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.

There’s an interesting thing about coffee shops.  Most people don’t actually have coffee – yea I know shocking!!!

I enjoy the cafe lifestyle, but I also happen to enjoy a good cup’a joe, well actually I prefer an espresso… That being said cafe’s are a great place for taking my camera.  There are all sorts of activities and beautiful people; and also interesting people… to say the least…

I will obviously continue with the photos that i’ve been taking similar to the previous entries.  However, I will also include photos from my “trips” to the different cafe’s on Guam… and other places wherever my travels take me.

This photo is of Shirley we were trying to figure out what to drink.  Taking a break from a shoot we decide to have coffee at a nearby cafe, this one is at the Sheraton Guam Laguna Resort – or something like that.

For photogs this isn’t HDR, it’s my imitation of HDR.  This photo has no strobe it’s completely existing light and I am shooting at iso400.  I shoot the photo usually overexposed by 2 stops and then go to Lightroom and use the recovery and fill light options I get to a point where there is extreme contrast then I open in photoshop and use blurs and glows to get it to this point.  Email me if you want to know more.