California Dreamin' (v1.5)

Just sent from a photographer at the workshop last year: Joel Brown. The only one sporting a large format camera. Gets huge kudos from me.




Have I mentioned that I love my job? And that I love the artists I work with?

California Dreamin'

Sorry for the lack of posts, folks. I can't really say that I've been soooo busy I haven't had time to make a new entry, but rather finding suitable material to post/talk about has been lacking. Which is kind of silly, since a good friend of mine just set up a blog not too long ago and I have been advocating that you make a blog your own. It doesn't have to be substantial, or profound - it just has to be yours, and you post what you want.

So here I am.

I'm leaving in a few days to go to the Palm Springs Photo Festival. This will be my second year attending as a workshop model. I will be working for Greg Gorman's Fine Art Nude workshop, and I'm sure it will be as great as last year. I'm looking forward to seeing familiar faces and friends, but most of all, I'm looking forward to getting out of snowy Minnesota. Last night and this morning we had yet another substantial snowfall - 8 inches - and it's still snowing. Ugh. I'm so done with the snow and cold. Done done done.

I'm making lots of progress on my needed essentials for my long working vacation to France over the summer. I'm doing a great job at emptying out my pocketbook! But the expenses are necessary. New computer (I'm finally and officially a Mac user), new glasses and Rx sunglasses, new clothes, new camera (don't get terribly excited - its just a point and shoot, albeit an awesome one), and a bunch of incidentals. Shop til I drop.

On another note, I have a shoot today with Matthew Scherfenberg. Always love working with Matt. Let's just hope I can make it out of the driveway.



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Azureus by Matthew Scherfenberg.

Quarter-Century

That's it. I'm officially old now. ;)

So far its been a wonderful birthday - but the day has just begun!

In celebration of my birthday, I want to showcase just some of my favorite images of this year.
















Thank you to all the wonderful artists that I've worked with this past year.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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