Ajaye

I've always been fascinated with the idea of creating a large body of work dedicated to just close-ups of O-faces. The idea that of representing something very intimate, yet not really explicit at all, yet at the same time very genuine & erotic is an appealing challenge to me. The range of expressions that one sees in O-faces is compelling as well– everything from serene, to sexy, to even grotesque. It's a psychological smorgasbord!

M & M

It would bore me to be restricted to one genre for my whole life– landscape photography, for example. I could never impose such restrictions upon myself. It's not that I don't have respect for an artist that does just that, such as Mondrian (who actually started out as a landscape painter!), but it is simply not the way that I operate.

Maggie

There is something very Greek statue-like about this. Not typical of most of my work, but I always like when I can produce something a little different.

Maeve

"Now, what's cooler than being cool? Ice cold! I can't hear ya! I say, what's cooler than being cool? Ice cold!" ~ André Benjamin

Maia

This 70's lambs wool deep shag rug has served me well- it was a stock prop for years' at the Chinatown studio. It's been in a storage box for quite a while now, but I decided to bring it out of hibernation. I think that anybody that I shoot with gets inspired just by looking at it.

Li & Carl

Hand.

Tanya Dakin

I've known Tanya for more than ten years now. I consider her a dear friend. Tanya has worked with well over 70 photographers, and for good reason- she is incredibly photogenic and quite a chameleon. More than a few, including myself, consider her to be an inspiring muse. Tanya has always typically modeled nude, although ironically there has been only a couple of times that I've actually shot nudes with her. I always considered her to be a great fashion model, and I've tended to gravitate towards that with her. These images, though, represent a different way of photographing her.

The thumb sucking fetish idea was hers, which I really liked. Most good ideas are usually offered by the person that I'm working with, as opposed to myself. If it's their idea to begin with, then it's more likely that they'll pull it off well. That's not always the case, though. Sometimes my idea is something that they have not experienced before, so they attack it with vigor. Everything's relative...

Lee

The moments of undressing are wonderful to catch, but you have to be quick. I try to catch these moments often, but usually, they don't look nearly as interesting as they seemed shooting them. Every once in a while I get something exquisite...

Ajaye

These are some outtakes from a shoot with Ajaye. They show her wonderful dreadlocks rather well. It's really difficult to show the nitty-gritty detail of dark dreads the way that I shoot- it tends to simply disappear. The third image is an homage to Edward Weston.

Mara

A very different feel than anything else posted here. I don't think that it really fits in with the rest of my work. Perhaps it is too calm, and too panned out? Perhaps it looks too much like a classical figure study? It is none the less a personal favorite.

Rachael

A couple of out takes from a recent body painting shoot...

Sofia & Kammy

This image may seem a little out of place with anything else in this blog. They were intentionally part of a shoot with Sofia & Kammy, and I've been dedicating a portion of many of my shoots to shooting these images. They're for my bodyscape series, which I have not shown anywhere on the web but here, although some were incorporated in my body painting show at Mew Gallery a couple of years ago.

Izzy

In a pinch. This term dates from the late 1400's, when it was put as "at a pinch"; pinch alludes to straitened circumstances. Izzy always comes through in a pinch...

Samantha

An old one from the vault...

Veronica

Contrary to general belief, photographs are not really unbiased- but then, neither are memories...

Sonia

These images might seem a little out of place with anything else in this blog. They were intentionally part of a shoot with Sonia, and I've been dedicating a portion of many of my shoots to shooting these images. They're for my bodyscape series, which I have not shown anywhere on the web but here, although some were incorporated in my body painting show at Mew Gallery a couple of years ago. btw, I hate the term body painting, but I can't seem to come up with anything better. The lighting, texture and mood are the same as everything else here, so I suppose that they do sort of belong with this body of work.

Ajaye

Ajaye has my favorite kind of eyes to photograph. In a portrait, they are soulful and expressive. In erotic images, they are bedroom eyes- sleepy, yet they draw you in. From the very beginning, eyes have been the main focal point in my photographs of people, and that has never changed. I can always help someone's eyes connect to the camera better with a few tricks, but there is only so much that I can do. In the end, either someone's eyes connect to the camera or they don't. The eyes are the best non-verbal indicator of our emotional and intellectual state of mind. That is why it is only every so often that I create a portrait where the eyes simply get an intense visceral reaction from most viewers. It's a constant frustration, but when I get it, it's such a joy.

Ajaye

To the next Whiskey Bar...

Some Random Stuff

A various assortment of gritty things...

Di

"We live in succession, in division, in part, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty; to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist, and whose whole beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one."   ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Meira

Bettie Page tribute. Deviating a little bit from my own style to create a more authentically vintage look. Actually all that I did differently than usual was add some scratches and some vignetting on the edges, but it works.

A & J

It is part of the photographer's job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country. ~Bill Brandt

Scar.

I made a version of this where the scar has been removed, but this un-retouched version is infinitely more interesting.

Lady Lazarus

I shot this in a cold, dirty, and actually very unexceptional basement space. Yet it doesn't look much different than my usual "spiffy" studio shoots. I've always said, since I starting photographing twenty years ago, that I could probably shoot anywhere and make it look striking. I tend to get very close in on people, so the only thing that matters are a couple of small details of the background- fancy settings tend to go to waste.

Lady Lazarus

Granny panties are awesome. Personally, I can't understand why anyone might think that they are "uncool" or "not sexy", or "ew". Frankly, I think that thongs look stupid and cheesy- why would someone wear a rope up their butt? It doesn't serve a purpose; you might as well wear nothing...

Grace

Film Noir/Space Age Pinup.

Laura

I've been looking at a lot of Modigliani paintings lately. A Modigliani nude is not that far removed from a porn cliche- the kittenish pose with libidinous intent. The key to what makes it great art is that it holds a tension between the real and the abstract. The abstract qualities include coloring that is not natural, distortions and simplification of forms. But the catch is that then, suddenly, on these unreal beings are very specific and sexually evocative detail- armpit hair, pubic hair and teeth. Then, to top it all off is a unambiguously erect, and naturally colored nipple! In the midst of some dreamily abstracted aesthetic, we are suddenly offered things to be touched- a coral necklace, hair, teeth, a nipple. The wonderfully disturbing qualities of his nudes are that they work on two levels at once, keeping the viewer unbalanced. Intellectual pinups!

Izzy, the Headless Girl

This was shot shot on a windy rooftop in January. It was about 20 degrees outside.

Katy & Kitty

The second image was a carefully arranged homage to a Bettie Page photograph from the 50's– it pretty much looks exactly like the original. The first image, however, was not based on anything at all– I just gathered up some items and arranged them a bit. I did have something literary in mind, though- I was thinking Henry Miller as a woman. I really like both of these, despite than the first one is much more original. Studying and copying vintage photographs goes back to my roots as a photographer, and I used to do it so often that it's become part of my DNA– that's the reason that I can do it without preparation or forethought now...