Z chel
September 11th, 2010
The model I worked with the most on this latest trip is Z chel. I had worked with her before on an earlier trip and knew she was a great model, tall and beautiful and full of grace, and also a pleasure to be around. So I was very happy when she said she could join me on this trip and hang around for most of the time I was in Florida. And she even knows how to paddle a canoe. This is another photo from Wekiwa Springs. I have more of Z chel from the beach, other outdoor locations, hanging around the condos, and down in the Everglades. You’ll probably see some of those later. And there are more from Wekiwa Springs, including one taken right before she fell out of a tree and banged herself up a bit in the process.
I wasn’t going to post today because of the anniversary, but I had some free time and I won’t be able to post tomorrow, so I went ahead and did this post. But I can’t post today without at least a mention of the events of 9 years ago that changed the world in some very unfortunate ways and took the lives of so many innocent people. This day will be remembered and those people who lost their lives will be memorialized for as long as our country exists. And the United States of America will be here long after the scum who were behind those attacks have been tossed onto the dung heap of history.
JoJo In The Jungle
September 9th, 2010
Whenever I know I’ll be going to Florida one of the first things I do is contact JoJo to see if we can set up a shoot. She’s a great model and a lot of fun to work with. And she’s a really nice person. I only work with nice people, but JoJo is especially nice. And I always get some photos that are outstanding when I work with her. There’s just no down side. She’s the best.
This was taken in the Fort De Soto Park, at the south tip of the land where St. Petersburg is located. We got down there early in the morning and found quite a few people already there. We had hoped to shoot at the old fort and on the beach, but there were just too many other people around. But we had the trails in the “jungle” all to ourselves. That might have had something to do with the swarms of mosquitoes that were all around us the whole time we were in there. We were using good repellent that worked fairly well, but when you are in a cloud of mosquitoes some of them are bound to find you and bite anyway. We all got a number of bites that day. But we also got some good photos, despite the bright sun that was out the entire time we were trying to work.
Didn’t see any alligators or other dangerous creatures, other than the bugs, but it kind of looks like JoJo is worrying about something that might be about to attack her…maybe she was…maybe it was just the cloud of mosquitoes…
Claudine
September 7th, 2010
Despite the uncooperative weather this trip to Florida has been very productive and a lot of fun. I owe that almost entirely to the wonderful models I’ve worked with down here. So, over the next few posts I’m going to highlight each of the models for this trip and some of the work we did together.
First is Claudine. I’ve worked with her before in the Chicago area where she lives, as you know if you follow this blog in any regular way. She’s a great model and a fine person. When she heard about my Florida trip she decided it was a good excuse for her to get away from the windy city for a few days, so she got on a plane and showed up in Tampa. She was the first model to arrive ready to work, and she was here for most of a week doing her usual fantastic job of posing.
In this photo she is balancing on a log at Wekiwa Springs. She did a great job of posing in a difficult, uncomfortable situation. But we did learn one thing that was a small surprise. Claudine’s skills as a crew member on racing sailboats did not translate into skill paddling a canoe. But she still managed to get up and down the river without tipping the canoe over, so that’s all that really matters. So what if her canoe actually traveled about 3 times the distance of the river because of the zig zag path it took. Maybe she thought she was tacking?
Thank you Claudine for yet another great shoot…and another addition to my collection of figure in nature photos.
Claudine had left to return to Chicago before this next incident, so she is not one of the models implicated. But I do have to mention, that sometimes the models were just not willing to do what was needed to make the photos I wanted to make. Take this example in the photo to the right. We were out slogging around in the Everglades yesterday when I saw these beautiful lilies in bloom. All I needed was a beautiful naked model to lay down in the water surrounded by those lily pads and we would have had a great shot. The light was even working fairly well, despite the sun being out. But none of the models with me that day were willing to do the pose. I just can’t understand why they sometimes get reluctant. (You may want to click to bring up a larger version of the photo and look to see if you can find a reason that they didn’t want to pose there.)
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.
