Swamp Cat
September 9th, 2009
I was talking with an on-line friend a few days ago about why we do what we do and what direction our work may take in the future. He said something that, as he said, is a pretty generic statement, but it is true and sometimes photographers are afraid to admit it.
“I like to look at naked women. It’s even better when they are smart and creative naked women, and they’re fun to talk to while we create the pictures.”
One of the joys of traveling and doing this kind of work is meeting new models. And now and then I run across one who is smart and creative and fun to talk to while we create the photos. It’s always a great extra charge to find another one of those models who I know I’m going to want to work with for years to come. I may find other things to photograph, but models like that are going to keep me coming back to figure work.
On this last trip to Florida I found one of them. Noelle Elise is a fairly new model, but she has dance training and a bright mind. She already understands how her body looks and what it takes to get a great photo. And she’s willing to do whatever it is that needs to be done. Add to that the fact that she is fun to talk to and a very enjoyable person to be around. Well, you’ve just described the makings of a great shoot.
I had two models scheduled for the Orlando area. One of them flaked on me…that’s pretty normal when booking models from Model Mayhem. I thought Noelle was flaking on me too, but it turned out there were some e-mail issues that almost kept us from getting together. I’m so glad we overcame those communication problems and did this shoot.
I’ve been wanting since I first visited Florida to do some photos that capture the feel of the swamps there. This is the first time I’ve gotten what I was after, despite several earlier attempts. Noelle suggested this location and it was perfect for what I was after.
Thank you Noelle. You really made this work and I really appreciate it.
The best news for me is that Noelle is moving up north in the very near future and will be close enough to me that we should be able to work together more than we would if she were staying in Florida. Of course it remains to be seen if her thin Florida blood can stand the kind of cold I tend to subject models to up here. I’m looking forward to finding out.
Fun With JoJo
September 4th, 2009
I’m back home and working on catching up on stuff. I have two shows coming up this month, one being the Dirty Show up in Detroit, and have to get the prints ready for them. And my truck is still not running right, so I don’t have wheels.
But, I had a lot of fun in Florida and I’m starting to make my way through the photos. JoJo is always a treat to visit and we had fun doing this shoot. She is amazing and always provides a unique image. So, here’s another portrait of sorts. More to come.
April Moving
September 1st, 2009
An old friend, artist and model is moving away. April is on her way to Portland, Oregon as I write this. We’ve known each other and worked together for years. It’s been wonderful watching her grow from a shy and slightly awkward teenager into a confident artist and accomplished model. And all along she has been a fine friend.
Now she’s off to start a new chapter in her life as an artist. As she was packing to leave she contacted me to make sure we did a shoot before she hit the road. This is one of the photos we did that day last week.
I’m sure this won’t be the end of our collaborations to make art. She will be back to Ohio in the future, at the very least for visits. And the Pacific Northwest is the one part of the lower 48 that I have yet to visit, so it’s very high on my list for future travel. Unfortunately it looks unlikely that she will be able to make it back for the Dirty Show later this month, where the photo of her with Athena and Unbearable Lightness in the post below will be on display. She has been part of my Dirty Show posse for the past two years, and one year caught the eye of Eric Kroll at the show, leading to a shoot with him. We’ll all miss her at the show this time.
I haven’t been posting much because I’ve been on the road myself. I’m in Orlando right now. I brought my daughter down to Tampa last week to start her junior year of college. Then I came over to Orlando to hang out for a few days before heading back home. I had two local Orlando models scheduled for shoots, set up through Model Mayhem. And only one of them flaked on me. That’s better than average for that site. The one who did show up, Noelle Elise, was wonderful. More about her when I get some of her photos ready to post.
I also got to do another shoot with one of my favorite models, JoJo Suicide, over in Tampa. She’s always a sure thing to make some fine photos, and she is a very fine person who is fun to visit with. I’ve looked through that shoot quickly and I know there’s a bunch of good work there. You’ll see some of it here soon.
