Peeves...

Peeves....we all have em. Those little things that particularly annoy us more than others and get easily under our skin.
So it would be of no surprise to those who know me personally that a few of my peeves would involve driving, since driving is one of the few things that have ever come naturally to me.

I have been driving since I was about 13 years old. My parents would occasionally head off to the city by subway to take in a show and could easily be gone for about 5 hours. I knew where the car keys were kept and one day decided it would be good fun to take the old 1969 Dodge Coronet out for a spin. I'd take note of how it was parked in the back yard and make sure to keep it the same. I went and picked up a few of my friends and we would have a blast, and a few close calls where the police passed us and did a double take because I certainly looked my age then.

Since then I have driven most everything from motorcycles to 60ft long articulated buses. I was a bit of a speed demon when I was younger but like most of us we wise up and mellow out a bit with age and experience.
So, some of the things that really get under my skin are not the usual culprits that seem to piss most everyone else off such as riding up on the shoulder to cut in front of a line of traffic, getting cut off, driving slow in the left lane of a highway (that gets close though), wreckless speeding, etc.

The things that seem to bother me most are the actions of drivers that don't seem to have a clue that there are others on the road. While driving along on a city street, the car in front begins to slow for no apparent reason. Ok, so I can assume the driver is going to double park or something and so I lay back and wait for his move. He then proceeds a bit further and pulls nose first into a spot, then stops mid way with rear of car blocking the lane. Arrrg! Alright, I don't get bent outta shape like I might have when I was younger but it still has me cursing under my breath and rolling my eyes in disbelief.

Another situation I have seen too often is when a driver begins making a turn, then decides midway that they want to turn in the other direction. Then there is the driver that almost comes to a complete stop on the right lane of the highway to double check if the exit coming up is the one they need...

Its important that when you begin an action that you follow through to completion. If you decide the parking spot was not the one you wanted or you needed to turn left instead of right you really must follow through with what you started and then regain your bearings and make the neccessary corrections later. Much of driving involves anticipation for both getting around traffic and for defensive purposes, so when you as a driver do things that are unpredictable it causes a dangerous situation for you and others around you, no matter how slow or careful you may think you are. Its also not really a matter of a driver being stupid, as I have seen these things done many times over by Doctors (MD plates). It's either sheer arrogance , and/or just a lack of common road sense.

Ok, so just had to get that out there! Also haven't blogged in a while and wanted to keep things alive here :)

I do have some ambitious shoots and projects coming up in the near future and also want to get back to some of the barns and abandoned structures that I love venturing into.

Oh, driving at night with your bright lights on...arrrggg! :P

A shoot with Marlo Marquise

I had the pleasure a little while back to shoot with burlesque performer/artist Marlo Marquise. Marlo is a charming woman and a pleasure to talk to. She is also an artist and exhibits her paintings in various galleries in New York.

I wanted to go through a couple of different burlesque/pinup looks and then cover one fetish/latex set as well, which we did.

Here are a couple with a fantastic outfit with bullet bra and gorgeous color. Marlo has a very fine sense of styling and did her own for this shoot.

One of the ideas I had wanted to execute in this session was to have Marlo posing with a full or 3/4 Stand up bass. I had contacted a few people about acquiring one for the shoot and found someone who had agreed on coming down and supplying a bass for the half hour os so that I'd need for her to pose with it. The very night before the shoot, the contact emails me with an absurd amount of money that he wants for the rental of the bass and so the deal was off and the shoot had to go on without it. I don't know if this guy just thought this was going to be some huge budget endeavor that he could ask for the sun and moon or if he were just trying to squeeze me knowing I might not find an alternative at such last minute, but that sort of shit really pisses me off. So, anyway, I'll be having Marlo back to finish some of the other ideas I wanted to pull off and I have a cool contact to supply the bass lined up.

I have finally set up a tether to my camera and computer and have it going through LightRoom 3.4 I set up all the metadata info and file name,sequence, etc and as i'm shooting the images are loading directly into my designated folder as well as being able to see the results immediately on the monitor. It really does make thing easier from many aspects.

These were adjusted and tweaked a bit in LightRoom and them a more extensive treatment applied in Photoshop.

haute couture portraiture

Masae Satouchi had asked if I would be interested in doing a set of work with her as she had picked up a very interesting "dress" with matching head piece. It is a dress/garment sculpted from wire and decorated with what appear to be amethyst gemstones.

