Colorado Sunset
November 8th, 2006
Adding insult to injury, here’s the sunset last night when I was getting gas in Castle Rock. I keep a little point and shoot camera in my pocket so I can shoot snapshots like this when I see something worth saving. Every photo doesn’t have to have a nude woman in it. This was beautiful, but not nearly as spectacular as the sunset the night before in Nebraska. But I was driving on I-80 and it had passed its peak by the time I found a safe place to pull over to take a photo. But this one is nice.
November 8th, 2006
I warned you. Carhenge with no naked women. It’s too bad I couldn’t find a model to take there today. The temperature was in the mid-70s and I had the place all to myself for a good part of the time I was there.
I first visited Carhenge when it was brand new with my best friend, Ken, on a motorcycle trip. We pitched our tent right there at the site and spent the night doing photos. We did some multiple flash time exposures wandering around with Vivitar 283s and lighting each car individually. We shot the sunset and Ken shot the sunrise. I was sleeping, as I always try to be when the sun comes up. That was back when the local authorities were still upset about it being built. They were calling it “a junk yard too close to the road” and other less flattering things. They tried to force the creator to remove it but he resisted long enough for the locals to wake up and realize that for the first time ever, there was a reason for people to come to Alliance, Nebraska. The next time I was through Alliance there was a Carhenge banner hanging from every lamp post in the town. It looks like the initial blush of fame has passed now, but there are a lot more hotels and other businesses in Alliance than there were back in the 80s.
Ken wrote a magazine article about that ride, including the Carhenge stop. As a result I was quoted in a national magazine saying that Carhenge was the best work of art done in the U.S. in the 1980s. I am still willing to stand by that statement. What could be more American than to reproduce an ancient British artifact using junk cars.
This shot isn’t all that great, but it did give me a chance to try out the panorama help feature on my Canon G6. Looks to me like it works pretty well. This is stitched together using the program that came with the camera. It is a combination of 6 images, shot hand held using the stitch assist feature in the camera. You may want to click on the image to see it larger. The full resolution version would print nicely at 40 inches x 10 inches. May have to crank one out when I get back home just to see what it looks like.
I’ll be watching for other chances to use this feature, maybe with a nude included next time.
Amy Jo
November 7th, 2006
Amy Jo in her new house. I love to work with Amy Jo. Unfortunately she lives in Iowa, so we don’t get to shoot as often as I’d like. This time Amy was moving into her new house on the day I was in town. But she took a couple hours out of that very busy day to do a quick shoot. It gave us a chance to explore the new house and look for interesting light. I like what’s happening on the wall here, as well as the quality of the window light on Amy’s body.
The shoot was short, but not uneventful. When the cub scout came to the door selling something Amy couldn’t find her pants, so I got to answer and diplomatically suggest that the cub scout come back a bit later to talk to the new owners of the house. I think I kept Amy Jo out of trouble with her new neighbors on her first day in the house.
Carhenge today, then south toward Albuquerque where I hope to do some shooting in a wilderness area. Will probably stop in Las Vegas, NM, one of my favorite little towns in the southwest. No gambling there, just a nice little town in a beautiful location.
Hotel Room Reflection
November 6th, 2006
Another shot of Cathleen in my hotel room in St Louis. A nice room, a beautiful model and some good light from the window…add a mirror and the photo just happens. I love the relationship between the tones on Cathleen and the tones on the wall, both in front of and through the mirror. We did very well in the limited time we had to shoot. I’m sure we’ll do even better on future shoots with more time to work.
I’m at a Flying J in North Platte, Nebraska tonight. Flying J has become my new favorite camping place. Good wireless internet connection. Reasonably edible food at ok prices. And a fairly quiet parking lot for me to sleep in my camper.
Tomorrow on to Carhenge. Too bad I don’t have a model. You might have to look at some photos with no naked women in them if I get something I like there.
Body light
November 6th, 2006
Cathleen Hope and I had been talking on line and wanting to shoot together for a couple years. So I made St Louis the first stop on the trip I’m taking right now so we could do that. Cathleen is a prize winning body builder. She asked if I could shoot something with her holding a weight that would show off her build. I took along some hot lights thinking I might need them to get what I wanted, but the window in the hotel room gave just the light I was after.
