Overview
Camille Oken is a central character in “Portrait of Camille Oken.” She is a portrait photographer in Flagstaff whose work has recently gone viral and drawn the attention of the photography world.
Biography
Camille picks up Carter, a New York arts writer, at Flagstaff Pulliam Airport after he arrives to profile her. She drives a messy white Corolla and uses the Instagram handle “angel of light,” which she describes as an ideal to strive for.
Before allowing Carter to profile her, Camille says she wants to photograph him. She offers to do the portrait for free because she needs to see him in her work before he can write about her.
Camille brings Carter out with local friends at a Flagstaff bar. Later, while sitting with him in her parked car, she says she fears change, staying the same, getting old, being left behind, and especially forgetting the present feeling. Carter connects this fear to the purpose of her portrait work.
At her studio near the red rocks outside Flagstaff, Camille shows Carter her printed portraits and explains her four-color process. She applies black, cyan, yellow, and magenta separately and imperfectly to canvas from a photo negative, creating images Carter describes as dreamlike.
During Carter’s session, Camille sets lights, cloths, skylights, and music but waits for the right moment to take the photograph. Over several hours, she and Carter discuss fear, purpose, art, her parents, a past fight, and an anonymous collage website she ran in 2010.
Camille captures Carter in one photograph after he becomes overwhelmed and starts crying. She then tells him that the portrait will turn out well and that he can profile her.
Camille is last described after Carter calls to ask whether she will date him if he stays in Flagstaff and quits his job. Carter reports that she becomes serious and that they plan to meet at Sweet Remembrance on Tuesday.