Tomorrow morning it’s back to Tampa early to catch a flight back to Ohio. Florida has been fun but I’m looking forward to being back home.
Dirty, Dirty, Dirty
August 25th, 2009
Just got the word that I’ll have two photos in the Dirty Show at the end of September/beginning of October up in Detroit. This is the first time they’ve picked more than one of my entries for the show.
Also, for those of you in the Los Angeles area, the Erotic Signature touring exhibit will be there September 10-12 at BOXeight Studios, 1446 E. Washington Blvd. LA, 90021. I’m supposed to have four prints in this show, including two of my nurses, printed 30×40. If any readers happen to see the show I’d be very interested in your opinion of it since I’ve not been able to see it on exhibit yet.
More with Theda
August 21st, 2009
Here’s one more from my shoot with Theda in NYC. I always try to arrange to get together and work with Theda whenever I visit the city because she is just a wonderful model and a person I really enjoy. She is taking a break from modeling right now, but if you were to twist her arm you might get her to agree to do a shoot…and it would be well worth it. (Now she’s probably going to be pissed at me for saying that…but really, she’s one of the very best models out there, and if you manage to get on the wavelength to “get” her sense of humor you will really enjoy her.) I hope her break from modeling turns out to be temporary. She just looks so damn good in a tight corset…
Not much to report from around here lately, at least as far as photography is concerned. Yesterday I was up a ladder trying to do a temporary patch of a hole in the roof with some roof tar…hope it will hold off the deluge until we can get someone who knows what they are doing up there to do a proper repair. We are in the process of getting a lot of work done on our house…painting the exterior and replacing a bunch of wood that has gotten water damage, replacing part of the roof on our garage, and, coming up, a bunch of repairs to our 100-year-old tile roof. (Don’t worry, I wasn’t putting the tar on the tile…just in some bad spots in a metal valley.)
Meanwhile I need to make a trip to Florida next week to take my daughter back to college. I’m working on setting up a few shoots while I’m down there, including getting together with another of my model favorites, JoJo Suicide. JoJo is one of the nicest people you could ever meet and a lot of fun to work with. She’s also great to have a serious conversation with…she has her Doctorate in Fine Art from the Sorbonne in Paris. Oh, and she is NOT a Suicide Girl. She was JoJo Suicide before there were Suicide Girls.
When I get back from Florida I’ll probably be making a quick trip to the Chicago area to pick up a bunch of roof tiles for the repairs to my house. Don’t know if I’ll be able to stretch that trip into a couple days to do some shooting up there or not…I’ll have to figure that out when I get back from Florida.
I’ll try to post now and then over the next couple weeks while all this goes on…but who knows if I’ll succeed.
Another Portrait
August 17th, 2009
It’s hot. A couple days in a row of 90+ temperatures. I’m trying to get my studio cleaned and rearranged, but it was 90 in the studio today with the a/c running. I got a little done, but not all that much. Even the violent thunderstorm in the middle of the afternoon didn’t cool things off.
There’s plenty going on with me right now, but little of it has anything to do with photography. I’ll get back into the swing of photo stuff soon, though.
Meanwhile here is another recent portrait. That’s Angie from a quick shoot we did last month. Like I said earlier, I often shoot portraits…but seldom post them on the blog here. That’s something I should probably correct.
Angie is on her way to the studio as I type this. I’m going to shoot some commercial/lifestyle photos for her to use in her portfolio. If I’m lucky there will be another downpour of rain and I can get her out in it and drenched…but if that doesn’t happen we’ll still get some nice stuff where she has clothes on and stuff so she can use them to get work from some agencies. She’s a fine model, so I’m sure we’ll do some good things…but it won’t be art, at least for the most part. Nothing wrong with craft, though.
Maybe it will be cooler tomorrow and I’ll be able to get more done toward putting the studio back in shape…or not.
