Shades of beauty

BEAUTY FOSTER
A model I would shoot with again and again...

Hotter than July...

It's been a sweltering hot July in New York.  Expect August to be more so.  Layers of clothes come off to reveal more sensuous summer potential.  Not quite nude but getting there...

KIMBER LEE

NNEKA

mirror in the bathroom...

Lovely NNEKA

more beauty foster...

BEAUTY FOSTER

Just because she is one of my favourites...

Passionately not nude...

SPIRTZ

I have gotten a lot of compliment about these images and how sensual they are without the element of nudity in them. SPIRTZ is a really beautiful woman inside and out. She screams sensuality effortlessly and I would love nothing more than another opportunity to shoot with her again. She rocks!

More anonymity...

The model is BANANA SPLIT. She came from Philadelphia to shoot with me in New York. We shot this image about two years ago. It was a steamy shoot with a mostly dark mood that involved self stimulation. I will post more pictures from this series at a later date.

Experimenting with motion and blur...

About a year ago I was in Los Angeles for a film shoot with comedian Robin Williams. After prepping for that shoot I had just enough downtime to squeeze in a still shoot with a model named SANCI. She is a very sweet person and was a real pleasure to shoot with, although nude photography is not principally what she does. We did a combination of clothed and nude images. I like these shots because of the slight motion effect in them.

Anon a nude...

There is something about anonymity in nude photography that is very appealing. Without over the top posturing or posing, that aspect of a photography can be very intriguing to me. I remember going to see Stanley Kubrick's film "Eyes Wide Shut" and being fascinated by the absurdity of conducting a racy intimate conversation from behind the relative safety of a mask. There was something very erotic about it. I shot this image in my studio with a beautiful model who didn't need her face hidden one way or the other. I just happened to have had the mask we shot with for quite a while but never got around to using it until I shot with her.



Sometimes I love it when the anonymity is playful like it was when I shot with Los Angeles model and actress NNEKA whom I met through Model Mayhem. This was actually the only shot we got that worked that idea perfectly.



Fabrics, which I employ on a lot of my shoots, sometimes provides the element of anonymity as was the case in this image I shot with ELIZABETH in my studio. I love how her body is outlined against both the fabric and the background. The effect fixes the focus of the image on her lovely figure. This was an interesting shoot for reasons I might explain at some future date.

More Big as in Beautiful...

These images are from two separate shoots with a "plus sized" model named BOBBI. She is another one of those models I admire who is comfortable in her own skin and for my money, the result from our shoot are a testament to that by my account. I have serious reservations about trying to shoot nudes with a model I have to convince to do so. So far I have been pretty luck with the models I have been approached by and vice versa.

I have begun to appreciated the virtues of rope almost as much as I have the virtues of fabric. I haven't done any hardcore rope work yet. Not sure I am up for that just yet, but maybe I'll get there someday.

Big as in Beautiful...

My sense of beauty has always eschewed the constraints of size, race or any other immaterial considerations. Today I am featuring a model who represents the "big" woman. One thing I have always admired about models I shoot nude or partially nude is their comfort level with those things about themselves that others might disparage. My friend and model LAKIA AMOR is one of those. I have shot with her only once before, but have remained in touch with her. I enjoyed my shoot with her and am looking forward to doing it again soon. Before we shot, we had an extensive conversation about things related to her life at that time and we settled upon the idea of exploring molting or the shedding of things. Burdensome things, worn out things, just things. The first picture here is intended to convey that notion. I hope we succeeded in doing just that.

I also want to salute a director friend of mine ALBERTO FERRERAS who published his first novel B as in Beauty, last summer. There is common ground between these pictures and his book which is about learning to celebrate who we are inside and out. Whether fetishized or objectified, big women carried a burden most of us will never understand. It is therefore a triumph whenever a woman or in my case a photographer discovers the B in Beauty.