it’s been a long time since i’ve had the opportunity to do some new photos. I was very pleased when a friend asked if i knew of a female model who would be interested in modeling some of his clothing that he had acquired in the course of life. When i would visit him i’d seen the chain mail dress hanging and had asked him about it. ‘something i picked up at the renaissance fair’ which he lives close to and visits every year. i contacted a young model [see here] i like working with asking her if she would be game. then called my friend setting a time and date. on the day of the shoot he came to studio loaded down with outfits. we were only able to use two of them and he acted as the stylist since he knew how to fit them.

boiler room chain mail dress

there are way too many hooks for me to venture as my own stylist, sort of like being your own lawyer. one of the things i learned that day is how many different egos, for lack of a better word, effect the shoot. there was no real client and no one bothered me about how to shoot but there was something weird in the air.

woman wearing chain mail

as you can see here there weren’t too many keepers but as i always say i don’t need hundreds of them. i did fool around during the processing doing a B&W image below.

B&W experiment

i am not sure if i am fond of this one, too many shadows on her face and chest. i need to be more aware of details before i press the shutter. now it’s time for a costume change which turned into a long costume fitting.

Black leather corset

that masha hung in there gamely, which is why i like working with her. she has always done what i’ve asked her to do trusting my judgment that i mean to do no harm. she does surprise me by bringing some tricks of her own.

redhead with ridding crop

one of the things i look for in people i work with is intensity. for art models it’s not always there as they seemed to be trained to be demure. who trains them other models, or is there an art model school down in Florida?

bitting the subjection crop

some thing different as we move through the day that’s what is so much fun, things happen. gotta have a sense of humor.

hallway

at the end of the day we were a bit tired from all our traveling here and there from one fantasy to another or is it just dreamtime? no one was hurt or damaged by our playtime. but wait there is one more image i almost forgot another toy. here you can see what she brought with her, a creative addition of attitude, something models need to understand and this is a fine example, it just doesn’t come out of the blue, it’s felt.

attitude

see how her body seems to lunge forward challenging the viewer? the way she holds her head back and arms tucked behind her, some body language. just a lucky shot for me.

we go from demur and passive to challenging. some range of human emotions

I showed these images to my partner and retoucher on our new magazine, peau magazine, he asked where we shoot this spread. ‘here’ i said. he looked at me strangely because all he saw was an empty studio. yes all the backgrounds were merged and composed in Adobe photoshop 6  from stock images i wander around the city snapping away thinking they might be interesting someday. life can be fun that way. enjoy. jene