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fine art nudes story telling travel

Meluxine – Looking Inside

Meluxine - Looking Inside ©2016
Meluxine – Looking Inside ©2016

Meluxine – Looking Inside

You know when you’re having one of those days when everything you touch turns to gold? They don’t happen often, but when they do, the feeling is extraordinary. Meluxine and I were definitely having one of those days the first time we ever shot together. Even the, this probably won’t work but let’s try it anyway, setups turned out to be magical. Which leads me to the distinct possibility.

Meluxine might well indeed be magic.

I mean, I don’t know that for certain. Just throwing the possibility out there.

Meluxine was one of my beautiful housemates on the island of Kauai. I met her and Anne, who was also staying with me, at the Lihue airport, when I arrived from Los Angeles and they from Australia, to drive us to our lovely resort suite. So even before photographing her, I had a lot of time to get to know her.

I find that always helps when photographing someone for the first time. Because I’m not only learning the physical characteristics of any new model I’m collaborating with, but also learning her point of view. What’s on her mind. What she’s about. Having a head start on knowing those latter things, always makes for better photographs. Because then I’m not just photographing what she looks like, I’m really photographing her.

But whatever the reason, as Meluxine and I have discussed since then, what we did that day was some of the best most personally satisfying work either of had done in a while. We’ve really enjoyed going over the images since then. Picking out favorites. And there are a lot!

And I’ve queued up another beautiful photo of her for tomorrow. So stay tuned, Gentle Readers!

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fine art nudes story telling travel

Anne Duffy – Crown of Shadows

Anne Duffy - Crown of Shadows ©2016
Anne Duffy – Crown of Shadows ©2016

Anne Duffy – Crown of Shadows

Anne has one of the most beautiful faces I have ever come to know. I’ve felt that way since before I actually got to work with her years ago. Her portfolio is full of some of the most striking images I’ve ever seen.

All week we’d been talking about shooting her in a specific lingerie set she had brought to Kauai with her. The mood of the shoot. Where it would be. How it would look. And sadly we just ran out of time to do it the way we imagined. But I did have a lighting setup in place for the equally lovely Meluxine who I had just finished shooting, when Anne and I realized we both had a free hour. I made a few adjustments and Anne and I decided to use the small time we had. Better something than not, you know?

But the glorious part of it is, we created some beautiful images, regardless of our original idea. Anne knows light so well that without even looking she was able to create wonderful shadows with her body and limbs. She always looks so effortless with her poses, even though there’s nothing effortless about them.

The lingerie she’s wearing is actually Victoria’s Secret, which came as a surprise to me, because I haven’t been wowed by anything from that brand in over ten years. But this piece was beautiful. Something I’d expect to see from La Perla or Agent Provocateur, honestly. And it worked so well with Anne’s porcelain skin and dark brunette hair.

Sometimes an hour with Anne is all you need to make something incredible.

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fine art nudes story telling travel

Claudine – Isolation

Claudine - Isolation ©2016
Claudine – Isolation ©2016

Claudine – Isolation

Claudine is simply wonderful to work with. Beautiful, with complete excitement and joyful enthusiasm. Claudine is 100-percent all in when it comes to creating something interesting. I’ve never seen her in a bad mood. I mean, I’m sure she has them. We all do. But I’ve never witnessed her in one. Claudine is positivity.

She arrived in Hawaii at Zoefest XIII a few days after most of us, and even though we had all been filling up our schedules with shoots all over Kauai, I knew I had to sneak in at least a little time with her. I had two other bookings the day I photographed Claudine, so I proposed something simple for her. And I couldn’t be more happy with the results.

As I’ve mentioned before, Gentle Readers, I’ve been looking to create art that’s a little different from the work I’m most known for. It’s not that I’ve grown bored with what I’ve been creating, but I’ve been finding I’ve been wanting to inject my work with something a little more personal as of late. Something a little more about my humanity, warts and all. And having the opportunity to channel that through a beautiful collaborator like Claudine, is very special to me.

And of course, Claudine was up for going on my little adventure. As she always is.

