Rocky

Side Spray

Shower Dance

Morning

This image from a shoot several years ago with Derek Russo.

Under Fall

Chance of Showers

Under the Fountain

This image of fan favorite Derek Russo was taken at a friend's home in the Hollywood Hills.

Mystery

This is also from the recovered shoot of Derek Russo. The image has been treated with the Orton effect to blur the focus and then split toned. Dark tones are slightly blue and light tones are slightly brown.

Closet Light

This image of Derek is from the same series of recovered photographs. The harsh overhead light creates brings his physique into sharp focus.

Shower Break

Another of the recovered images from the shoot with Derek Russo. This one is taken in the shower/tub.

Bathroom Vanity

This is another image from the recovered negatives of Derek Russo. The shoot was at a friends house papered with limestone and plate glass. This is from one of my favorite series of photographs shot with Derek sitting on a bathroom vanity with a plate glass wall either in front of him or behind. 

Lost and Found

I had thought the negatives to this shoot with Derek Russo from almost ten years ago were permanently lost. I noticed they were missing a half dozen years ago, and even though I turned my office upside down many times over the years looking for them, they never turned up.  I am very organized with my negatives, and this was the only set in over a decade that I ever misplaced. 

Derek is an extremely talented model, besides being a favorite of many, many afficiendos of male nudes. He has a natural talent in front of the camera and an artistic style of posing that belies his rough appearance.

This shoot was the second time I shot Derek and the black and white negatives I misplaced were of some of my all time best work, thanks to Derek, who managed to give me gold even though I was relatively inexperienced.

I like this particular image even though on close examination you will probably notice the focusing is a little peculiar. It is Derek's wet arm in the foreground that is in focus, and since this was shot indoors with natural light and a very wide aperture his face is slightly out of focus. The effect leads one's eye to one small part of his body just like one's eye might have been drawn to it momentarily. 

The negatives resurfaced in a most peculiar, magical manner, too. A few weeks ago I had been organizing my office and put a stack of notes into the bottom drawer of an already full desk drawer. This morning as I was searching for something else in that drawer, a few of the papers on the top slid down behind the drawer. As I opened and closed the drawer to dislodge the papers, a manila envelope containing the negatives slid out from under the drawer! Had the envelope not been marked with Derek's name I wouldn't even have opened it.

Over the next few days and weeks I will post more of the images from this shoot, especially ones I have never before posted to my website.

Marble Shower (continued)

This photograph is from the same photoshoot and series and the post from yesterday.

The marble's white reflective surface provides lots of even lighting.

Marble Shower

One of my all time favorite photographs of model Derek Russo from a photo shoot several years ago at a friend's house.
The most amazing thing to me about this photo and several others in the series is that all I did was put Derek in the shower and ask him to sit down. Derek brought the pensive facial expression and mood into the picture on his own. This was the moment I fully realized just how talented Derek is as a model.

Fountain King

This photo of Derek Russo is from several years ago on the same shoot as the photo I published a week or two ago. This part of the shoot was in and around a stainless steel fountain on a property in the Hollywood Hills. In this picture Derek is standing at the end of a long channel just above the point where the water falls into a small pool before cascading into a swimming pool below that.

The photo is a 35mm color transparency shot with available light augmented by a reflector in the shadows of his chest.

Fountain

I spoke too soon last week about the photographs of Derek Russo. Turns out I mis-read my calendar. My shoot with Derek is NEXT weekend. So rest assured I'll post something new of Derek next Sunday.

In the meantime, I have posted a photograph from my second shoot with Derek about five years ago.

The whole shoot was at a friends large home in the Hollywood Hills. This photograph is taken outdoors in a large fountains that flows into the swimming pool.