-porn poses. I think this thread would be better moved to The Skeptical Druid.

[skydove]

How about a chapter on sea cows( manatees)?
I've just skimmed the book so can only say it seems a bit lacking in sharks teeth though there are some beautiful passages.

[Bracken]

Sea cows!!!
How very dare you!

[skydove]