Lady Lazarus

Perfect timing.

Cahira & Kiki

I keep forgetting that I want to try incorporating dance into my work- so often a couple of years will pass before I try it again. A slowly developing body of work...

Sarah

I'm not a big fan of visual gimmicks and photo manipulation, especially if they are obviously photoshopped or digitally altered. I have to admit that I sometimes play around with images- but almost never anything that doesn't look like it could of well been done in the darkroom. I rarely show anyone these images, since I'm basically just playing around. I do really like this one, though...

Izzy

I think that these two images work wonderfully as a diptych. Another thing- typically I can get the front rope work looking just right, but the back often looks half ass. The back is usually where everything ties together- practical, but not very aesthetic. Here the back looks even better than the front!

Miera

I love the detail on these. I'm constantly striving for more detail, and these are inching close to what I'm looking for. I've always been a BIG fan of freckles, so it's about time they are starting to figure prominently in my work.

Lady Lazurus

I love the contrast between the look of vulnerability in the first image, and the come hither look of the second image. Both have the sleepy eyes and open mouth, and she's doing a similar thing to her breasts with her arms- but it can be such a fine line between what an expression and body language portrays. Frankly, I rarely have a problem capturing the come hither look- but getting a look of genuine vulnerability is much harder to capture.

Adrian Louise

When I first started using the 4th floor as a studio as opposed to the 2nd floor, I was both looking forward to new shooting possibilities and lamenting the loss of others at the same time. I was losing the tall windows that people could stand in, as well as the shower that I built from scratch and loved so much. On the other hand, I was gaining a much larger shooting space, as well as access to the adjacent rooftop. At first I wasn't sure how to best utilize the rooftop. There is a stucco wall which looks pretty nasty because there is a vent that blows exhaust from the restaurant below. At first I really despised this, because it represents everything that I dislike about Chinatown. Someone with some respect for others could have easily blocked and/or diverted the exhaust. Instead it just blasts away directly at my bathroom window (and the surrounding wall), so that the window had to be permanently sealed up a long time ago. Looking at this wall just pissed me off. Actually, I initially tried shooting on that wall- with a flash fill-in because it's in the shade. I didn't like that look. So later I tried shooting with out the flash, and the raw images looked very flat. Thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, I was able to really give the wall some pop- and make the grime look as grimy as it deserved! That awful wall is now one of my favorite places to shoot against.

As a side note, Adrian Louise really dislikes her scar from an abdominal hysterectomy. Of course, I really like it. I love scars- they tell a story, and the more extreme the better. So I remove the scar for her pics, and leave it in for myself.

M

This is definitely one of the more intense set of images in the shower series. That is saying a lot, since apparently everyone becomes much more uninhibited in the shower.

Holly

I love it when you can see the translucency of skin, showing what is going on beneath...

Miera

This below might be a keeper- it seems like a memorable image. The nipple shot isn't too shabby, either...

Lady Lazarus

I made this gag out of a Nylabone years ago- it's finally found it's home.

Tanya Dakin

I've been working with Tanya for over five years now. I also consider her a dear friend. Tanya has worked with 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 it is only recently that I've really been shooting nudes with her. I always considered her to be a great fashion model, and I've tended to gravitate towards that with her. These recent images, though, represent a different way of shooting for her.

Caroline & Vicky

I was up on a ladder for these shots. A ladder always makes for a nice point of view.

Ether

Relaxing with the freckles...

Di

I'm going to miss the rough floorboards...

Genevieve

Genevieve & goose bumps. Enough said.

Meira

Film noir meets Pin-Up.

Little One

I refer to Little One as the little monkey. She's very petite, and I've seen her climb these windows as if they were her natural environment.

Percolate

I like mixing the burlap with the rope- they seem meant for each other.

D & B

Scratches.

Heff

Texture.

Tali De'Mar

This is a personal favorite...

Ether

I almost forgot about these- they're from a few years ago, actually. They seem to fit in nicely with my newer work. I can't say that about a lot of my older work.

Hazel

First shoot with Hazel...

Meira

I've always loved the point of view from the floor. I wish I saw it more often in photography. Weird thing, in fact- I did an image search of "point of view erotic photography", and there were a few of my images. Not much else good, except a couple Ellen Von Unwerth's. Probably not a coincidence, since she's a big influence on me, although I don't purposely try to cop her.

Dessa & Jon

I am of the firm belief that neither nudity nor explicitness is necessary to make an image erotic. I think that such is the case with this image. I typically start shoots with clothes on and try to get something interesting there, first. Not that I'm going to abandon nudity anytime soon since I like the idea of creating the question of whether it's art or porn. I do not believe for a moment that my work classifies as porn, but of course, that is just my opinion. I enjoy being the provocateur, and I like other people to ask that question about my work themselves. In the end, there is always someone, somewhere, who finds Victoria's Secret catalogs to be good porn— not to mention even more seemingly innocuous imagery elsewhere. Beauty and/or porn, as well as what is perhaps erotic, is always in the eye of the beholder.

Jade Vixen

More from the last shoot with Jade Vixen...

Suspensions

Over the past couple of years, I have been doing suspensions in my studio in collaboration with Ian. He is very experienced with rope bondage and suspension. In the BDSM world, "full suspension" refers to suspending a person's entire body off the floor with the aid of ropes, chains, or cables. A typical full suspension is an advanced and somewhat risky form of rope bondage. It involves the use of elaborate knots, and many practitioners use modular rope segments that can be quickly released in case the subject experiences a loss of circulation, unwanted pain, or loses consciousness, etc. This is one of the reasons that Ian does the suspensions. Besides that I'm not really experienced enough to do suspensions, it wouldn't be wise for me to be oblivious to someone's safety while I'm photographing them. Most of the rope work that is photographed on the floor, however, are things that I have done myself.

One of the reasons that I began an interest in doing a series on suspensions is that, both in books and surfing the net, it is very hard to find many well-made photographs of suspensions. It's not difficult to find well-done rope work, but the combination of great rope work and images seems to be greatly lacking. So it seemed to be something really worth taking on. After this portfolio builds and expands (I'd like to move the setting outside in trees, for example), I'd like to perhaps get a book published on it.