I'm back!

I'm back from my 2 1/2 week long west coast tour. Whew! All in all, everything went off without a hitch (well, I guess I did have a couple of cancellations, but that's not a huge deal) and I have so many wonderful memories from my travels.

But of course, I will not write about them in detail because I have no time! Lovely Erin is here spending a week with me, and we have so many plans and ambitions of things we want to do but of course not enough time to do them all.

Tonight were getting together with a bunch of her friends at a cool motor bar in N.E. Minneapolis called Psycho Suzi's. We will have a blast, I'm sure.


I'll leave you with a photo from the workshop I had in Long Beach.



_______________

Wendy Levin.

Alone in the Big City

So I have the whole day to myself after another cancellation. First one in L.A., but its my forth cancellation with less than 3 days notice. ugh.

What to do, what to do? I'm feeling pretty homesick, lonely and heavy hearted which is why I think its a bad idea to coop myself up in this apartment. I need to face my fear of the unknown and go explore this city.


No picture today. Sorry.

I was a figure drawing model today!

And he gave me the last drawing, and signed it! What a guy!

I'm sooooo happy. :)


_________________

Sergio Lopez.

My Angel

Is waiting in the wings.



______________

Lucian Schmit.

Lazy Dancer

If the fire's out baby
How you gonna keep me warm
Supposing you let me
With the door wide open no one can leave

I know it's a lie I want it to be true
The rest of the ride is riding on you
Over goodbyes we'll buy some place

For wishing you could
Keep me closer
I'm a lazy dancer
When you move I move with you

If somebody's got soul
You gotta make them move
Make them move

I know it's a lie I want it to be true
The rest of the ride is riding on you
Over goodbyes we'll buy some place

For wishing you could
Keep me closer
I'm a lazy dancer
When you move I move with you






_____________________

James graham & Erin.

Bagby Hot Springs

Love love love these. There will be more to come later, of course.

Love Oregon.

Love San Francisco too.



There's a lot of love. Just wish I had my love with me.



______________________

Lucian Schmit.

India House & the Cat Hat.

After my shoot with Jaime, we were supposed to meet up with the rest of the photographers with whom I have worked with on that trip, and two photographers I was going to work with the following day. It was a fucking amazing time... especially once Lucian's Cat Hat came out.

Jaime Ibarra.

Lucian Schmit.

Trevor Levin.

Andrew (AHS Photography).

Matt Schneider.

Andrew Kaiser.

Cutsy yet curious?

Rockstars of the Double Boop High Seven (patent pending).

Poke.

Life is good. And then some.

Thanks for the flowers, Trevor!

Now its off to go to San Francisco!

Encantar

_________________

Jaime Ibarra.

boop boop!

The Waterfall Glow

Shot at a tier two waterfall in which we had to scale a 30+ foot rock face to get to. It was amazing, and Andrew and I had an amazing, adventurous and fun time! The scale down was a bit scary, however. But we survived.

I did, however get a noticeable scratch on my right arm sometime during the shoot. Its just a small one, like the width of a cat scratch, except its 4 inches long.



Worth it though! Art is, always.

(I imagine Dave S. Having a mild fit about not being able to see my pinky in this photo.)

I shot with Jaime Ibarra all day today. Ummm yeah. That guy is the coolest, funnest, funniest guy you'll have the pleasure of meeting and working with. He's not arrogant about his work, but he should be. You'll see tomorrow...

All 8 photographers that I have/will work with throughout this Portland trip got together tonight at the India House in Portland. What a spectacular time!! I'll have to edit this entry tomorrow and post some of the "cat hat" pictures. It will be wonderful and hilarious to see. Maybe just for me, but hopefully for some of you as well.

_____________________

Andrew Kaiser.

Flower Child

Digital snaps. I can only imagine what the film is going to look like.

This trip is going fantastically, but I expected nothing less, of course.

More to come later...


__________________

Lucian Schmit.

I have a couple minutes...

