Fotograf männlich
A Triptych, a tasket....
The whole process was new to me. Models, cameras....the idea of ART itself. I've never much thought about art, in fact, outside of knowing it when I saw it. Opinion I can manage. But having reconstructive surgery on both eyes in my late-40's opened up the world. Jordan River (IG @JordanRiverMuse -- do look her up!) was one of the first art models I met in Portland, OR. She was on a big upward launch and had just worked with a couple photographers with whom I was terribly impressed. To say that I was a bit intimidated to work with her is an understatement. Our general predilections seemed a bit removed from each other through the first few shoots and it wasn't until a year or so later that we started to click (entirely on my end, I imagine -- I was technically and compositionally challenged by some fun-yet-stupid ideas I was exploring early on).
As I've begun to dig deeper into editing, I've been having fun going back to old shoots and I will say that it's a huge learning experience. A lot of the time I can now SEE the model attempting to lead me in a particular direction while I blunder off to do something that's not going to work. At my best, I'd hope that I now understand these cues in the moment!
This particular set of images seems to work so well in their context and I just love the drawn out feel of the space on either side of Jordan. If I had the budget to print everything, these would be my next printing project -- I think they'd do well on metal, about 3' wide. LOL. My home is stuffed with art and too much of it is my own. It leads me to wonder if these images have any appeal outside my own enjoyment of the experience? Could they find a home somewhere?
Desert Ed 201
As we bounced out of town with the farms and fields along the Clackamas bathed in sunshine, everything seemed just perfect. I had already done some recon and adjusted my plan to exclude stupid things. The world was my....oh...hello woodland fire vehicles! "Sir, this road is closed," the dour docent of the way informed me. My excitement at the back door to my favorite secret lake being finally OPEN was dashed. But no matter! There are plenty of ways to crack an egg and I was ON IT because I had the perfect shoot planned for a bed of woodland moss and wasn't nobody or nothing that was gonna hold me back!
My moss, so recently released from a snowbank, was underwater. Which was the sort of lucky stroke that my ex-wives hate me for because the quick return to the truck with a thought of lunch revealed a slowly-deflating tire, punctured somewhere along the rough and craggy climb up the back door to the back door. A quick patch and a hasty retreat got us to Madras and a real fix and back on the road in less than the time it took to drink an extra-large mocha.
I had planned to bounce into the desert to escape the mid-June rains always brought on by Rose Festival. I hear it snowed on Mount Hood the day after we crossed its southern flank. There was plenty of frost on the ground outside Post, OR as we toured the geographic center of Our Fair State, chasing wild turkeys (the fowl, not the drink) and wildflower blooms in the chilly sunshine. Epic epic epic. As we sat down to review, we were astonished that our little dashes and patches of art-during-roadtrip had somehow yielded a trove of treasures. Let the summer begin! Let's DO THIS!
Technical note: I'd like to thank Dan Webb for outfitting me with a whole new kit that I relied on heavily for this. And of course the opportunity to dive deeply into an education from the inimitable and gracious Zoë Celesta West, who is a goddamned national treasure of arching eyebrows, pose and wit. We manage to meet up every year or so and I spend the rest of the time poring over the pictures to glean the lessons within. '- )
Where Do These Belong?
Over this past winter, entering my eighth year of shooting figurative art, I began to see a body of work taking shape. Importantly, a body of work that I am proud to share with anyone who will slow down long enough to look! And now the question: what do I do with it?
As the recent Insta meme shouted, nude art is not porn. It certainly can be sexy, even HOT, but while I would be foolish to say that there's not an eroticism to my work, it is definitely not porny. Some of it may not be the first thing I would share with a minor but simple nudity should be more easily understood than many bikini-clad advertising tropes that ARE shoved at children.
One useful exercise recently has been to cull sets of images for publication. But what publications? This site might be an option. Stephen Wong's Images of Nude magazine in Australia is another. There are a multitude of "pay to play" online publications that will suck in whatever content you send and return automated acceptance and upsell emails. Those don't feel all that great.
I have shown pieces in local gallery shows but despite a lot of favorable response, this sort of work is very unlikely to sell (but a lesbian bookstore bought a piece at my first show!). I totally understand. I might hang an interesting portrait of my wife or girlfriend on a wall but a stranger in some intimate expression? Seems like a weird dorm-room feel. A lot of my work has revolved around getting past the usual pose orientation of a model to achieve something more personal. More portrait than pose, unguarded. As I type, one of my favorite shots hangs to my left. Hailey hovers off-balance on a low footstool in a meadow, legs tensed but arms languidly awaiting her body taking flight of some kind. She's caught between moments and could be summoned into the air as easily as falling to earth. For a long time this whole shoot was something that I returned to over and over without being able to share. I finally printed this and began seeing an arc of images that evokes a story or at least stirs the imagination. What do I do with them now?
I have struggled with the idea of admitting professionalism and hanging out a shingle. I can imagine a Neo-boudoir practice where upscale women would find this rewarding. I'm very confident in my ability to walk into any situation or setting and come away with solid images. Hotel room? Got it. Meadow? No problem. Deep forest or a kitchen? Been there. I'm perhaps more worried about the ramifications of doing this commercially. Will it still be fun? Will my clients LIKE it? Honestly, it takes me a bit of time to SEE each shoot. I find it hard to edit at my best immediately. I knew I loved this shoot with Hailey in the moment and there were images that were great right out of the gate but it's been YEARS of revisiting it to really feel like I am getting something deeper out of it. Maybe I'm not ready to do really good commercial work?
Like niche print-on-demand magazines, social media offers little exposure any more. The changes in hashtags that reward large accounts, the ongoing war against art...I have built a tidy little community of models and photographers but social media is hardly the grand reach to a public that would advertise my abilities. I feel surrounded by walls. I can adorn them with art but only I can see or appreciate it.
Kontakt
- #oil
- #natural light
- #piano
- #feathers
- #hips
- #redhead
- #pale
- #form
- #pose
- #legs
- #shadows
- #corner
- #modelphotography
- #dramatic
- #portrait
- #lowlight
- #figurativeart
- #experimentalphotography
- #portraitart
- Info Photographer Clint
- 2024-06-27T01:48:44+02:00
- 2024-06-27T01:48:44+02:00
Obsessively breaking the sensor since 2016 with an overwhelming desire to see YOU.