weekend backfire

Life is a strange bag of big thorns and dark chocolate, liars and lovers, suffering and bliss.

C'est la vie.





Art always lifts me up. Because of that, I'm smiling.

_____________

Risen Phoenix.

Post-Holidays

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season!

I had a blissful 2 week break from life modeling gigs, and goodness, I soaked it in. I love working with artists and doing what I do - it is so rewarding in so many ways - but it is very physically demanding, and in some ways mentally challenging as well. So I gave my body lots of TLC, and thoroughly enjoyed my time off.

But now! - Back to work. January and February is filling up fast with life modeling work. But I'm going to be restricting life modeling work in March and April so I can focus on traveling and working with photographers around the country before I leave for France for the summer.

Dates are not in place quite yet, but I know I'll be traveling to the following cities/states in the spring:

NYC
Los Angeles & Bay Area
Chicago
Ohio

Other possible locations are:

Portland
Seattle
Austin/Dallas
Baltimore/DC area

I might do a quick 5-6 day midwest tour via car. But... that depends on my car's condition. It's getting old and unreliable.

Feel free to suggest a place for me to go!

I'll update this travel list in due course when details are worked out.





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Nad Iksodas. 4x5 Film.

Stephanie Anne

A little post to celebrate the creative talent of my friend and fellow art model, Stephanie Anne.











I had such a fun and memorable time collaborating with her and our fellow photographer friends.

It will happen again.

When? Hopefully soon.

_______________

In sets of two, in the following order:

Steven Billups
Scott Nichol
Bill Earle

Voyage

I've known this for a couple months, but I wanted to make sure everything was in order and finalized before I gave the news.

I'm going to France for the entire summer of 2011, May - August!

I'll be working for an intensive life drawing studio about 2 1/2 hours southwest of Paris.
Six hours a day, 5 days a week for 12 weeks. Most of the poses will be 60+ hours.

So after the holiday season, I'll be busting my butt to travel and book as many photo shoots as I can in the U.S. before I leave for the summer. Please send me an email if you'd like me in your area.

I might be able to book some photo shoots in Western Europe while abroad, but it will be very limited, as the life drawing studio is my number one priority and commitment.

It's absolutely amazing the opportunities I've been given because of art modeling. I can't imagine what my life would be without it.



___________________

Scott Nichol.

If you're in the Twin Cities...

You should come to this gallery show tomorrow, Friday November 12, 7 - 10pm!

A photographic underwater series by Rhea Pappas.
Live photo-shoot with models wearing hand dyed scarves by Wendie Zekowski and jewelry by Jamie Ingham.
Hair and makeup by FiveTwoSix Stylists




Here's the facebook event link.

Here's the 526 salon link.


It will be a great time! Hope to see you there!!

two announcements!

Sorry for the lack of updates dear friends. Everything is well and good here. You know, life just gets in the way sometimes.

I don't have much personally to write about at this time, but I do have a couple of important announcements to make.

------------------------

First of all, dear friend Dave Levingston has 4 wonderful 2011 calendars for sale. One of them is a calendar of our travels this past summer to my most beloved location in the world - the North Shore of Minnesota. They come in two available sizes, and make great gifts for you and your artistically-minded friends and family.



Here is his link to all of his calendars.

And here are the two links to both of my calendars. the large calendar, and the smaller calendar.

------------------------

The second announcement is that some of self-portraits are once again included in a collaborative book project.



The third volume of the f-eleven series of photo books was published yesterday.

Information to order can be found by clicking here, and a full preview of the book can be seen here.

20 percent discount offer:

USD $ coupon code: PROMO
GBP £ coupon code: PROMO1
EUR € coupon code: PROMO2
CAD $ coupon code: PROMO3
AUD $ coupon code: PROMO4

100% of the profits of this book go to The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction.


Over 190 images (including fine art nude images )
15 photographers
160 pages (premium lustre paper)
8" x 10" (landscape style)

Designed & Edited by WOLF189

featuring:

Brooks Ayola (nude portraits)
Ralph Barker ( fine art landscape + still life )
Matthew Cherry ( fine art )
Sita Mae Edwards ( fine art nude )
April-lea Hutchinson ( nude portraits )
Leo Lam ( editorial fashion )
Dave Levingston ( fine art nude )
Clay Lipsky ( portraits )
Frank Love ( street / documentary work )
Brooke Lynne ( fine art nude )
Ken Mierzwa ( fine art nude)
Trish Noble ( portraits )
Dave Rudin ( fine art nude )
Ward Shortridge ( portraits )
Wolf189 ( editorial fashion + erotic portraits )

f-eleven is a private photography group. Visit us at:

f - eleven books: [link]
f - eleven books blog: [link]
f-eleven facebook: [link]

Streamlined Backlog

I got an iPhone a little less than a month ago. Since then, I've been on the computer much, much less (but on my iPhone much, much more). Which is generally a good thing because I don't waste time surfing the web for silly things. But it has its downsides of course, because I generally just "check" things and don't "respond" much any more. And if any of you know me, you know that I never was too terribly quick on replying to things in general before.


