Reclining Dude

This is a companion piece to yesterday's image. It's from the same shoot.

Rediscovered Treasure

This image from several years ago was recently rediscovered in my files and converted to black and white.

Rocky Perch

Torso - Rico

Reach

Modesty

This is another of the recovered, under-exposed images of Ronan.

Shady Character

From the same shoot as the earlier images of Derek Russo under the fountain, this image of Chris in the nearby hot tub is one of my favorites from the days work.

Quadruplets

Many have a fetish about twins, and it's a difficult fetish to entertain. How much more difficult is it to have a fetish about quadruplets?

Reclining Nude

Sometimes, when you review the images from a great shoot long ago, you're surprised to find a gem you overlooked the first time. Add this image to that category.

Points to viewers who recognize the model in this shot. I have posted his images in this blog frequently.

Ronan - Studio

Years ago, when I did this shoot with Ronan, the material from the studio part of this shoot was mostly lost due to a problem with the exposure settings on my camera. The entire roll of images was severely under exposed. And with film this was something you did not discover until days later when you got the negatives back from the processor and the model was long gone.

Ronan was such a great model in such good shape that this technical failure was a big disappointment to me.

However in the last few weeks I have been able to recover some of the images by scanning the negatives and manipulating them in Photoshop. It's not an easy process and even then many are just too under exposed to be used. This one was one of the ones I was able to salvage.

Rock Star II

This image of Lance is from the same shoot as the previous one. Just as the last image illustrates the wonders of indirect light, this image illustrates the dangers of direct sun light. Lance's face is almost completely in shadow, although in this case I like the effect.

Rock Star

Several years ago I shot a series of models at spot near the Angeles mountains called Devil's Punchbowl. It's a ravine formed by giant sandstone rocks sloping into a mostly dry creek bed. This image of Lance is one of the first shoots in that location. This was an early lesson in the wonders of indirect outdoor lighting. Lance is entirely in the shade here. Indirect lighting created the soft even tones with just enough shadows to accentuate his muscularity.

Chance of Showers

Jake

Under the Fountain

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

Dining Room Chair

A black and white study of Dave Clark's superb physique.

Medium Format

About a decade ago, after a few years of more serious work behind a camera, I was smitten by medium format cameras.

If you aren't a serious photographer, "medium format camera" probably means nothing to you, but basically a medium format camera is a camera that takes pictures on larger rolls of film. Larger rolls of film create bigger negatives; bigger negatives create sharper images that can be printed in larger sizes or sharper images in small sizes. Medium format cameras shoot on film roughly the same size as was used in those old Kodak brownie cameras and create negatives that are at least 150% larger than 35mm negatives.

Of course the word "medium" implies there is something larger, and there is. Large format cameras shoot on single sheet film  that is either 4x6 inches or 8x10 inches. Large format film captures even more detail than medium format.

On the weekend that I shot this image of Dave Clark, as well as the earlier image posted this week, I had rented a Mamiya 645AF. I shot black and white negative, color negative and color positive film.

This image was shot on color positive film, which kind of like a large version of film slides, only there isn't a card board case around the film and projectors are not widely available for this size. Color positive film was most commonly used for magazine work.

This film positive was scanned and finished in Photoshop.

Comfy Couch

Dave's pleasant proportions, extreme definition and handsome face is the subject of today's post.

Strong

A Thanksgiving post today of a favorite model.

Pool God

This picture of Ronan is from the same shoot as last week's image.

Ronan

This photograph from the vaults is from a shoot several years ago with model Ronan Dougherty.

Come with me

This welcoming vision is Dwain. The image is from my series of models in the open french doors.

Enchanted Mermen

Dwain in the Doorway

Regular readers will recognize both Dwain and the French Door location. This was photographed several years ago and recently reprocessed.

Mermen Bicolor

Dwain in the Doorway

Dwain is one of the best models I have ever worked with. Killer face and physique and a creative mind. Over the last few years I've done a series of photos of models in the open doorway of this bedroom. This week's image is Dwain's contribution to that series.

