Guerilla Foiled.

Unfortunately my shoot this morning got called off. 4:30 am text. My model got sick and had to cancel. I was hoping to get some images for an editorial feature coming up. I did have a great fashion/cover shoot on Saturday.

Boxed In

Recently, when I answered a casting by a young and perhaps naive model she wrote:

thanks for your interest! i was going through your port and love your work. what would you be interested in shooting? there's not much of a market for **** pinups and i don't have the wardrobe for it :/ and i'm tired of seeing my naked, saggy boobs lol

Perhaps I misunderstood her reply but I interpreted it as the model thought I was a photographer who is only able to shoot nudes and pinups. I have fashion and some beauty images in this particular portfolio too. I kind of let her go by the wayside and haven't responded to this.

I do not like stereotypes or boxes that people put me in. I shoot many different genres yet Galleries, Portfolio Reviews and Institutions want to see a consistent style and look. God forbid you step outside your look to experiment as an artist. If I decided to shoot Mardi Gras candid images this weekend that would be frowned upon. Good thing that Mardi Gras includes naked women in public, that way I can stay in my genre.

I am currently compling images for an upcoming book and it is quite a dauting task. Aside from culling through 300+ images that were already deemed worthy of retouching or converting to black and white. I keep finding more gems along the way. A nice distraction.

Here is Sarah again: Two sides of a very beautiful coin. I think she was kind of surprised to see the reflected images in the window in the finals. I was consciously framing for both poses as well as trying to keep myself out of the reflection too.

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:

Fiying through the Air with the Greatest of Ease

Yay! Bella and I already won the Model Mayhem's POTD 18+ with this image and we were featured on Chris St James' Blog

Cooking Models 101 by Sarah Ellis

I was setting up the camera for an interview with the lovely Sarah Ellis. I started recording while I was setting up just in case something wonderful would happen and of course it did. For those of you who have never met or spoke with her this is the real deal. She is actually this sweet, candid, and is not in the least bit pretentious. I told her later that we had already started recording but it did not phase her in the least bit she just laughed.

I will post the full interview on this blog later. It is about 15 minutes so. I am considering posting a couple of parts so it has good pacing.

Enjoy this clip of someone I consider to be one of the significant art models of our time.

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.

An Amazing Day

So I find myself in San Francisco, on an ordinary day or so it seems. It is 4:47 AM and I am loading up my sisters mini van, removing the children's car seats and setting them under the awning. The only light is a flood on the side of the building. The weather said clear and only a 10% chance of rain despite the downpour from yesterday. My shot list is tucked into the console along with a group of printed Google maps.

At 6:30 AM I arrive at Lauren Warner's home in San Francisco. It is still dark outside, sunrise is not until 7:20 AM. I decide to call rather than ring the doorbell because I was worried about ringing the wrong doorbell. Lauren answers and graciously invites me into her home. I walk through the old Victorian flat and into the kitchen where her husband offers me a coffee. Of course I take it and walk into the makeup studio. Old Jazz and Hollywood images and paraphernalia are prevalent throughout the room in an eclectic mix.

As I am waiting, through the kitchen Betcee May walks into the room. She is wearing a simple tan slip, she introduces herself and for the first time I see her eyes and wonderful smile, something that even the best images only attempt to represent. Behind her small gentle voice is a creative force to be reckoned with.

Today is going to be an amazing day and it is good to be me . . . really good.