I said I was going to blog on my trip again, but I never got to it mostly because there wasn't internet access the last week while in the UP of Michigan. And it was better that way because I got to enjoy the fabulous company and make awesome art. And believe it or not, I really enjoyed not being completely attached at the hip to the world wide web. I should make it a habit more often.


I have some SUPER exciting opportunities happening this year that I will share with you all soon enough. But until then, please enjoy some of the marvelous photos taken at the UP of Michigan.







____________________________

Mark Haskins.

Model alongside in the first photo: Keira Grant

chocolate + loveliness

The trip is going fantastic. I'm so, so, so happy I could make this happen.

For the first part of my trip, I'm traveling with the gorgeous, wonderful, and superbly talented Stephanie Anne. She is a delight to hang around with and to work with.

We met up in Pennsylvania and worked with Scott Nichol and Bill Earle, worked with Steven Billups in Delaware today and we're ending our travels together on Monday in Baltimore with David Hilton. It will be bittersweet, because I know we'll meet and work together again, but I just don't want to part ways.

But for the second part of my trip, which will be just under a week long, I'm going to a truly beautiful location, with two of my most favorite people in the world, and I'm meeting up and working with another talented model... but I'll just leave that a mystery until my next post.

Until then, here is some Chocolate Polaroid goodness of Stephanie and I, courtesy of Scott Nichol.

Off I go...

Tomorrow morning I skip town for a week and a half!

Toooooo excited. I need this, for many reasons.

The great thing about my job is that, not only is it my job, but its my passion, and I am so lucky that the people I work for are almost always the most awesome people on the planet. It's work AND play. I am blessed.

Not only that, but on this trip I'll be meeting and working with two models who's work I've respected for a long time. AWEsome.


I'll blog on the trip, for sure... how often, I do not know.



But I'll leave you with a self-portrait.


Until next time, dear readers, take care.

life is hard... let's control it.

Perception is everything. You've heard that here before, and perhaps from several other sources. It is truth, sometimes a very hard-to-swallow truth.

Perhaps that's one of the reasons why I like photography so much. Photography has EVERYTHING to do with perception, and visa-versa. Perhaps I've said that before too.


I'm starting to get ready for my upcoming travels to the East and to the U.P. of Michigan, and starting to plan for travels in the late fall and winter. As I'm in the midst of mentally preparing myself, because its been many months since I've traveled, I've been noticing a little bit of trepidation. I've been very conscious of this, trying to figure out where it's coming from. I love flying, I love meeting new friends, I love going to parts of the country I've never been before, and of course, I love creating art. Clearly, the positives vastly outweigh the negatives. But I'm prone to worry. My first subconscious instinct is to find things that could go wrong - possibly to mentally prepare myself for problems, for failure. Even when every detail of logistics is figured out, there is always room for unexpected changes that are out of my control. And I think that's the real issue. Not being in control.

Control has so many veils of security. "If I am in control of this, or that, I will feel and be safe." It alleviates a sense of helplessness. And helplessness can be scary. The only thing you can ever control is your emotions and reactions to situations, everything else outside of yourself is out of your control. Period. Now, sometimes you can manipulate situations or people to get what you want... and I believe that's what fuels this obsession. Because sometimes it works! And if you're particularly talented at those skills and/or in a position of high authority, they might work a lot. But in the long run, especially if you're pushing for the wrong reasons, they will be detrimental.

I prefer trust. Trust that everything will work out okay. Because it always does. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't believe anyone should just sit back and do nothing to change a situation, especially if it's harmful to you. I'm talking about when you come to a wall that you can neither go around or knock down. The serenity prayer comes in handy here.


I'm in the middle of a particularly hard personal situation with a loved one. I desperately want to control it, to change it, to get the unwanted factor(s) out of their life and my life. And the first few days, hell, the first few weeks were horribly hard. Half the time, I was (both unconsciously and consciously) pulling out all my childish tactics to make it go away. The other half, I was purposely denying the issue / lying to myself, pretending that it wasn't even in existence or that it would go away. Then, when I couldn't lie to myself anymore, and I was tired of being a baby, I got on my pedestal spouting the morals of societal homogonies and ethics of popular opinions and methodologies. Woe is me! You're hurting me! You're making me feel this way with your actions/choices! For a very short time, I even tried to get a third party on the bandwagon (who was already on, but I thought "strength in numbers.") Then... hypocrisy slapped me hard in the face. And the realization that, although this is so very hard, if I learn to accept it I will have a much easier time continuing the very important relationship than if I resist it. So I've been accessing all the resources I can to understand it. And, low and behold, I have much more peace with it. I'm still not happy about it, by any means, but I am coming to terms with it. And all I can do is take a leap of faith, and trust that these unwanted factors will not harm the relationship I have with my loved one.

It's a huge leap of faith, and it is possible that I wont make it to the other side, but I'm proud that I have the courage to jump... instead of cowering in fear, sadness and anger.






_____________

Self-portrait. In-camera double exposure.