[description: a male and a female figure dressed in vines stand in an idyllic garden]
I've been waiting to take this photo for over a year. I scouted this location last summer, just days before the parks department came in and razed everything to the ground (I have no idea why they would do such a thing). It didn't grow in fast enough to appear lush again - like the Garden of Eden - by the end of the summer. So I had to wait the winter out. Ever since this spring, I've been keeping my eye on it, waiting for it to grow sufficiently full, all the while worrying that any day the parks department might come in and raze it all to the ground again.
It's also located in a relatively populated area, so finding it empty enough to go about my business was another challenge (though I was not "illegally" exposed at any time during this shoot, I really didn't want to deal with the stress and the distraction of having spectators). As is always the case when shooting outdoors, the lighting and the weather was another factor. I had to go and do the shoot when the right opportunity came up, not necessarily when every condition was perfect. And I couldn't take a lot of time to tweak every little detail, since every minute I spent there was another minute somebody might walk around the corner and spot me.
All that having been said, the opportunity I had worked out pretty well. I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with the result, but at least I can say that I did the best I could under the circumstances. And it certainly doesn't look bad. I really wanted to emphasize the dual nature of my gender, with a focus on my more masculine front, and my more feminine back (more or less). And what more famous minimally dressed male/female couple is there than Adam and Eve? And though I'm not religious, I like the symbolism of the Garden of Eden, as a Paradise on Earth, where I like to imagine that people (if they ever make it back there) can live in sexual innocence (not to be confused with ignorance) once more.
