Hot Soft Light

I want a Leica M8.
I want a Nikon F6.

The only reason I want them is that they kick ass, marketing and first hand testimonials.
My cousin owns a camera store chain in North Carolina and offered to "loan" me a Leica last year during the holidays.

I was scared. Scared I would want to buy it from him. But he's the guy I want to buy it from. I asked Richard and Tito last week @ Coffee Shop on Union Square if Leica "was all that?" They both said without blinking and kinda like I was a moron, "Yeah."

Shit.

But, you know, I am fine with my old videodrome arm extension Pentax ZX-M and my Nikon D-50. I always loved lo-fi, home-grown, and idiot savant anything. Cassette fidelity, grinding spices to make curry even though it permanently injures your hand, and programmers who can send shit into space but do not know how to wash their clothes or get food on a regular basis.

I don't even know where I'm going with this...

So, why do I WANT these things? Well, as I said, they kick ass. How important is the status symbol to me?

I just wanna take good pitchers...

Photo is of Angela last night shot with my camera.

Vacation ?

Exhale ~

Finishing up my latest incarnation of the Very Famous Women's Wear Line project for Holiday '06 at the end of the week. What's "IN" for this season? I'm glad you asked. Two words: Gifts...

I shot with Angela from Newfoundland tonight. She's only shot with D. Brian (see link to the "write") and he recommended her to me. Thanks Don, Angela was amazing. So much willingness to "experience" in that 19 year old body. Such a great sense of humor, and somewhat of an old soul. We laughed, we shot, we got great stuff. As soon as I get to it, it will be here.

AND, Angela, who has been booked for three months or so, is my last shoot for two whole weeks. I need the time off, as I'm SO far behind in retouching and getting shots to models, getting shots to me, sending out my new website to reps, agencies, galleries and art and photo directors.

So far behind that I just plain suck ass.

On the 20th, I am shooting a very famous "pinup" photographer. She asked me personally and I was flattered. We're gonna rock it and the results will be everywhere. Or nowhere, depending on what she wants to do...

Then, I'm off to Las Vegas!

Oddly enough, I can't get anyone there to shoot with me. I sent out a couple of requests, but man, if you are looking for natural breasts, it ain't your town....WORD!

I've got two NATURAL prospects. TWO! Jesus, I could do better just sitting here in Brooklyn...

And then I'm driving across Death Valley (or at least the southern tip of it) to a mythical place called Los Angeles.

My thinking: Three days, three shoots, and only with my three favorite LA wish-list girls. I sent out the feeler emails and within 30 minutes all three had said YES.

Thank you Trish, Ginger and Mary. We're gonna party.

So the vacation never really happens, does it? You just take two weeks off so you can work really hard during every day of the third week. Yep, I guess that's the way we go...over and over and over.

Michael (see link to the right) wants me to go skydiving with him on his birthday. I've thought about it long and hard and I'M THERE.

There will be no Chiller this Halloween. Sorry Mark, but I'll be in Vegas...

Oh, and after two weeks and three days, the jonesing is at a minimum. Still happening, but manageable.

I haven't heard The Hold Steady's new album, BUT last year's "Separation Sunday" is a masterpiece.

Yep.

Photo is of Amanda, who some of you that watch television might recognize from this season’s "Project Runway." Rich Goldstein and I shot her last summer in Williamsburg in 100 degree heat for two days straight for an editorial that we hoped to place, but alas, we we're thwarted by the stylist, who commissioned the shoot.

I could tell you what I think Amanda's chances are on PR based on my experience with working with her. But her agency at the time took the cake. They were truly heinous.

Another Place, Another Time

I miss people, places and things.
I miss things past.

What was that guy's name that I met in Rudy's Bar & Grill in Hell's Kitchen that was so fascinating?
What happened on the last episode of (the new) "Battlestar Galactica" that I watched two days ago?
When did my friend George jump into a swimming pool and break his neck?
What happened to my passport?

I can't remember.
And it's starting to worry me.

There is no history in my family of the disease that Alois Alzheimer diagnosed in 1906.
There is no history in my family of cancer, other than the intestinal cancer my Grandmother had and beat sometime in the 1980's.
There is no history in my family of leukemia, Parkinson’s, Lou Gering’s and all of those other proper nouns.
There is a history in my family among males of heart attack, but late in life, and sudden. Oh, so sudden.
There is a history in my family among males to drink themselves to death. Gangrene, even. Oh, so slow.

All of this to say that I think that I am okay.

Blame it on the nicotine withdrawal.

My memory loss officially worries me. It's been happening for "years," but I cannot remember for how long.

The photo is of "Scar" as "Vampiralla" many, many years ago.

Portuguese Illumination

My patron at ELEELA MAGAZINE sent me the full pdf file of the October issue today. It features three images from my ROOMS series featuring the fantastic models Gizel, Tomiko and Amy.

It looks cool. The font is bad (she apologized) and they cropped them, but what the fuck? The shots reproduced well. They accompany some sort of text that is called "FORUM" which (unlike my previous publisher) is the editorial section of the magazine - and someone editorializes about something "sexy," I was told.

Being that the "FORUM" section is a monthly feature, my patron asked me today via email if I was interested in supplying images to ELEELA MAGAZINE every month moving forward.

I said: YES.

Understand that I am being paid $0.00 and as I mentioned before, they are cropping my shots to suit their own needs, but here's the deal.

