Oh That Susie B!

Fantastic week/weekend with Susie B.  A naturally beautiful model came to town to run in a race and I was lucky to have time with her to shoot two amazing sets. 

Jewel

It was a rainy overcast day, I locked my keys inside the studio as I was heading to the shoot. needless to say I was an hour late while waiting for a friend to show up with keys. I lost an hour of light which created good things and we missed out on good things. Jewel was sweet and a wonderful model to work with. Thanks to Elsa Brodmann and Jasmine for styling and makeup.


More images can be seen at the online magazine amelieg .

vivian

The gymnast!

Scott Paul Designs

Custom blindfold by Scott Paul Designs

Bella Blue Introduction

I had a chance to shoot with Bella Blue again last weekend. Previously when we shot I complained about not having enough time with her. She gave me the day and what a day it was. We started with a public shoot idea that was thwarted by a security guard. Not wanting to miss the day I decided to call the public work off and we headed to breakfast and then to the studio.

Our first group of work was fantastic and it just got better from there.

Here is her video introduction. I started recording without telling her and she gave me some wonderful expressions of contemplation and thought before we started. I also edited this video and added stills from her pinup work that we did together.

Presenting the Lovely and Very Talented Bella Blue with an alternate soundtrack:

San Francisco

Luckily it has been unseasonably warm here in San Francisco. Natalie and I shot first on Monday the 19th. We wandered down to Mission beach by the Golden Gate Bridge. This is an old war battery where the guns were mounted to keep ships/subs out of the San Francisco bay area. I also had a chance to shoot with the amazing Betcee May. She was amazingly sweet and willing to pose and do all of my crazy concepts. We shot in Jack Kerouac Alley, the Conservatory of Flowers, Pacific Heights, Murals in the Mission district, and the Financial District. An amazing shoot with a great team. Thank you Iona Lyn, www.bayareaboudoir.com assisting and Lauren Warner on makeup and of course Betcee.

Nettie's Interview

Nettie is a model from Indianapolis that contacted me for a shoot here in New Orleans. She is fearless, sweet, funny and creates great art. She actually gets upset when she hasn't done a shoot in a while.

Madison and Charters

So we left Pirate's Alley and walked over to Madison street. We were still in the French Quarter. As we walked down Charters we noticed a young black guy sweeping the street. He was just going about his business cleaning and sweeping the sidewalk as Sarah begins to get ready for her next shot.

Wardrobe moves in and I walk down the street getting perspective on the shot. I start shooting and here comes our little street sweeper just working that broom on the sidewalk. I wasn't watching but I don't even know if he looked up. Some guy walks out of a door at the end of the street on the right. He is wearing a pair of red running shorts and gets his newspaper. He looks down the street at our team shooting and then just goes about his business.

There isn't much traffic on this street so shooting goes well and we decide to move on to Canal Blvd.

Sarah Takes the Streets of New Orleans

In a departure from studio work I hit the streets with a crew of six early last Sunday morning. Lots of emails and a fairly comprehensive list of what we were shooting and where. Planning it felt like it was a Heist. Getaway drivers, muscle, the computer guy, the director, the last minute guy all of the players were there.

5:00 am I am up grabbing my coffee so that I can make it to the studio to meet Karl, the videographer, Britney, my assistant and Kenny getaway driver, muscle and animal wrangler. I had another shoot the night before so I packed up the gear last night knowing that I am not a morning person. I look out the window to check the weather. Great news it looks like fog. I look again, damn, it's just humidity on the window.

6:00am I am at the studio getting ready and Britney is there just after me. She is sooo reliable. Karl and Kenny arrive shortly after. We load up softboxes and lights that we need for the shoot.

6:20am I get a call from wardrobe/models assistant who is supposed to pick up the lovely model Sarah from the hotel. The model is at the international hotel, right? Is this the right hotel he asks? No the intercontinental. Damn a snafu first thing in the morning, but wait I hear a female voice and laughter in the background. Jokes, my friend has jokes this morning. I hear Sarah say,"It wasn't my idea!"

6:45 am Jackson square parking lot. behind the canon. You know where the president said he would help out New Orleans. We decide to nix the wedding dress because it too hard to get off. Sorry Sarah for making you lug that all the way from S.F. Trenchcoat ready we get Sarah into Jackson Square in front of the Cathedral. The homeless guys are asking a lot of questions like who are you? What are you shooting? Then Sarah walks up and loses the trenchcoat. Silence. Then applause. One of the homeless guys insists he wants a picture to send to his buddy Howie. Stay away from the the model I say shaking my head, nervously clicking off frames. From behind me I hear a booming authoritative Voice. "Sit down Sir!" It's Kenny the muscle, getaway driver and animal wrangler. I hear it again "SIT DOWN SIR!" then I hear the homeless guy apologizing profusely. I am trying to compose the picture and do something but the cathedral is too big the angle wrong and I decide to move on.

Next post Pirates alley.

Manipulation

Digital manipulation of images is a new problem for a new age. How much can you touch up an image and still be true to the original? At what point do you alter the image so much that it no longer is true to the "capture". This is an image that I posted on Fred Miranda.com a website dedicated to more advanced photographers. A brilliant graphic artist from Argentina named Natalia offered to enhance the image. I sent her a full resolution copy of the image and this is what she did to it. In her subtle way she added what I wanted in the original capture.

I also want to give her full credit for the Main Page on the Dow website. She and I had different ideas on the fonts and how the words follow the lines in the images. This is her Flickr website:

nataliataffarel

She really is gifted.

Nude Images are permitted

Good news, I finally got around to reading the terms of service agreement that I clicked through at lightning speed. The Blog hosts do not mind nude images and also, to their credit, do not wish to censor blogs. That is pretty cool although I am not sure I agree with their little notice about how Google can freely use my images.

Nonetheless this is an image of Makeda a dancer from New York. She was a wonderful model with a strong and striking sense of presence . She also ran track in college so this pose wasn't a stretch at all for her. She was visiting New Orleans and we set a shoot although it started at 5:00 PM on a Sunday because of her classes.