I’m A Winnah!
August 15th, 2009
Just a quick note to announce that this blog won an award and I didn’t even know about it. Seems that back on July 10 the blog was awarded the “I Understand and I Wish To Continue” award.
I couldn’t be more proud.
I can’t seem to find a way to comment or send a note to the blogger who bestowed this award on my humble blog…if any of you know how to contact him/her, please let me know…I’d like to express my appreciation.
One for Lin
August 12th, 2009
Lin said in a comment a while back that I should do more portraits. Well, I do shoot portraits regularly, but tend not to post them here. So here’s a little something from my shoot with Theda. I’ve been playing around with some head scarves. I’m interested in what is hidden and what is revealed. I found the transformation in Theda’s look when she put the head scarf on to be pretty interesting. I don’t think I’d recognize her if I hadn’t been there when she put on the scarf. And, somehow, it seems to me that she is more there…maybe with just a little bit of that illusive soul showing.
So, this is, at least to me, just a bit more serious a photo than the “Death” series. You did understand those were a joke, didn’t you? I love Theda’s sense of humor. It’s dark and dry and delicious.
Which reminds me:
Sisyphus walks in to a bar and says to the bartender, “Give me a Rolling Rock.”
Hope you like this portrait, Lin. I’ll try to post that kind of work a little more often.
Changing subject, since I complained here about the Delta terminal at JFK, I should now tell you that they responded to my complaint with an apology and a small travel voucher for a future flight. At least they paid a little attention. Now if they would just do something about that disaster of a terminal. I still won’t fly Delta to JFK again until I know they have.
And while I’m talking about things not working, blogger wasn’t working most of today…or at least it wouldn’t let me get to this blog for most of the day when I was trying to make this post. I have no idea what the problem was, but it seems to be gone now.
A Quiet Evening At Home with Death and Theda
August 9th, 2009
I’ve been busy since I got back home from my visit to New York. But I’ll try to catch you up a bit now.
First, whatever you do, don’t use Delta to fly out of JFK in New York. I like Delta in general, but their terminal at JFK airport is horrible beyond words. It took me an hour and a half to get through check-in and security. The vast majority of that was check-in at Delta. The terminal was complete pandemonium. Absolute chaos. A huge mob of passengers, almost no organization or signage. People all around me were crying and screaming because they had missed their flights. The Delta workers were doing their best to help, but there was no way they could overcome what has to be the worst managed and organized terminal I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world. I’ve already written an e-mail to Delta to tell them I won’t fly with Delta through JFK again until they fix that mess. I asked them for a response. That was Wednesday. I haven’t heard anything from them yet.
The last time I stayed with Dave Rudin in Brooklyn I was able to use someone’s unsecured wi-fi to get on line with my laptop at his place. Not this time. Lots of wi-fi signals, but all secured. So I wasn’t able to easily do blog posts while I was there.
On Monday in addition to our trip to MoMA that I described in my last post, we went to B&H and Dave introduced me to a friend, Dean Lavery, a fine photographer who also works at B&H. Dean told us that he had heard that Adorama had just gotten in a shipment of the last run of Polaroid 600 film to come out of the factory before it closed. So we took the subway to Adorama to see if it was true. Sure enough, they had the film, but were asking $20 for a pack of 10 exposures. I am working on a little Polariod project that isn’t quite ready…but I’ve shot up all my film. Still, $20 a pack was just too much for me. Instead I bought one of the new Fuji instant point and shoot cameras and a bunch of film for it…and paid less than just that much Polaroid film would have cost. I’ll try to finish the project with the Fuji camera and film.
Yes, I do shoot film now and then.
Dave and I finished off the day Monday with a trip to the Strand bookstore and dinner at the Washington Square Diner.