In one part of our suite in Kauai, was a little room with sliding slatted doors. And I found when I temporarily removed the tourist room art from the walls, it created a nice empty space. It had two lounges that could be turned into beds, and I removed all the bedding from one except for the simple white sheets. This would be a starting point.

I began by having Claudine sit on the edge of the bed. I explained the feeling I wanted to express with her that day.

“I’m looking for something that tells a bit of a story. And this story is more about being alone than anything else. Isolation. I want to use you in this very empty simple space to create something that makes you seem very small in this environment.”

It wasn’t that I wanted her to represent her feeling isolated or alone. I wanted her to express something I had been feeling from time to time recently. I wanted her to be my stand-in for that feeling.

She immediately got it. Because she’s just that good that way.

Claudine is a beautiful woman. A real, beautiful, woman. And the reason I wanted to work with her on this idea, is that in the past she’s been able to create characters that wonderfully express an idea or concept I have. A few years ago, back in Chicago, I shot a short film with her called, “Hello??” It involved a situation that I’m afraid far too many women are familiar with, and if you haven’t seen it yet, go ahead and click on it now and come back so I don’t ruin the ending for you. I’ll wait.

Okay. You’re back.

Yeah, every time I show it to a woman friend of mine, they always say the same thing.

“Auuugh. No. No! I hate that!”

Claudine, without saying a word, spoke volumes with her face and body language. The hurt. The resolve to just move forward.

And I knew, here in our little resort room, she’d be able to help me express another very common feeling. That feeling of being alone. Being isolated.

I made dozens of photos of her sitting on the edge of the bed. Then sitting back against the wall. And then I suggested something new.

“There’s no earthly practical reason why you would stand in the corner in the space between the bed and the wall, but let’s try something with that,” I suggested.

I had been careful up until that point with my framing, not to include much of anything else in the room besides the bed and the wall behind it, keeping it a very clean and simple composition. But this time I composed the shot to include the bathroom door and some of the interior. Suddenly I had some extra context for the story.

The photo above is the last frame I shot during our session. I felt that we didn’t need to go any further. That was it. Perfect.

Thanks Claudine for helping me express something a little unexpected on our island paradise. Because even with the beautiful ocean lapping up to the front of our little home, with incredibly unimaginable scenery all around us, I needed this that day. Something, not the usual.

___

You can find Claudine in many places online…

On Twitter and Instagram, and elsewhere on the web, YouTubeIMDb, and her fine art modeling site, ClaudineArtNude.

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fine art nudes story telling travel

Christian – Hands that Hide

Christian - Hands that Hide ©2016
Christian – Hands that Hide ©2016

Hands that Hide

I really didn’t understand until the midway point of my shoot with Christian, but it was to become one of the more profound shoots I experienced in some time. As my alert Gentle Readers will have noted, I photograph a lot of women. Not exclusively, but pretty damn near. Before Christian, it had been over 20 years since I had made any male nude photographs. So I was looking forward to shaking things up a bit.

In fact, that was one of my goals at Zoefest XIII this year. Come back with something unexpected. Come back with, not the usual.

I had a great long talk with Christian the day before we shot. Immediately I could tell we were on the same page, not only in our appreciation for the art we created, but as fellow human travelers. Lots of shared philosophies and beliefs.

Christian and I agreed it might be nice to go back to the cave where I photographed Tara to see what else we could artistically mine in there. I try not to reuse very distinct locations, but I felt what Christian and I would create in there would likely be very different from what Tara and I had done.

We headed out at first light to get to the cave before the tourists were even thinking about their first cup of coffee. I’d be making long exposures on a tripod again in the dim subterranean light. And we’d need more time to work than quickly getting in, shooting, and getting out before being surprised with cave wanderers.

A little back story for a moment. In the late 90s, I spent three truly wonderful years working with a therapist called Charlie. And during that time, he helped me to come up with a way to visualize the idea of my art. My art center. Where it came from, deep inside me. Taking a vague concept and making it something a little more real.

I’d imagine a huge cave-like space. With walls that looked like the roof of your mouth more than anything else. Definitely an organic space. Dark. And in the center of this cavernous room, was small stump-like thing. Almost like a nub. And that was my art core. The center of me. And I could visit this place from time to time.