This is a portrait from the set we did featuring the haute couture piece. Masae did her own styling and brought along some "friends" as accessories she wanted to work with.

I shot and processed this with a light and airy feel. Some others from the set are full body with Masae barefoot and posing in various graceful forms which she does well as she is an accomplished dancer.

Masae is great to work with, but also a blast to be around. She has a lot of stories and her English is still a bit rough so things sometimes get hung up and twisted a bit in translation.
She had told me of a film she had done in which she was an extra playing a prostitute standing along the street with others. The films producer discovered that Masae is a fantastic fire performer and had wanted to include a performance by her in the film. As they were discussing the details of her fire performance and arrangements, the terms of compensation came up and Masae said to me "Gary, I tell them that I will be their prostitute for free but have to charge my full rate for fire peformance. . ." Too funny

They hired her and I'm looking forward to seeing the film when its released.

Incidentally, soon after our shoot Masae left for a trip which included a stay in Japan to visit family. During her time there, the massive earthquake hit. Fortunately Masae and her family are ok and she is back here in the states doing various fundraising events to support the relief efforts needed to help the people of Japan get through this horrible time.

Portraits of Henry William Oelkers

the man waiting


hillbilly


upper hillbilly


Henry William Oelkers


These are some images I have from a shoot a little while back with actor/model and all around gentleman, Henry William Oelkers.

Henry is capable of portraying a wide variety of characters. He brought along various costumes and achieved quite a few different looks in the few hours we worked together.

Henry is also somewhat of a celebrity in that he was the model that artist David Jon Kassan sketched live on his ipad which wound up going viral in a short time. It was actually through contact with David that I came to know Henry.

In these portraits, a medium softbox was used for main light, with a snooted strobe hitting the face from slightly above head level to bring an extra glow. Smaller box used for fill and another for rim and hair.

Most work done in Lightroom with some images being brought into Photoshop for a bit extra treatment.

Portrait of Woman

portrait of woman 1


portrait of woman 2


Portrait of woman is a bit of a series I have started on. I am focusing on subtle motion and body language to convey the character of the subject as well as a bit of a story that can take form in the imagination of the viewer. The identity of face is covered although we can see some hints of facial features. These along with the movements can allow us to think about the subject and character and perhaps come up with unique stories and interpretations.

This was achieved with the subject moving about in a slightly rehearsed method while the camera was set at a 1 sec exposure with a single strobe burst fired at a precise moment.

It is one of a few experimental series that I am looking into building on further, but I do like the start of this.

The lighting was a 22" beauty dish as key, a strip box for rim and a small softbox near camera and eye level providing very slight fill. I'm not all that crazy for the beauty dish although the results here were pretty descent.

These photographes were imported into LightRoom 3.3 and fully finished there. The process involved converting to b&w by simply eliminating all saturation, and then tweaking color temperature, tint, and various exposure controls such as fill, brightness, black, and clarity to achieve the tone and overall aesthetic I was interested in.

I'm looking forward to getting on with some more works in these latest endeavors. Stay tuned. . . :)

Retro Lovely Magazine Vol. 4

My pinup work with Jade Vixen will have a two page spread in Retro Lovely Magazine vol.4 due to be ready for shipping in Mid to late February 2011.

Retro Lovely is a high quality publication printed on heavy glossy pages with substantial content. Its more like a fine art book than a mag. A collectors magazine in the making.

The magazine has featured some of the best pinup models and photographers of our time and its quite an honor to have a spread in their next issue.

Learn more about Retro Lovely and order a copy while your there. Some past volumes are still available having gone into second printings but are running out fast.

Visit Jade Vixen and learn more about the model and what she was wearing for the shoot.

Wide Open 2 (juried exhibition)

Ree Ja motion 1

I'm pleased, and honored to learn that my photograph "Ree Ja motion 1" was selected from amongst 1600 submissions by noted juror Nathan Trotman of the Guggenheim Art Museum in N.Y.

Artists and photographers from around the country submitted a total of 1600 works of which 144 have been selected to exhibit in the show "Wide Open 2" being put together by the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition, or BWAC.

The exhibit will run from March 12 - 27, 2011, Weekends from 11-4PM
Opening reception is Saturday, March 12 from 1-6PM

I had been accepted into the show last year "Wide Open 1" and can tell you that the work on display is quite a treat to view and experience.

If your in New York and can come on down, its really a fantastic show and well worth while. Learn more about it by wvisiting the BWAC website.

