Monika May Rooftop Secret 2: The Story Starts Moving
Updated: Oct 6
Monika May Rooftop Secret 2: The Story Starts Moving Backstage
Monika May Rooftop Secret 2 is the video version of our Rooftop Secret photo set for MetArt. I know that sounds like a simple distinction, but it changes the way I remember the shoot. A photograph lets you hold one expression for as long as you like. Video gives that expression a moment before and a moment after, and suddenly the interesting question is not only what Monika is showing you. It is what she might do next.
That is the little challenge hidden in a title like Rooftop Secret. A secret can be suggested in a single frame, but when the scene moves, it has to keep its nerve. You cannot ask every second to announce itself. I wanted this video to leave room for anticipation, for the feeling that something is being shared without being explained to death. Maybe that is why I like the title so much. It gives the imagination a job, and mine was busy.
With the photo set, I could choose the exact instant that carried that feeling. In video, I have to trust the space around the instant, too. That is exciting, and a little uncomfortable if you are the person responsible for shaping it. I can be tempted to chase the beautiful moment too quickly, as if it might escape. Then I remind myself that the wait can be part of the beauty. Monika does not need me rushing to put a full stop on every thought.
What stays with me about filming a companion piece is that funny shift in attention. I am still looking for the details I would love in a photograph, but I am also listening, in a sense, to the rhythm of the whole thing. Not necessarily to sound. To timing. To how long a mood can linger before it becomes something else. It is a more patient kind of looking, which is not always my natural talent when someone as captivating as Monika is in front of me.
There is a playful tension in that patience. You want to be close to the moment, but not crowd it. You want the sensuality to feel present without telling the viewer what to feel every second. I catch myself thinking, David, leave a little mystery alone. That private conversation in my head is hardly glamorous, but it is honest. Sometimes the best direction I can give myself is to stop trying to make a moment more beautiful than it already feels.
Monika is central to why this works as a video, rather than simply as a moving reminder of the photos. The appeal is not just in an image of her, lovely as that image can be. It is in the possibility of change, in the way a look or a mood cannot be pinned down quite so neatly once time is allowed into the frame. I find that incredibly sexy. It asks me to pay attention instead of merely admiring, although, yes, I can manage both.
The number 2 in the title makes me smile a little. It sounds so tidy, like you can file a feeling under a sequel and move on. But the video is not just a second helping of Rooftop Secret. For me, it is another way into the same idea. The photo set offers those delicious little stops in time. This version lets the seconds between them matter. If you have seen the photographs, you know the invitation. Here, you get to stay with it longer.
I do not want to pretend I can explain the whole chemistry of a shoot afterward. Half the time, explaining it too neatly takes away the part I love. I remember the concentration it asks of me, and that mischievous pull between holding back and wanting to see more. It is a balancing act I never really want to master completely. If I become too certain, I might stop noticing the small changes that make a scene feel alive.
So when I think of Rooftop Secret 2, I think less about making a bigger statement and more about giving this particular secret some time to breathe. That is what the video adds for me. The photographs let me choose a moment with Monika and keep it. The film reminds me why I was watching in the first place: because I did not quite know what the next moment would give me.
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