The Sunshine State
September 5th, 2010
Well, I’ve been shooting in Florida for a week now. And I have yet to see an overcast day. It stopped raining in the afternoons when I arrived. So, there’s been a lot of shooting, but all on sunny days. I’ve been able to work with the sun…and we found some good places to hide from the sun…but the light has been a challenge for every single shoot so far. And it looks like it isn’t going to change while I’m here. So it goes.
Claudine has flown back to Chicago. Yesterday I drove down to the Miami area with Z chel. Other models I’ve worked with on this trip are JoJo, of course…she’s one of my favorite models and people so I always try to work with her when I get to Florida…, Peyton Fontaine, who I just met on this trip, but hope to work with often in the future…she was great to work with…, and Fayth, another new model to me and another great find. Seems like I now have more fantastic models to work with in Florida than I do back home in Ohio. I guess I need to either move to Florida or work harder at finding more Ohio models.
Early this afternoon I’ll be picking up my prints from the past two Erotic Signature touring shows, then later we will meet up with a local model and photographer. We’ll all work together today and then tomorrow the plan is to head out to the Everglades for a day of shooting.
I’ve been much too busy shooting to be able to have time to edit what I’ve been shooting down here, so I don’t have any of them ready to post. But you’ll be seeing them here over the next few weeks after I get back home and have some time to work on them.
Meanwhile, here’s another photo of a great model, Kelsey Dylan, taken at my friend’s farm on a very sunny day in Ohio. We were hiding from the bright sun in a barn when I shot this. Kelsey is on her way back to Seattle, with some stops along the way, now, so it will be a while before I get to work with her again.
Who knows…maybe tomorrow will be overcast…
Barn Girl
August 30th, 2010
It’s not that good photos can’t be taken in bright sunlight. It’s just that bright sunlight seems to be the only light I’ve been able to work with this summer. That was the light the day I shot Kelsey at my friend’s farm a few weeks ago. If there had been an overcast that day I would have been able to do a lot more with this barn and Kelsey. But the bright sun limited my options. Of course, I’m still pretty pleased with the results from that day. How could I go wrong with such a great model?
I woke up this morning in my condo in Florida to bright blue skys. But clouds seem to be building in throughout the day, giving at least alternating bright sun and “cloudy bright” conditions. I can work with that. And the daily thunderstorms offer other options. Claudine arrives from Chicago today, so the shooting will soon begin. She’s such a great model the nature of the light won’t matter, we’ll make art.
It’s the Heat AND the Humidity
August 27th, 2010
I’m in Tampa. It’s hot. It’s humid. It’s even hotter and more humid than it has been in Ohio for the past few weeks. This afternoon I helped unload my daughter’s stuff into her dorm room. Did I mention that it’s hot and humid? But that chore is done and she’s getting settled in for the school year. It was nice to have the time to be with her on the drive down from Ohio. And, since she is a senior, this may be the last time we get to do this. But, she is talking about grad school, maybe in Florida, so there could be more trips like this in the future.
The next couple days will be nice and easy. Brunch tomorrow with my daughter and her boyfriend, then shopping with my daughter for school supplies and books. Then brunch on Sunday with an old friend who lives here. On Monday the models start arriving. There’s something planned to shoot pretty much every day from then until I leave on September 8.
As I already mentioned, I have a lot of new stuff to post from before this trip, so here you have the first of those. That’s Kelsey Dylan in the morning light at my studio. You’ll be seeing more of Kelsey in the coming days. And I’m likely to put up a favorite or two from what I shoot in the coming week and a half here in the tropical depths of Florida. The light here today was perfect, with a nice overcast to make some beautiful light. Of course, I had no model to work with today. I hope my luck changes sometime while I’m here and I actually get a day or two of good light (ooops, I mean easy light) when I have a model available and shoots planned. Stay tuned.
On The Road Again
August 25th, 2010
I’m about to leave for a couple weeks in Florida. I’ve been real busy getting ready for the trip ever since Dave Rudin left and went back to NYC. I have a bunch of promising shoots planned while I’m down there with some of my favorite models as well as a couple who I’ll be working with for the first time. It’s even possible that I’ll have more time for posting while I’m away…but that, of course, depends partly on how good the internet connections are where I’ll be staying.
The photo with this post is of a new model, Artistic Physique, who I just started working with a couple weeks ago. We got along well and are both looking forward to more shoots in the future. We already have one scheduled for after I get back from the Florida trip. So, stand by for more.
I have lots of photos from the past couple weeks of shooting waiting to be posted here. I’ll probably be posting them from Florida when I get time. I actually seem to have a couple days on the trip when I don’t have shoots planned. Guess it might turn into a vacation.
