Lucy

I bought this penis candle online from the Lucky Mojo Curio Co. about a year ago, but I had been waiting for the right person to use it with. Lucy is terrified of fire, so she is probably the perfect person!

Heff

I hate good taste. It's the worst thing that could happen to a creative person.

~Helmut Newton

Little One

I'm shooting with Little One today, although technically she's retired from modeling. Looking forward to getting a nice, genuine portrait out of her- which usually is not difficult...

Lucy & Nathalia

Here is an image from a recent shoot with Lucy and Nathalia, which I was really looking forward to. It was a good shoot- although I've been working on it in piece-meal, since I've been crazy busy lately...

Sarah

Here are a couple from the last shoot with Sarah- continuing with showing some prettier, but still erotic imagery.

Lee Loo La

I've been trying not to include any fashion oriented work of mine among the work highlighted here, but lately any fashion type work that I've been doing has definitely been very influenced by my darker, moodier erotic work. I've been using the same gritty backgrounds, not to mentioned that the clothing itself is mostly fetish stuff. So I'm breaking my own rules, and will be including some images that could be candidates for a fashion mag...

Lee

I definitely need to shoot with Lee again soon...

Cahira & Kiki

More explorations of lyrical movement and raw textures combined in one. If it was just pretty and refined, it would bore me to tears- but I love the combination...

Di

Di had a cupping session (glass cups with a suction on top, which leave distinctive marks) the night before, which I was delighted to see. That, coupled with some other very recent markings, gave me a wonderful assortment of textures to work with. I was very happy with this shoot!

Cahira & Kiki

A lovely first shoot with Cahira & Kiki. I love the fluid, dance like feeling of movement in these. It's something that I'm always trying to get, but it's notoriously difficult to translate dance into a still photograph. Of course, incorporating the blur of movement helps, and I do sometimes use this tactic- but that often feels like cheating to me. Or even worse, it can seem like a cheap trick. When  I can get that feeling with out the blur, it makes me happy.

Meira & Nick, Part II

A while back I posted some images from the 2nd shoot with Meira & Nick, which where perhaps a little bit more romantic. Well, a little bit, anyway. These are a little more rough...

Izzy & Chelsea

For a while now, I've had this LARGE coffee table book on Pro Wrestling in my library of photo books. I never forget just how large it is, mostly due to fact that I carried it all around Boston after buying it at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It is half made up of 70's to 80's male wrestlers, and the other half is nude women "wrestlers" shot in Atlantic City hotel rooms in the 70's. Since the cover is an image of the women "wrestlers", it tends to get quite some attention. Everyone seems to be at least amused by it, although some absolutely love it. I've been meaning to do a shoot based on it for years, and I finally got around to it a few weeks ago. The results are only loosely based on it, mostly because the book's images are very amateurish. Not that that is a bad thing- they are amateurish in a spectacularly awesome way. I just wanted to take the idea, and do it in my own style. More interpretations will probably soon follow...

Setsuki

Setsuki is a circus performer, so whereas I usually do the rope work, this just her and a simple heavy chain that we linked up to the ceiling hooks. The brick wall, which is always behind the backgrounds that I typically use, is a nice departure. I've tried the brick before, and did not like it- I think that I got it right this time...

Heff

I feel as if I'm just starting to figure out how to best utilize my rooftop for getting the shots that I want. The first image is the decrepit wall that gets blasted with greasy exhaust from the Chinese restaurant below. That makes for a great background! The exhaust starts blowing around 4-5pm, so I usually shoot before then. The light is typically best before then, anyway. I love the fire escape in the second shot, but the stuff behind it tends to be too busy. Blowing out the detail- which isn't difficult, since the bars are so graphic & silhouetted, looks wonderfully simple. On the third shot, blowing out detail that is busy but accentuating detail that is textured, seems to work well. Shooting out there with Heff doesn't hurt, either...

Erica & James

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 these three images. 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.

Manchester

This shot was a pleasant surprise, since I did not know that she had this tattoo on the inside of her lip, until she did this. Apparently, although they tend to be less painful than other tattoos, ink does not usually last here. They need to be redone, or they fade into oblivion. Something about the acid and chemical content of the mouth. The body also absorbs the pigment inside the mouth. These tats last from 1-5 years, depending on the person. Interesting factoid of the day...

Christine

This shot is actually a few years old. Besides that I've always really liked it, it seemed to mark a turning point for me. I think that this is my first successful image employing an extreme point of view and perspective, which I've continued to explore ever since. I find the idea of creating a lush deep space, starting with only the beginning in focus, to be  a great way of forcing the viewer to see things the way that I often do while shooting. Of course this kind of spatial illusion is nothing new- it goes back to Andrea Mantegna (an Italian painter from the 1400's) and The Lamentation of Christ. At first that painting looks like a study of foreshortening, but he actually reduced the size of the feet, among other things. Likewise, I can use lighting, depth of field, and Photoshop to create little tricks, making it seem like three feet goes on and on...

Setsuki

These two images are from a brief initial shoot with Setsuki. btw, that's her real, given name! I'm always excited when I get a very genuine portrait such as this one below. They are not easy to come by, despite the fact that I'm always trying. It depends more on the person I'm working with, rather than necessarily what I do. There are certain qualities that need to be present. Things such as eyes that can lock with the camera, yet be translucent as well. Expressions that are natural and relaxed, almost detached. Usually someone who feels comfortable wearing little to no makeup. Still, the right time and place- not to mention luck, play a large role. I can't help to be painfully aware that some of the most memorable portraits were created by extremely capable photographers, yet could never be repeated or matched. They remain well known solely for that one image, rather than their complete body of work.  Steve McCurry's "Afghan Girl" or Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" are good examples of this phenomenon.  A rarer thing is a photographer who can consistently attain superb portraits, such as Richard Avedon, or Yousuf Karsh. But even Avedon has "Dovima with the Elephants", and Karsh has "Winston Churchill". Of course, I don't have that defining image yet- perhaps never will. But there are a few images that I capture that give me hope that there is still a chance...

Katy & Kitty

These images might seem a little out of place with any thing else in this blog. They were intentionally part of a shoot with Katy & Kitty, and I've been dedicating a portion of many of my 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. 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.

Meira

This is an out takes from a recent shoot with Meira, for her new paysite. Of course the images used for the set of 40 pics look completely different- pretty much formula soft core porn, in color. The lighting was even and straightforward, and I only employed my film noir lighting for the more interesting shots. I'm not very fond of doing sets because the post production is very time consuming, despite the fact that I try to rip through it. The typical porn producer would consider my "ripping through it" extremely time consuming. I need to work on letting go and just setting some auto levels to each image. I don't know how to be a hack. There are many days when I wish I could be. I do have to admit, however, that it's a blast shooting these sets! Porn formula is so easy. I don't even have to think about it. I just shoot and have fun. In my personal work I need to be so intensely focused- constantly moving lights, looking for the right angle, checking the camera parameters, et cetera. In the work that I post here, I'm always trying so hard to come up with something that is on a different level. I tend to forget that, perhaps, I should be enjoying these shoots more. I just saw your eyes roll... I'm serious, though. As Ming-Ming always says on Wonder Pets, "this is Seer-wious!!"