Tuesday I was on my own since Dave had to go back to work at his job. I went to the NY Public Library where, “under the lions,” I met the beautiful and charming Claudia of Museworthy. What a treat it was to meet and talk with her. We sat in Bryant Park behind the library and talked for several hours…moving from time to time to get away from the jack hammer crew that seemed to be following us around. I love Claudia’s blog. Now I know that the author is just as lovely and charming as her words would indicate.
After Claudia had to leave for her evening modeling job I walked over to the International Center of Photography at one corner of the park and spent a couple hours looking at the Richard Avedon exhibit. Well worth a stop if you are in NYC while it’s up. I do have to say that, while the prints were certainly of high quality, I didn’t completely agree with the decisions about how they were printed. Of course, I know that the norm for fashion black and white is high contrast, but in many of the prints there seemed to be so much contrast that there was very little detail in the blacks. Often the black areas just became a large black shape with no detail at all. I have to think this was intentional, but I don’t think it was particularly effective, nor was it a good example of what a black and white print can be. But the photos are excellent, even with that print quality. And I had to enjoy that there was a great series of photos Avedon did featuring a fashion model and a skeleton.
After the ICP closed I went back to Bryant Park and sat for a while, checking my e-mail with my i-pod touch on the free wi-fi there. Then I caught a subway to the upper west side where I met my good friend Diana Diriwaechter for dinner and a long evening of good conversation.
Then the long, uneventful subway ride back to Sheepshead Bay and Dave’s place. And up the next morning to go to JFK and enter Dante’s Delta Terminal. Death returned to Ohio with me in my checked bag, which, once again, was not opened by TSA. Damn!
So, with that segway, we’ll return to Death and Theda. We had a good time with Death. As you can see, Theda feels right at home with him…or maybe he feels right at home with Theda. I’ll share a couple more from that part of our shoot and get to a few somewhat more serious photos in my next few posts.
Theda Playing Chess With Death:
Theda Cheating Death:
The Soul of Theda
August 4th, 2009
Well, one of my favorite models, Theda, let me know that she disagreed with me and informed me that no one could ever photograph the soul of Theda. “And besides,” she said, “I traded my soul for a mix tape about 10 years ago. But I still have the mix tape if you want to photograph that.”
Sounded like a challenge I couldn’t resist. So, on this trip to NYC I set up a shoot with Theda and I brought along a prop…the character of death…to complete the photo I had in mind, based on a classic portrait of Faust. Death travelled to NYC in my checked bag, but, unfortunately, TSA failed to open my bag for inspection this time.
On Sunday I humped my photo gear and a backpack full of Death over to Theda’s place through a downpour of rain, which I understand has been the standard weather here in New York for most of the summer. Theda had the mix tape ready. You see the result above. “Theda Trading Her Soul for a Mix Tape”
We did some other things too…some with Death and some without. You’ll no doubt be seeing some of those over the next few weeks.
I’m still in NYC. Soon I’ll be heading out to meet Claudia, the delightful muse and blogger of Museworthy. And this evening I’ll meet my good friend Diana Diriwaechter for dinner and conversation. Then tomorrow morning I’ll catch a flight back home to Ohio.
Of course, I owe this whole trip to a great friend and host, Dave Rudin, who invited me to come and join him for a lecture by Mary Ellen Mark. Dave did all the driving to get us up to Woodstock for the lecture on Saturday…and it was a very, very long drive…more than twice the normal time because of construction and traffic tie ups. It took us more than 2 hours just to get out of the city…Woodstock is normally about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Dave’s place in Brooklyn.
Yesterday Dave and I went to MoMA, one of the few museums and galleries that is open on Mondays. We were disappointed to find the entire photography gallery closed for installation of a new exhibit, but enjoyed spending some time with the rest of the permanent collection. The few photographs that were on display outside the photography gallery once again left me with the feeling that whoever is choosing photographs to add to the MoMA collection and to display there must have a very deep-seated hatred of the medium. But there are other places to exhibit photographs that actually possess some beauty and content. And perhaps this fad of hatred will pass from MoMA one day.