Out And About With Dave Rudin
August 19th, 2010
As I mentioned in my last post, Dave Rudin has been visiting me since Sunday. He has been keeping me pretty busy, which is why you haven’t seen any posts this week. Dave has been doing a lot of shooting. He brought Kelsey Dylan with him after she had spent a week in New York City working with a bunch of really fine photographers there…including Ralph Gibson, someone whose work I’ve admired since I first saw it back when I was in photo school many eons ago.
Of course, I did several shoots with Kelsey while she was around. And on one day that I took Dave R out to one of my favorite local locations I shot the photo at the top of this post. I wasn’t planning to shoot that day, intending to only act as a guide for Dave, but when Kelsey and I made our way upstream to this waterfall, but Dave wasn’t able to make the admittedly tricky climb over slick rocks with all his medium format gear…well, I just had to take a shot of this since Dave wasn’t going to get it. All I had was my little Canon S90, but it did a pretty good job.
Before we went to that waterfall I took Dave and Kelsey to a little lake near my home that can often provide a good setting, particularly at dawn, which is when we were there.
Then today Dave celebrated his 15th anniversary as a photographer of the nude by doing a shoot with Jypsie Nahmana. And, below you can see the proof I captured during that shoot. Looks to me like Dave just uses that big old film camera for a prop and then pulls out his little digital point and shoot (an S90, of course) when it’s time for the real photo.
Well, ok…Dave really does use that big Pentax 6×7 for his “serious” photos…and has to change film every 10 shots now that he can’t get 220 film anymore. He just uses his S90 to get a digital version so he can post what he’s been up to before he gets his black and white film developed. I think he’s still about a year behind on processing film, so it’s good to have something available right away before he forgets what it was he was doing.
Dave’s visit ends when he heads back home in the morning. And in a week I’ll be taking off for a trip to Florida. I’ve been shooting quite a bit myself over the past few weeks, but haven’t had time to do any editing on those photos. I’ll try to get to work on that soon and do some more posting over the coming week.
Laying Around
August 13th, 2010
A couple weeks ago I got the chance to work with Ayn again. I’d work with her a lot more if she were more available. She’s a fine model and great to work with. I still am looking for a couple new models to work with regularly. I’ve had the worst run of luck over the past month or two with having models available when I need them. I’ve sat at home for days while the weather was perfect for the work I want to do outdoors, but I had no model available. Then when I have a model, the weather is all wrong. That’s what was happening when I did this shot with Ayn. As you can see, it’s sunny. I wanted overcast, which is what the weather had been for a week, until this day when I was ready to go out and shoot. I can work with sunny, but it limits what I’m able to do and keeps me from getting some things that I’d like to shoot this summer.
And, of course, the heat has been awful for weeks now. This heat wave is driving me to stay inside at a time when I usually am out wandering around in the woods and shooting photos. Heat indexes in the low 100s don’t make hiking a lot of fun. But I’m just one more person complaining about the weather. Complaining isn’t going to change it. The solution is to find a couple more models who are available more often. I’m working on it. I shot with one new model yesterday and I’m very happy with that shoot and with her as a model. You’ll be seeing those photos here in the near future.
Meanwhile, things are going to get busy around here. My old friend Dave Rudin is arriving from NYC on Sunday. He plans to hang around for several days and do some shooting. And it sounds like the heat wave may end just about the time Dave arrives, which will mean some more comfortable conditions for the outdoor shoots.
And Dave is bringing a real bonus along with him. He’ll have Kelsey riding along after she spent a week working with some top-notch photographers in New York City. That means I get to work with her again a time or two before she heads back to Seattle for another year of college. Maybe there will be an overcast day…you never know, my luck could change.
On top of all that my truck broke down and has been at the mechanic’s since Wednesday. Not because the repair is a big deal (it’s a coolant leak) but because it wasn’t scheduled and my mechanic has been very busy this week. I hope to get it back today. My daughter is here for a few days, so she has been driving me around for errands that need to be done. If they don’t get to my truck today Dave R may end up doing all the driving next week.
As Rosanne Rosanadana would say, “It’s always something.”
Wayward Road Trip – Chicago
August 8th, 2010
Many years ago when I bought my first house and was living in it alone I invited a couple of my photographer friends, Ken and Tim, to share the house with me. They moved in and we came to call the place the “Home For Wayward Photographers.” Something like 30 years later we are still good friends and get together now and then for Wayward meetings. When it was time for me to go up to Chicago to pick up my prints from my show at Gallery Provocateur and knowing that the “Hank Carter” show would be at the Art Institute…I invited Ken and Tim to join me for the trip. So we made a Wayward Road Trip to Chicago.
But before we went into the Art Institute we had to take Ken, who had never seen “The Bean” over to have that Chicago experience. That’s the three of us, front right, taking the mandatory Bean Photo.
Sometimes hanging out around the Bean can make you very small. But you can still cast a long shadow.
