Private Moments

Let me explain the title…

We have all been at one time or another become the “subject” or the “interest” of certain people or groups and have had our name dragged if you will thru the mud… ergo apparently I am more exciting than I am led to believe – otherwise why talk about me and my “antics” endlessly.

I am of the opinion that I am a successful photographer; perhaps not in terms of wealth and popularity but in terms of that when I set out to accomplish what is in my mind’s eye I am able to translate that “thought” into photography – that which is my art!

My photography as of late has been of scantily clad women or of figure study and as such attracts not only the oohs and ahhs of admirers but also attracts those who wish to disparage my name and my art!  I think it is obvious that I do take racy, risque, nudes, fine art nudes, erotic, sexy, or every other adjective you’d like to place here!  I don’t ever deny that it’s not what I do.  I think from my photos you will see that!  However, these photos are done with women who are comfortable with the idea and the subject matter and are comfortable with their own bodies!  This project is all about that, that’s not to say that’s all I do because I do still sell stock photography, take on commercial and advertisement projects as well as portraits and editorial work.

That being said, I have photographed women since I can remember, the first time I photographed a woman I was 17 it as in Sacramento and it was called Photo Day.  I fell in love with the idea of photographing women then… I mean duh!  what’s not to like… but since then I have shot and shot and shot…. to date I have photographed over a thousand women maybe more, I’m not keeping count!

I hope that I have as time has gone on improved and that being said, in my humble opinion I have evolved with respect to my style and my sense of continuity.  I also feel that I have also become more technically proficient and have become better with rapport.

Well enjoy and i’ll be back with more figure study and body art… =)… H

After, this was displayed on my flickrstream for a day there were well over a couple hundred views.  I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise by now.  I put a beautiful sunset picture, and mind you on Guam we have some BEAUTIFUL, sunsets and the sunset shots gets nary a glance.  Put a half-ass photo of a scantily clad female, not that this is a half-ass photo mind you, and everyone and their sister are on it… “like white on rice…” is that the addage?

So, my book project is still ongoing by the way if anyone is interested.  It’s being self-published, work continues on if not sometimes down to a crawl but moving forward nonetheless.  The content remains the same a lot of the female form.  A number of it is still boudoir material but it’s gotten to where it’s a documentary as before.

But this is the plan still the documentary… it’s to get the subject involvement in the project.  I’ll publish this for now stay tuned for more “stuff.”

I was recently in the Philippines.  From the 17th of February until the 27th of February 2009, so for 10 days I wandered the Philippines, well my buddy Norm and I did.  We started in Manila and went thru the localities throughout that region, Makati, Manila, Pasay, Quezon and then we ventured up north and up thru Pangasinan region into Tarlac and up into Baguio.  We then flew to Cebu for a four and a half day stay.

While wandering the Philippines and I have always known this but it always strikes me as odd that it is a third world country and it has an amazing number of malls and luxuries; an interesting irony, that though all of this is within reach a majority of its people cannot enjoy these “things”.  It makes me wonder about how wasteful I am at times and though it makes me want to do things and get things done I am afraid that at times those “feelings” are short-lived… so perhaps I can instill in my children the same “feelings” of wanting to change… we’ll see how that goes… =)

I was able to wander Baguio for a bit this was my first trip and it was beautiful and also a break from the heat in Manila.  It wasn’t as “cold” as I was led to believe but I guess if you’re used to cooler climes then it wouldn’t be as cold.  There was a festival going on at the time we visited the Panagbenga Festival.  Needless to say because we never made reservations it was a bit difficult to find lodging.  We finally found a place City Lights I think was what it was called.  It was neat and inexpensive, the only drawback was the common shower and toilet facilities and we found ourselves hawking the bathrooms the following morning and competing with 2 other rooms for the facilities.

While in Cebu I had the chance to shoot a few models, there are a HUGE number of available models here obviously because of a larger population.  I was able to shoot this shot on the right of Nemfa is her name but her “anga” which is nickname in Bisaya is “Pie”… I’m not sure what that means and I didn’t ask…  I intend on returning in April to do a larger shoot.

I had made contacts previously but other than my friend Ossie you can check out his flickr photostream here.  He was one of my first contacts in Cebu that introduced me to the incredible amount of women wanting to post for photos.  So if you stay tuned I will have more photos from my trip to the Philippines and especially to Cebu.

I was supposed to hook up with a model named Sophie in Manila but because of one thing or another we were unable to, but I will try to again the next trip to the Philippines.

I am usually amazed at how a candid photo of someone can be glamorous.  I’ve seen some great photos of people that are candid shots but not something I would call a glamour photo.  Everyone of course has an idea of what is and what isn’t a good glamour photo or just a snapshot or just a portrait etc., etc., etc.  But for the purposes of this blog my definition is a photograph of a model with the emphasis on the subject as opposed to portraiture where the face is the main concern and the expression on that face.  The differences between these shots of Raena is that usually in portraiture the subjects are not necessarily models.

So I spent the other day photographing Raena, she is someone I consider photogenic [3 : suitable for being photographed especially because of visual appeal <a photogenic smile>].  As time goes on i’m realizing that the posed or unposed photos of the subjects are wonderful and the photos work for the subject matter at hand, but I am also wanting to include photos of the unposed a more natural occurence and passage of time type of photos.  There is a better sense of interaction with the subject and I think it conveys more what I want to portray.

So in order to achieve a little of that I had Raena just hang out and we started to converse and I joked that perhaps next time a picnic was in order and some alcoholic beverages so that she could relax a bit more.  Anyway, I believe that these photos turned out as predicted also I may add this was her first time back being photographed since a year ago when I first photographed her for the Miss Guam pageant.

Stay tuned and we’ll go through some more stuff of Raena… here’s a last photo just for good measure… =)