As long as my art was working, as long as I was creating, as long as I was making art that inspired me, I could manage any challenges in any other areas of my life. Because my art center was thriving.

However, much like the canary in the coal mine, if for whatever reason I wasn’t creating work that moved me, or that I had gone too long between personal art projects, the light in that subterranean space would dim. And it would become very difficult to see my art center in the darkness. If my art wasn’t working, it would be difficult to face whatever else life might be throwing at me during that time. If my art wasn’t working, I would begin to feel broken.

And what I realized halfway through photographing Christian in that Kauai cave, is that I wasn’t making images of Christian as much as I was making images of myself. Of my cavernous art center. My art nub. The truest me that I could express.

Christian was giving me so many pieces of myself through what he was emoting. Things that cycle through the state of who I am from day-to-day. Strength. Focus. Determination. Positivity. But just as often, isolation. Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. And sometimes the need to hide when I wasn’t feeling at my best. All of these things.

You’ll be seeing examples of these emotions being expressed from other images with Christian in the coming months.

After we finished about an hour and a half of shooting, we packed up and headed back to our temporary ocean-side home, Christian asked me an interesting question.

“What were you thinking about while you were shooting?”

And I had to laugh, because I knew I was going to have to explain my little art nub visualization to him. It does sound a little weird when I say it out loud to people. But as I mentioned before, Christian and I had found ourselves to be on similar artistic frequencies. He found it more interesting than odd. And I think it’s because he also has a similar sensitivity to the world as I do.

I mentioned before that it had been over 20 years since I had done any nude photography with men. And I remember one of the reasons I decided to experiment with it all those years ago was because I wanted to make sure I was photographing nude women for the right reasons. That there was something more to the art than simply having women take off their clothes in front of my camera. And me. That is wasn’t a creepy thing. I couldn’t exactly explain at the time why I found it so important to make art with these generous women. Just that it was.

And I photographed a few men during that time of artistic introspection. The first two were body builders. Certainly powerful masculine figures. But with a tone of aggression that I didn’t feel I had in me. I tried to find the beauty in their form that was perhaps like a panther or some other top-of-the-food-chain animal. But what was missing was the sense of awe that I experienced when I photographed women.

The third man I photographed was an art school friend of a friend. Just a normal guy. And the poses he was giving me, what he was emoting, was 180-degrees away from the body builders. Quieter. Almost vulnerable. Wrapping his arms loosely around himself, as if for protection. This. This was more of something I could relate to. Something I had felt before. And I realized that I was photographing women because they better helped me express something perhaps more prominent in myself than the first two men did. The need to feel wonder. Awe. Getting lost in feminine curves cascading into curves. A sense of empathy and nurturing. Something that is more prominent in the many layers of beauty that a woman possesses. What is profound inspiration to me. That’s the art I wanted to create. And still do.

Yet now with Christian, that same feeling again of a subject channeling something very personal to me, was a very welcome outlier. A surprise discovery and realization.

A few days after the Christian shoot, I was having another conversation with Zoe Wiseman, the namesake of Zoefest. I mentioned that in photographing another man in Christian, it was really the first time in a long time that I could remember feeling like I was photographing myself. Photographing women certainly contains pieces of myself projected along with who they are. But I wouldn’t say when I photograph a woman, it truly feels like I’m photographing myself. Although that’s something I may explore in the future. Food for thought.

“Oh, I always feel like I’m photographing myself when I photograph women,” Zoe quickly responded.

Interesting.

Happily, Christian also lives in California, so the chances of our paths crossing again more art creation are quite good. He certainly helped me create something unexpected. Not the usual.

And as a very good artistic friend of mine said when I gave her a preview of today’s photograph, something raw, honest and inspiring.

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fine art nudes story telling travel

Carlotta Rocky Point

Carlotta Rocky Point ©2016
Carlotta Rocky Point ©2016

Carlotta has the most infectious enthusiasm. About whatever she happens to be doing at the moment. She’s good energy.

