Tanya Dakin

This is an old one, from back when it was so easy to shoot at Eastern State Penitentiary. You could just wander around and shoot anywhere you wanted, and no one bothered you. Now it's impossible to do nudes there, and they confine you to one place. Thinking about it is like a golden period that you wish you could revisit...

Key

This is the combination of texture & lighting that I've been searching for and wish to pursue. Hopefully most models will not mind the scratching and resulting welts, not to mention bruises that are necessary for it. Most already show up with interesting bruises and bite marks already. I've always employed fans (in winter, preferably) to achieve a tightness of skin and goosebumps- most do not particularly care for that, but suffer through it- for the art. Of all the ways that I can think of to torture people, apparently fans in my cold warehouse studio are the most evil. In fact, just last week was the first person who said that they actually enjoy being cold and getting goosebumps. Ironically, I think that the scratching and bruising are going to go over much better than the fans in winter...

Lady Lazurus

"Billions of photos are shot every year, and about the toughest thing a photographer can do is invent an original, deeply personal, instantly recognizable visual style" ~Jerry Saltz

Natalie

Milk. It does a body good.

Jezz

The following quote is from a NY Times article that I read recently:
"No organ is more promiscuous than the eye, and no appetite more insatiable than the hunger to look. These truths go a long way toward explaining the preoccupations of a culture whose interest in imagery is defining."
I could easily have a lot to say about what I feel regarding this quote. It is probably best to just leave it here on it's own, though, since the reason I like it so much is that it sums up many vague thoughts that I have- and so well in just a couple of sentences...

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...