We only had time for a short shoot this time, but I’m sure we will be doing more in the future. Cathleen is a fine model.
The model I had planned to shoot in Springfield, MO had to cancel, so I’m changing plans. Think I’ll drive over to Alliance, Nebraska and shoot some panoramas at Carhenge. I don’t know of any models out in that part of Nebraska, so I guess I won’t be able to shoot any nudes there. Don’t know if I’ll have internet access for the next couple days, but if I find a place to log on I’ll post another shot or two.
Another Lake
November 6th, 2006
This is Mindy at Lake Cumberland in Kentucky this summer. We rented a pontoon boat and my old friend Roger came along to captain the boat so I could pay attention to making photos. My friend David Deaubrey was also along and we worked Mindy pretty hard for two days, but turned out quite a few good photos for it. Enough that I published a calendar just of photos from this shoot. It’s available from my on line store here: http://www.lulu.com/Wayward
I find the differences and similarities of Lake Powell and Lake Cumberland very interesting. Very different places that were created in different ways for different reasons, but with some things that do seem to connect them.
Posted from the parking lot of a Flying J Truck Stop in Des Moines, Iowa where I’m spending the night in my truck camper. On to Springfield, MO for a shoot on Tuesday with a new model. Had a great time today shooting with Amy Jo and catching up with her. Met her new husband and shot in her new house…in the midst of her moving in. Will probably have something from that shoot to post here soon.
Lake Powell
November 5th, 2006
Here’s Kimothy on the rocks at Lake Powell. The rock there is the same red rock that is in the desert in southern Utah/northern Arizona. But the drought out there has dropped the level of the lake, exposing rock that had been underwater and is coated with mineral deposits, providing a completely different color scheme.
I hope I’ll be shooting with Kimothy again sometime this year. She’s a great model, a beautiful woman and a very nice person. Someone who is a lot of fun to work with. And she has a real appreciation of art and the process of creating it.
I had a good, though short, shoot with Cathleen Hope yesterday in St Louis. Today I’ll be shooting with my old friend and model, Amy Jo, in Iowa City. If I get some time to edit you may see something from those shoots in the next few days.
Another Eve
November 4th, 2006
Here’s another from my “Eve” series. That Halloween witch was a Witchy Eve, in case you didn’t notice. This is Lani shot in the door of an abandoned building near the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.
I’m on the road for the next couple weeks. I’ll try to post when I can, but I know I won’t have internet access every day. And I’m limited to what is on my laptop and the external drives I have with me, though I may post from the shoots I’m doing on the trip if I get time to do the editing that would require.
Down in the Bayou
November 1st, 2006
Several years ago I happened to travel through southern Louisiana on the way to Texas in February. I was impressed by the beautiful monochrome character of the swamps along I-10 at that time of year. I knew immediately that I had to return and find a nice pink model to put out in the middle of all that gray and brown. So a year later I made that trip, arranging to work with several local models . Nico here came to my motel a couple days before the shoot we had scheduled to meet me and talk about what we were going to do. When I saw her I thought she was probably not going to work very well for me. She was very cute, bubbly, a sorority girl kind of person. I thought maybe if I held her underwater for, say 20 minutes, she might start to have the look I was after. This is proof that first impressions can be very seriously wrong.
I worked by loading two models into a small boat and heading out into the bayou each day. I told the models that I was taking two so if we lost one to an alligator we wouldn’t have to stop shooting. Of course the ‘gators were hibernating at that time of year. We didn’t see one the whole week I was shooting. But Nico turned out to be the real trooper of the shoot. I’d find a location like this one and pull up to it with the boat, one of the models would climb out and work on finding a pose that worked while I backed the boat off and got it into position for the shot. It’s not really that easy to steer a boat with an outboard motor, correct for drift in the current and handle the camera at the same time, but we managed. Nico is in pain in this photo. She is wedged into the fork in the tree and that bark is rough. But she knew exactly how to pose and make her body look relaxed and graceful. A really beautiful young woman and a talented model.
This has been a pretty successful photo. French PHOTO magazine chose it for publication later that year. It’s also always popular when I include a print of it in gallery shows.
Happy Halloween
October 31st, 2006