After the Bean we met lovely Chicago model Claudine and had dinner at Bennigans (or is that Hoolahans?) across the street from the Art Institute. I’ve worked with Claudine several times now and hope to do so regularly in the future. She’s a great model. She joined Tim and me when we went to the Art Institute to see the Karsh show a while back and jumped at the chance to join us for this show. I think she actually enjoys listening to us do the photo geek speak when we look at the photos.
Photography was prohibited in the gallery where the Cartier-Bresson photos were displayed. I find it sad when photography is restricted in shows of work that depended on the freedom to shoot photos. But I know there are reasons that are often beyond the control of the museum presenting the show, and I suspect that might be the case at the Art Institute since they generally have a very liberal photo policy in their galleries.
Sorry, no naked chicks today. But I’ve been shooting and I’ll have some new things to share here soon. If you have any way to get to Chicago to see the Henri Cartier-Bresson show, I highly recommend it. It’s a great show, lots of wonderful photos, some very familiar, some very fine work that I had not seen before. The information about the printing of the photos is enlightening, especially for purists who argue that the photographer must do all the work from snapping the photo to hanging the print on the wall. That wasn’t the way Cartier-Bresson felt about it. And judging from the difference between the early prints that he made himself and the later prints made by others, he was right in his decision that he was not a darkroom kind of guy.
Swamp Thang
August 4th, 2010
You wander around in the woods around here long enough and you are bound to come across a scene like this one. It’s just like hunting mushrooms. You have to know where to look. It also helps if a beautiful model like Kelsey Dylan is hiking along with you and looking for just the right place to pose.
I really don’t have time for much of a post tonight. I wanted to get something new up here because I’m going to Chicago in the morning to pick up my prints from the show at Gallery Provocateur that has now closed. It’s going to be a fun trip because two of my oldest and best friends, also photographers, are going along with me. We plan to see the “Hank Carter” show at the Art Institute while we are there. No shooting on this trip. I’m not even going to take my Nikon kit. I’m also not taking my laptop, so I won’t be on line while I’m there. I’ll be back Friday night and will catch up with all of you then.
The Tree Of Life
August 1st, 2010
That’s a photo of Kelsey on a friend’s farm last week. Once again the light was not cooperating with me, so I just determined to use the light that was there to make something. This photo would not have been possible on the overcast day that I was wishing for. Whatever light is there naturally presents its own opportunities. The challenge is simply to be open to what is there.
This has been a season of loss and this morning a phone call told me that another loss had occurred. Quite a few years ago Rob Steele opened Steelepointe Gallery just around the corner from my home. When I saw his “Art” sign out in front of the building I got my wife and we went right over to see what was happening in our neighborhood. Rob built a beautiful gallery and filled it with art, both from nationally known artists and from local artists in our area. When I showed him my work, way back then, he immediately invited me to exhibit in the gallery. My work was on the walls there and in shows that Rob put together in other locations from that time on, until last week.
That was when I got a call from Rob’s wife to tell me they were closing the gallery. Rob had been fighting cancer for more than a year and it had reached the point where he did not have the energy and strength to keep going to the gallery, as he had nearly every day as he went through treatment. So I went in last week and picked up my photos along with the work of two of my friends who also were showing their work in Rob’s gallery. It was a very sad chore.
Then early this morning the phone rang and it was Rob’s wife telling me Rob had died in the night. He is going to be very much missed. Rob was a kind and gentle man, full of love for art and artists. He was always ready to offer support and encouragement. Rob wasn’t exactly the typical gallery owner. He was a strong man in excellent physical condition. He had been special forces in Vietnam. It was hard watching him get weaker and weaker as the cancer attacked his body. The last time I saw him, only a couple weeks before he died, he was walking very slowly with a cane.
His gallery was his life’s dream and he got to create it before he had to leave us. The closing of Steelepointe Gallery is a loss to all the artists in our area and a loss to my neighborhood. It will be missed. But I am already missing my friend who was always right around the corner, happy for me to stop by to chat or show him my latest work. But now Rob is free of the pain that was his constant companion for many months. And the world is a little poorer for his passing.
Claudine at Starved Rock
July 30th, 2010
Here’s a shot of Claudine out at Starved Rock State Park, that I did a while back when I was up in Chicago. I shot this when I was up there for the opening of my show at Gallery Provocateur. That show has ended and I’ll be back in Chicago next week to pick up my prints. No shooting on this trip, but I will be going to the Art Institute to see the “Hank Carter” show there.
I’ve been shooting a lot and have a couple more shoots coming in the next few days. It’s kept me too busy to spend time editing, but I’ll be getting to that soon and you’ll see the results here.
If any of you want to meet up while I’m in Chicago, drop me a note and I’ll let you know the schedule for this trip. It’s a quick “up and back” and there are some old friends making the trip with me, so there’s not a lot of time, but we could add a new friend or two into the group if the timing is right.