Mermen Revisited

This week we return to underwater images, but with different models, and in color. This is from a couples shoot earlier this month. The image has been processed in PhotoShop to create a cross process effect. For those of you who are not photographers, cross processing is a film based technique that involves shooting on film for prints but processing the image in chemicals intended for slide film or vice versa. Using the "wrong" chemicals creates interesting effects with colors and usually increases contrast. Although I usually stay within the black and white color palate, some of the underwater images from this shoot grabbed me by the collar and insisted they be rendered in color.

Should I venture more often into color images? I would love to hear from you.

Self Possessed

Day Dream

Hercules

Another forgotten gem from the same shoot with Dwain.

Rapture #7

This image features the angelic form of Dwain, easily one of the most beautiful and talented models I have worked with. Not only was his physical condition impeccable, not only is his face gorgeous, he is is also extremely intelligent and creative. It's a killer combination that shows in all his work.

End of Summer Doldrums

August is gone. Time to shake away the summer doldrums and return to regular posting.

This is a rediscovered image from a shoot with Alex William several years ago.

Rico Relaxed

Diagonal

I have been scanning negatives from older shoots over the last few weeks because I've noticed that high quality negative scanners seem to be disappearing from the market and the one I use is over ten years old. After it's dead, my negatives may be trapped in an obsolete format.

This image is from a shoot with Alex William. Besides the fact that it showcases his incredible physique, I like it for the unusual composition.

Step Ladder

During the shoot with Rico Cherry, Rico suggested using the step ladder in the studio for some of the images. It turned out the ladder wasn't nearly as photogenic as Rico, so not many of the pictures were usable, but this one, which obscures the ladder with Rico's body, is rather nice.

Impressive Back

Later this month I have a shoot scheduled and expect to share early images on this blog as usual. In the meantime, I present the amazing back of Rico Cherry from a shoot several years ago. What an amazing tie-in from his lower back to his glutes!

Mona Lisa Smile

Model Alex William's sly, reserved smile reminds me of the Mona Lisa.

Tarzan

This image is another from a shoot years ago with model Rico Cherry.

Unintended Color

Film scanners are strange beasts. This image, taken at a time when I was still using a mix of film and digital in every shoot, was scanned from the negative this weekend. The film strip before this one was a color negative and I forgot to change the scanner setting to monochrome before I scanned it. Oddly the scanner found color where none was, creating this odd, shimmering red, orange, yellow effect. I thought it was interesting enough to preserve and share.

I suspect it results from the film scanner expecting the familiar orange base on a strip of color negative. When it finds the negative to be clear, it reads clear as red/orange/yellow.

Languid

This image is from one of my early photo shoots. Micheal contacted me not long after I had established a presence on the web and we worked together on a trade/test basis.

Mine

Your Arm's Too Short to Box with God

Hold Back the Night

More work with Jake from last week.

Divine

Another image from last weekend's shoot.

Dancer

This image of the wonderfully talented model, Jake, is one of the best from a shoot this morning.

Rico Cherry

This is another favorite destined for the Best Of gallery on my website.

The model is Rico Cherry. Rico discovered me from the web and scheduled a shoot with me as he traveled through LA a few years ago.

Rico was an amazing model with an innate sense of posing beauty and balance.

Back Catalog Favorite

I am working on a "Best Of" gallery for my website that will be filled with favorite images from all of my shoots over the last ten years. This image is one of the pics that will undoubtedly make the cut.

It was taken very early in my career on a trade/test shoot with a model who contacted me out of the blue after seeing my website.

Joel Torso II

More work from the shoot with Joel.

Site Update

For those of you who visit my website as well as my blog, I have just completed a long awaited update to my photography website. Two galleries were replaced with images from the shoot with Joel and the Mermen series.

Follow the link at the lower right called "Physiography - my web site".

Sepia Kiss

This post is a departure for postings to this blog, because I do not often post romantic or erotic images. This image is from my recent couples shoot. Credit for the soft focus sepia effect goes to the suggestion by one of the models that I shoot through a sepia colored scrim.

Side Ways

Another favorite from the shoot with Joel.