Motion Portraiture

Ree Ja

This image was captured a while back during my session with Ree Ja. I have come to love this image and concept and am looking to continue on a series of portraits based on this idea of motion.

Back in June I had posted another from this motion set with Ree Ja. That image looks more like motion than this one but what I love about this is the sense of two portraits emerging from the soul of the subject at once. I feel a better sense of understanding of the subject by way of seeing mulitple sides, a sense of the subjects movement and two different poses and expressions/moods emerging. It obviously has a weird factor about it which I like very much. . .a pleasantly strange perspective.

The setting was a 1 second exposure with camera mounted on a tripod. Aperture was around 13 with an ISO setting of 125.

Ree Ja and I briefly rehearsed a flow of movement that she was to begin at the start of the exposure during which I manually fired off two strobe bursts to freeze those moments. Having experimented with various camera settings, I found these numbers to give me the effect and look I was after.
However, light positioning, distance of subject from background, etc all have an effect on the outcome and those variables I did not record so my next attempt at this will begin another series of preliminary experiments and testing.

This is certainly not a new concept by any means, but I really have not seen it used much in this way. I actually stumbled upon this idea as I was experimenting for artist David Kassan who had hired me to shoot his portrait for which he wanted to use to paint a self portrait. He wanted his motion captured and so in the process of working to achieve these effects I came to really like the look and sense of "implied motion" from the mulitple strobe bursts.

I have some more projects and subjects coming up in the near future and so I'm looking forward to continue to work on this and add to the series.

Best wishes for a healthy and prosperus New Year!

The Lunar Eclipse 2010

Taken at approx. 2:45 AM EST December 21, 2010

So, I arrive home on Tuesday at about 2:00 AM and its freezing cold with strong winds. I have a dying hot water heater that I'm trying to keep alive, a sleeping girlfriend that has been only getting a few hours sleep a night because she works extended hours in retail during the holiday season, and three hungry and curious cats to tend to as well.

So the question is, should I make the effort to lug my gear out from the bedroom and set up on the porch where it looks like I might have a decent attack of it through some tree branches?

Well, considering that this event has not been seen for 372 years where there is a winter solstice and a total lunar eclipse and being in awe of this spectacle as I gaze up into the clear night I decide its worth the effort.

So, this was actually shot through some thin tree branches that were swaying back and forth in front of my line of vision. I was using a 500mm lens mounted on a heavy tripod, but the strong winds were still quite challenging to hold steady during the long exposure. With these challenges the image is not quite as sharp as I would have liked but it still came out quite acceptable I feel.

This moment is just as the Earth was about to completely shadow the moon, and you can see the remaining unblocked sunlight still kissing the very right edge of the moons surface, The orange and red hues are from the suns light filtering through the earths atmosphere causing these blood moon colors and effect. Heavy volcanic activity and ash in the earths atmosphere lends to this color.

In the end, the water heater was fired up, the cats were fed and happy, the GF got her sleep and has some images to see as viewed from our own back porch. And I got mine ;)

The Darenzia Files

Darenzia in custom latex burlesque style outfit by Venus Prototype




Darenzia wearing a striped pencil dress by designer Lady Lucie




Darenzia pinup. Printed latex lingerie, with choker and gloves by Atsuko Kudo.

The fantastic (and sweet, funny and beautiful) Darenzia was here this past October for a half day of shooting. It was pretty much an open shoot meaning no real theme involved other than me asking her to bring along some pinup and Alt/latex fashion outfits. I brought in Julia Dalton-Brush and Masae Satouchi to work their styling magic on her.

We looked through the pieces that Darenzia brought with her and I was immediately taken with this printed latex lingerie. I just knew that would be an amazing piece shot in high key with the pinup style aesthetic I had in mind. The other two outfits chosen were the striped pencil dress by designer Lady Lucie, and the burlesque style latex dress which was custom made for Darenzia by designer Venus Prototype.

The team managed to pull off three fantastic looks looks for Darenzia in the time and really did a fine job. Most of the time goes into the styling during these shoots, with as little as 20 minutes of actual shooting done for each look. When Darenzia walked out onto the set for the first shoot in the printed latex lingerie, within 10 minutes I knew I had what I wanted and it was back to the girls for the next styling.

Darenzia is a blast to work with and I love her sense of humor. We look forward to having her back again in the near future.

Darenzia (model)

Masae Satouchi (Hair styling)

Julia Dalton-Brush (Makeup artistry)

Atsuko Kudo (designer)

Venus Prototype (designer)

Lady Lucie (designer)