You kicked a hole in the sky so the heavens would cry over me
you stole the soul from the sun in a world come undone at the seams

Let there be love
let there be love

I hope the weather is calm as you sail up your heavenly stream
suspended clear in the sky are the words that we sing in our dreams

Let there be love
let there be love
let there be love
let there be love

Come on baby blue
Shake up your tired eyes the world is waiting for you
may all your dreaming fill the empty sky
but if it makes you happy
keep on clapping
just remember I'll be by your side
and if you dont let go its gonna pass you by

You kicked a hole in the sky so the heavens would cry over me
you stole the soul from the sun in a world come undone at the seams

let there be love
let there be love
let there be love
let there be love


Oasis.

One of the classic bands of my time. I need to listen to them more...especially considering I have all their albums.



So my trip to the airport was a little more dramarific than I would have liked it to be. Yes, its all my fault.

My gram dropped me off a block away from the Government Plaza station downtown so I could catch the light rail to the airport. Well, I forgot to grab my phone that was charging from the car charger, and I didn't even realize it until I was halfway in my trip on the light rail. I asked to use two people's phones really quick for a local call, and both refused! WTF? Doesn't anyone trust one another these days? Its not like I was going to steal it for cryin' out loud. But anyways, when I got to the airport I rushed to find a payphone (yes, they still exist) and I called my gram and although very resistant, she realized the importance of having my phone so she agreed to make a trip to the airport. She had great timing too, because she arrived about an hour before my flight was supposed to leave, and at that time I sure was glad that I left super early.

Well, I get inside to get my e-ticket... only to find out that my flight didn't leave for another 3 hours. It had gotten rescheduled. Okay, that's better than an hour sooner, I would just have to kill some time. And a great way to do that is to go through security. Yeah... the TSA didn't like how many liquids & gels I had. Especially the slightly embarrassing ones. So I had to go over to the inspection table. It was hilarious though because of how embarrassed the TSA worker was. But he was super nice, young, pretty cute, very polite to me, and he kept thanking me for my patience. I would have been super annoyed if my flight was for the orginal time it was supposed to be, but because I had so much time to kill, and because he was easy on the eyes, I didn't care one bit. In fact I was pretty amused and happy that this was wasting some time. So I made extra nice and said something to the effect that "It's quite okay, you're just protecting us all and doing your job." He again thanked me for that.

So in the end, I got to keep all my extra stuff, so no harm no foul.


BTW, who else thinks that wi-fi in airports should be completely free? Salt Lake City does, and man, for that, this airport kicks ass.

Also, they should offer those neck pillows to everyone free of charge on the plane. Oh, but I rock and got one for filling on a Delta Skymiles Credit card application. Yeah, they wont accept me, but its all good, I got a FREE NECK PILLOW! You have no idea how excited I am...

Only a few more minutes until I can board my connecting flight from Salt Lake City to Portland. Spending all day in airports isn't my first choice of things to do, but its higher up on the list than you might think.





___________________

Bill Earle.

Because I can't wait.

I need to show you the rest of Doctor Horribe's Sing Along Blog. I hope you've enjoyed it. It's quite a treat, isn't it? :)







And of course, other artistic nude photo. This is is of me in Montana off of a popular trail in Glacier National Park photographed by Dave Levingston.




____________________

Dave Levingston.

Inside Out

Stretch all the way around and be close to your ground.






Doctor Horrible Sing Along Blog. Act 2, Parts 1 $ 2.







Packing 3 weeks of clothing into a small carry on is much more of a challenge for an art nude model than what you would think!


Today, Minneapolis. Tomorrow, West coast tour starting off in Portland!

________________

Lightphile Studios.

Just when you think....

...things are getting better and




BAM.




I wish I didn't mean that literally.


Here's a photo. It's not my usual kind of thing, but hey... neither is this.




Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning. Other times like I'm surfacing. Yesterday was the former, and today is the latter.


Here's something to make you (and me) smile. Do give it a chance.

(In all reality, its much better after you've seen the whole thing once before.)

Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog. Act 1, Parts 1 & 2.







_____________________

Zeitgeist Photography.

Am I a computer hog?

Matt thinks so.



But it brings up an interesting discussion.