Carlotta was tagging along the morning Anne and I were discovering the magical tree overlook. Every once in a while, when Anne needed a short breather from climbing all over that tree, I’d turn my camera to Carlotta, who was already mid-pose by the time I got my camera up to my eye. She was in the mood to play, which honestly, is her natural demeanor.

I first met her at the previous Zoefest I was invited to in Todos Santos, Mexico about five years ago. And I photographed her in my old studio in Chicago, before moving to LA. So yeah, we’ve had lots of fun over the years.

Since the island of Kauai was formed by volcanic activity about a thousand years ago, the beaches there are covered with large black lava rocks. A beautiful contrast to Carlotta’s skin. And even though I had rubbery flexible deck shoes on while I was photographing her, I could still feel the sharp edges of the rocks pushing through my soles. I try to always keep sensations like that in mind while I’m shooting models who are experiencing the same sharp edges, except on their bare skin, and often very sensitive areas of bare skin.

Don’t injure the models. A good practice to live by.

Carlotta and I continued to shoot around the beach area, which you Gentle Readers will see more of in the future. But we also had scheduled some additional shoot time the next day and I returned to the same cave with her that I photographed Tara in a few days earlier. Those have a different look, but equally beautiful.

Stay tuned! And thank you as always for your wonderful support!

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fine art nudes story telling travel

Tara Tree Subterrane

Tara Tree Subterrane, ©2016
Tara Tree Subterrane, ©2016

“Is it too dark to shoot in here?”, asked Tara Tree, as we were exploring one of the Kauai caves during a location scout one afternoon.

“No, I think there’s enough light. If I bring a tripod and do longer exposures,” I said, as my eyes began to slowly adjust to the darkness.

I was looking to create something a little unusual. Actually that was my internal theme during the entire 10 days of shooting at Zoefest XIII this year. Come back with things not expected.

I had scheduled Tara for my first shoot on the island. Which was wonderful, because we’d be talking about wanting to make art together since the first time we collaborated nearly five years before. And finally, we were in the same place at the same time. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on an island created by volcanic eruptions about a thousand years ago. And here we were, inside one of those volcanic creations.

The entrance to the cave was a very wide shallow opening, probably 25 meters across and maybe 3 meters tall. There was a line of trees across the road from the entrance that limited the daylight coming into the cave for three-quarters of the entrance, leaving a slightly harder light source coming in from one end of the opening. This odd happenstance of light was really quite spectacular in that it was both hard and soft at the same time. It created fairly strong shadows, but there was a soft diffusion about it at the same time.

The only challenge was, that you couldn’t really see the shadows very well with only your eyes. It was just too dark. So occasionally, as long as I didn’t turn around and look at the brighter light coming in from the entrance, or look at the display on the back of my camera, my eyes would stay dilated enough that I could see my own shadow falling on Tara, or on some other unwanted place. Whoops. Stay off to the side, Billy. The light was better on Tara if I photographed her from a three-quarters angle anyway.

It was a fairly deep cave, the back wall of it maybe 100 meters from the entrance. And even though we were shooting shortly after first light, we still had to keep an eye out for the odd tourist out for a ridiculously early walk. The good thing was, we were far enough into the cave that we’d see them long before they would see us, and certainly it would take a minute or so for their would-be surprised eyes to adjust to the darkness anyway. It’s an occupational hazard we always face when creating fine art nude photography out in public. We’re all used to it.

Tara was brilliant. She immediately dialed into the vibe of this environment. Wonderful poses that were all at once feminine, animalistic, defiant, and the suddenly peaceful. We’d shoot a bit and then take a minute to review what we were getting on the back of my camera, since it truly was a challenge to actually see what we were doing with our eyes while shooting. We’d scroll through the images, see what was working and what needed a little adjustment, and then make those for the next series of images.

We even shot some motion footage once we felt we had what we needed as far as still images went. I knew we were pushing our luck a bit as far as being tourist free as the morning progressed, but it was too good of an opportunity not to roll the dice. I’m anxious to begin editing that footage together. It’s going to be strangely beautiful.

And as we packed up our gear and began to walk out of the cave after about an hour and a half shooting, we passed a couple of tourists wandering in through the cave entrance. Couldn’t have timed it better. Nothing like making photographs under the cover of darkness.