I need some exposure. And Brazilian exposure is as good as any in my house...

Then my patron asked me if I knew any girls that she could photograph while in NYC next week. Do I know any girls in NYC? C'mon...

Shit, now I gotta come up with...oh, never mind.

I suggested we shoot together. She accepted, but amended my proposal and suggested that we shoot consecutively. Two distinct "films" with the same script, talent and sets.

I'm in.

It's been a good day and the jonesing was at a manageable minimum. BUT, did I mention how, now, as I walk the sidewalks of NYC that I am ACCUTLEY aware that EVERYONE SMOKES! I mean old ladies smoking, little kids smoking and fucking dogs smoking like nobody's business. I saw a dead guy smoking today. I swear to god.

Or something...

Candidate

Jonesing badly today.

Made the mistake of reading that withdrawal takes two weeks, and that cranberry juice helps, and that just as things are declining after Day 3, there is a spike on Day 10.

Well, today's Day 11. Went to Dr. Ming, my acupuncturist, today. I told her what I'd done and she laughed and said "You nervous?" She stuck needles all in my face (I could see them move with my pulse...) and in my ears and wrists and a bunch of places down my legs that I couldn't see.

Acupuncture always makes me a little wonky. Super relaxed or just weird feeling. Today I got a headache and that weird metallic taste in my mouth that I haven't had since Day 3.

Distraction is a good thing. So I've been retouching like a speed demon.

Still jonesing.

The aforementioned Mike Lupica is having another brilliant set tonight on WFMU (see link at right). We must be approximately the same age, 'cause his show reminds me of a show I might do. He just played Bowie's "Candidate (alt)," a demo recording of "Candidate" from the brilliant "Diamond Dogs" that has wildly different lyrics from the version that eventually ended up on the album.

1974. Nixon. In retrospect, I guess those were good times.
Here's the lyrics to the album version.
Photo is of Kimberly who stole this shirt from me.
Both song and shirt pretty much sum up what I think of most things...

“I'll make you a deal, like any other candidate
We'll pretend we're walking home 'cause your future's at stake
My set is amazing, it even smells like a street
There's a bar at the end where I can meet you and your friend
Someone scrawled on the wall "I smell the blood of les tricoteuses"
Who wrote up scandals in other bars
I'm having so much fun with the poisonous people
Spreading rumours and lies and stories they made up
Some make you sing and some make you scream
One makes you wish that you'd never been seen
But there's a shop on the corner that's selling papier mache
Making bullet-proof faces, Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay
If you want it, boys, get it here, thing
So you scream out of line
"I want you! I need you! Anyone out there? Any time?"
Tres butch little number whines "Hey dirty, I want you
When it's good, it's really good, and when it's bad I go to pieces"
If you want it, boys, get it here, thing
Well, on the street where you live I could not hold up my head
For I put all I have in another bed
On another floor, in the back of a car
In the cellar like a church with the door ajar
Well, I guess we must be looking for a different kind
But we can't stop trying 'til we break up our minds
Til the sun drips blood on the seedy young knights
Who press you on the ground while shaking in fright
I guess we could cruise down one more time
With you by my side, it should be fine
We'll buy some drugs and watch a band
Then jump in the river holding hands…”

Director's Commentary

I work with two kinds of models - novice types and been-there-done-that types. On any given day I love working with either, but on certain days I prefer one to the other. The creative headache occurs when I book one and then the other then the other then the other. Working with each involves an entirely different directorial skill-set, and even though they intersect, they are fairly "uniquely" different.

Novice types are fun. There is a bit of the Svengali allure to it, but you have the potential (without the evil intent) to really "discover" and "mold" someone who potentially is "receptive" and "capable." Sometimes none of these four parenthetical things happen, but if one on your side and one on their side does, it can be exhilarating.

Been-there-done-that types are great. They know what to expect and are basically gonna go through a certain amount of what they are doing from rote - muscle memory and experience. I love to shake that up, challenge them and put them in situations that they've not been put before. Buck the stereotype, as I've written about here before.

I've got a bevy of each scheduled for October. Quality over quantity, but the quantity of quality is reaching its peak.

Photo is an "Alice" outtake featuring one of my two long, lost models, Kate Mandala. Kate was a been-there-done-that model.

Kate, if you are reading this, call me. We need to shoot again as people are buying prints of that one shot and you have my wardrobe. And you ARE my Alice...

She Drives Like an Exodus Slow to the Steeple

Finished a huge set with the lovely and talented Anyssa from San Francisco today. About 7 hours of retouching straight (after a triumphant return from Coney Island at Noon - lonely and deserted, but birthday gifts in hand).

I was supposed to shoot with Anyssa last September, but my 93 year old Grandmother passed away. Almost a year to the day, she had a wedding to attend in NYC and told me that I would be her only shoot. She brung with her 10 latex outfits, straight from the designer.

I shot all 10 of them and Anyssa naked on a chair as well (see earlier post).

I haven't even tackled the black & white yet, but I am VERY happy with the digital color. Anyssa and I talked about submitting the shots to the latex designer, although as cool as that is, I think we could place this as a story in MARQUIS or SECOND SKIN.

Easily.

Photo is obviously Anyssa ALL THE WAY LIVE! The post heading is Robert Pollard, whose "Blues And Boogie Shoes" I CANNOT get out of my CD player...