Matt works on computers all day. Its part of his job. But he's not actually working directly on the internet, or more accurately, he's not working with the internet as a networking tool. So I can understand how he would be a little stupefied as to how I can possibly be on the computer for at least 2 hours a day, sometimes even up to 6 hours a day. And my grandma, well, you can imagine that if Matt is a bit flabbergasted, grandma just has no clue as to how I could waste a quarter of my day in with a laptop in my lap. Her boyfriend often remarks, "Is that thing attached?"

But seriously, how can I be on the computer that long? What the hell am I doing?

I'm setting up shoots. I'm confirming shoots. Browsing photographers. Browsing photos for inspiration, both conceptually and pose-wise. I'm looking up the best and cheapest flights. I'm posting photos. Replying to emails. Writing emails. Thinking up and compiling photos for article ideas for Univers d'Artistes. I'm looking for juried shows and art submissions for my boyfriend. I'm reading blogs, writing blogs, and reading google news.

If that doesn't seem like a lot, I assure you, it is.

You know, when I go off and do these shoots, a lot of photographers seem taken back by the amount of quality work I've done in the two short years I've been doing this (wow, it really has been two years already!), and I've gotten a quite a few questions to the effect of, "how did you get this far so soon?" Usually I say something overly modest such as, "Oh, just hard work and good taste." And those are true, of course, but a bigger part of it is, in my opinion, networking. And good connections are vital too, but I just contribute that to having good taste and having the decency to not ever flake and keeping my reputation squeaky clean.

In the summertime its much more often because, this is my summer job. Okay, this IS my job no matter what time of the year it is, but in the summer I'm just a lot more busy. But hey, I've managed to make it out to the beach three full days this summer already (with more to come)! Last year I only made it to two, so I think I'm doing pretty damn good! (Dont worry guys, I put on 70 SPF sunscreen!)



So it might be the cause that's rotting out my brain and atrophying my muscles, but hey, as long as this is the means to an art end, I'm more than okay with that.




_______________________

Lightphile Studios.

Lets play!

Let's play follow the limbs!











Ready?










Go!







___________________

Scott Nichol.

Less says more

Don't you agree?

That's why I think the VIP 100 picture purchase option on MM is bullshit. If you can't say what you have to say in 20 pictures, you should have a website, not more pictures on a crappy immature model/photographer networking site.

I'm awfully judgmental when I've had some wine.

Nah, that's a lie. I'm always judgmental and overly picky, I just usually dont say it out loud - I keep it to myself. But... I like it that way. I am quite snobby about my artistic aesthetic, and if I wasn't intrinsically driven, I wouldn't be striving the way I continually am to always enhance my portfolio and up my standards. Some would say its a disservice to myself, as I should just try to have fun and make art. Well, I can tell you first hand that some of the best artists (in my opinion) know how to have the best fun.

Fuck yes.

Enough rambling already. Here's some art.





And here's some fun (at CONvergence, the funnest, geekiest geek festival in the midwest)!


Poke.


The aftermath of the Dr. Horrible Sing Along (Blog).




Oh, have I mentioned that I have a huge crush on Nathan Fillion? (Captain Hammer in Doctor Horrible...)



(Captain Hammer:
You've got a little crush, don't you, Doc? Well, that's gonna make this hard to hear. See, later, I'm gonna take little Penny back to my place. Show her the command center, Hammercycle, maybe even the Hamjet. You think she likes me now? I'm gonna give Penny the night of her life, just because you want her. And I get what you want. See, Penny's giving it up, she's giving it up hard. Cause she's with Captain Hammer. And these...
[Hammer holds up his fists]
...are not the hammer.
[Hammer walks out of the shot momentarily then walks back in]

The hammer is my penis.)


Sorry, I totally geeked out there for a moment. I'm sure you'll recover.


____________________

Matt Blum.
Matthew Scherfenberg.


Scherfenberg's iPhone! x2.

google's image search engine.

True, It Might Seem Like a Stretch

but its thoughts like this that catch
my troubled head when you're away
when I am missing you to death.

The Postal Service - Such Great Heights




I like my spine. Its neat.


________________

Olaf Starorypinski.