Meira

Mer is one of my closest friends, and she is probably my favorite person to shoot with. We've done every type of shoot together- pinup, fashion, portrait, abstract bodyscapes, as well as many erotic shoots. Shoots with her are always very laid back and usually without any agenda- pick up the camera and shoot. This shoot seems to be part of an emerging series featuring toys...

Jezz

This image of Jezz comes from an early suspension shoot. I was not particularly happy with the results of the shoot in general because of the black background that I used. You couldn't necessarily tell that the person was actually suspended, since they disappeared into the black. I've since employed a white background that is separately lit with fresnel spots, which gives a greater sense of depth and spatiality. I did, however, really like this close up of her face with a hand made rope gag. It's always nice if you can get a little gem out of what is otherwise a failure- albeit a trial & error failure that I learned from.

Sarah

Sarah is someone that I just met a few weeks ago, and we have already done a couple of shoots together. These images are from our first shoot. The initial plan was to simply do one of my turn of the century set ups. This series is like the old timey boardwalk photographs, except that they more resemble actual vintage images, rather than being campy or hokey. I find it interesting there is such a fine line between being genuine versus stereotypical. It's like what David St. Hubbins says in Spinal Tap- "it's such a fine line between stupid an' clever". I also like to turn it up to eleven. But I digress. Sarah turned out to be very open to the work that I've been concentrating on lately, not to mention that she is quite the muse. I hope to work with her more often in the near future. I'll post some images from our second shoot (which went very well) as soon as I finish them...

Jane

Jane is a model who was being photographed in my studio by Donna, a model/photographer/friend. I decided to casually and quickly take a few shots of her myself. The result was one of my favorite portraits. It is off the cuff, yet somewhat raw, genuine and erotic. For some reason, it really speaks to me.

Katy

Scars, especially self inflicted ones, are something that I've avoided photographing for a long time. It's not because I was squeamish or shocked by them, but because I did not want to portray them like a sideshow attraction. I wanted to portray them more as an elegant and/or interesting document. Consequently, I've been incorporating them into bodyscapes where they are simply part of the rest of the texture going on. Or even one step better, they just happen to make an appearance in an image that is not necessarily about them...

Li & Carl

Photographing Li and Carl was one of the first really explicit girl/guy shoots that I've done, and it is still one the the most intense. While I've since done shoots that are perhaps more explicit, this set the benchmark for me on the type of intensity that I'm looking for lately. I often give a little direction as to what I think will work before shooting, but I don't recall saying anything to them before shooting- I just picked up the camera and started looking for angles. Well, I guess that I sometimes tend to perhaps make doing these shoots sound simpler than it is. I am constantly moving lights around. I'm also constantly thinking of making sure that these images are raw and uncensored, while striving to be anti-porn at the same time. Not that I have anything against porn, but it is what it is- it's a definitive formula for a practical use. I'm always trying to go against the formula and beyond to rise above and create something more genuine, to let people see more possibilities in sexual imagery. There are plenty of amateur photographers trying to pass off what is essentially porn as fine art- especially with the advent of digital cameras. One can even walk into an art gallery and see erotic work that is essentially, or basically porn being poorly passed off as art. I want to get a visceral reaction from viewers, change perceptions, or ultimately have someone say that my images are like nothing that they've seen before.

Meira & Nick

Mer is a close friend and someone that I've photographed many times. I've photographed her alone, and also with other women as well. We had talked about doing a shoot with her boyfriend Nick before, but it took a while before we finally got around to it. Both the sentence that starts off this post and the images that follow are very similar to my post and images from yesterday. This is not a coincidence- Mer & Izzy (she is in the previous post) have a lot in common, and this shoot and the other bear a marked resemblance to each other. The chemistry is the same. The same intensity is there as well, although this does come at least a little bit from me- while I tend not to interfere during these couples shoots, I let them know in the beginning what I'm looking for. I like for there to be a push & pull, a realness without posing, and I tell them to ignore (as much as possible) my presence. I also like consensual violence, which I think makes for more dynamic images. That request does not seem to ever pose much of an issue with the people I've been working with lately...

Autumn & Percolate

Both Autumn and Percolate have a lyrical way of moving around, and Percolate has amazingly expressive hands as well. I've actually done a previous shoot just concentrating on Percolate's hands. These images are probably prettier than anything else in this blog. I still think that they have a nice rawness, which is most likely due to the fact that there is no re-touching involved here. The lack of re-touching is a hallmark of all the images in this blog- something that I've been trying to get away from lately. Digital offers so many options for changing an image. More often than not, I think that those options can be a detriment rather than an advantage for improving the end result. With film I was often frustrated by the lack of options in the darkroom, but with digital one has to beware of relying too much on the unlimited supply of them.

Viktor & Natalya

Viktor & Natalya are both body builders, so they could both physically take whatever the other had to dish out. That was interesting. Needless to say, they had a lot of chemistry going on. I said almost nothing the whole shoot- I simply told them to do their thing, and I just moved the lights around often and looked for good angles. Which describes my method for shooting couples in general- I give a little bit of direction in the beginning, and then I stay out of the way. I like these shoots to be genuine, and the best way for that to happen is to not interfere.

Dessa & Izzy

Tacked on at the end of these pics is an image that might seem very out of place with any thing else in this blog. It was intentionally part of the shoot with Dessa & Izzy, and I've been dedicating a portion of many of my couple's shoots to shooting these images. They're for my body scape series, which I have not shown anywhere on the web but here, although some were incorporated in my body painting show at Mew gallery last year. While it is indeed both of them, it is actually a triptych of three separate images fused together. Ironically, I'm not typically a big fan of image manipulation to this extent, but I've been very happy with this series. I think that drastic image manipulation usually comes off as really cheesy, but this is my attempt to make it more elegant and thought provoking...