Mixed Bag

I call this a mixed bag because these are us playing around and not trying to do one specific things. There are a couple of sexy shots, there a few where we were playing with lights and trying to do a fortune teller thing (not as successful as we'd have liked) a couple where I played with different tools inside the photo editor, and one Rocky Horror inspired image.

Eddie

 Not many of these but I love Iron Maiden and so I just had to share these shots of Eddie (if you know, you know) from the Maiden show I went to a little while back.

Haunted House Set 1

 This is from a shoot we once did inside a haunted house. Not a house that is haunted but one of those commercial haunted houses where they have decorated all spooky and a guy in a clown mask jumps out to scare you. That minimizes this haunted house though, which is not my intention because it was cool as hell and the owners were cool as hell for letting us shoot there. Many of the models were doing an undead Disney princess thing, which hopefully doesn't lead to me having to take this post down. But until the lawyers with mouse ears on show up, enjoy these pics which I think turned out really well.

Rockin' Granny

 A little shoot we did for a themed contest. We didn't win but I think the pics turned out pretty good considering the slapdash way we put the shoot together. We only took a few pics on this shoot so there aren't as many. The theme was older people people younger things. For the first two we have her rocking out on an electric guitar. In the last one she is playing video games while wearing unicorn headphones.

Drawings set 1

 We are photographers, but sometimes we like to try our hand at other things too. For instance, sometimes I try to draw. But as an artist, I'd have to say I'm a decent photographer. My partner on the other hand is very talented. Unfortunately, these are mine. I am very influenced by pop art. My rendition of comic characters are worse than my other attempts for some reason. But what the hell, I am also egotistical enough to want to show them all off, so here they are. By the way, the first one I hand painted. The rest were hand drawn and colored digitally.

I am a big fan of pop art, which I think you can see in many of these, especially this one. It started life as a photo of me wearing a cowboy hat and sitting in a chair. It's final form is crude, but I like the black and white simplicity of it. I know I'll never be known for intricacy or technical skill, so my hope is to impart emotion.

This drawing I was hoping to get across the impression of a gangster's moll, without being completely accurate to a 1920's aesthetic.

Here I was going for a pulp fiction science fiction brand of cheese. It's not one of my better renditions of the female form.

One might get the impressions that my tastes don't run entirely to the vanilla. One's impressions might be true. Although my favorite aspect of this naughty tableau is the water stained look at the bottom.

A jester, I'm not entirely satisfied with the look of this one. But I believe that art is a process of learning and improving, and it only dies when you are completely satisfied with the last thing you did. Or maybe that is just my rationalization for continuing on when I know that I'm not very good.

I like this one. It's a profile of a female face against a black background. It was very much inspired by the portraits of actresses released by the Hollywood studios during the silent film period. It may not be technically great, but it's better than much of my others, and think has a pleasing look to it.

Another, shall we say spicier picture. Meant to convey the anticipation of being blindfolded and not knowing where the next touch will come from, or maybe even who.

As a fan of martial arts movies, this was my attempt to pay tribute.

A couple of very bad attempts to render a couple of popular comic book characters.

My lack of technical luckily pairs well with my abstract aesthetic, as shown in this silhouette of a pair og legs. While Warhol is not in imminent danger of losing popularity to me, I do like the way this one turned out. Who knows, maybe silhouettes are my forte.

It doesn't take long for me to stray back into the naughty. This is supposed to be a woman who is either in mid-seduction, or maybe is about to pleasure herself. Either is feasible and valid, and both are equally exciting to reprobates such as myself.

Dark Sirens set 1

This is from a shoot that was named Dark Sirens. It was done at a river, and was supposed to be sort of an evil mermaid theme but expanded out beyond those original perimeters. I leaned into the "dark" of the name in my editing. I tend to have an aesthetic preference for darker, moodier, less well defined than many people. But the great thing about art is that you can make what you like, and people can enjoy it or not. I don't feel there is any one "right" way to either make or enjoy art. There is just art and audience, and the art may connect with some or all of the audience, or it may miss it's mark completely. Sometimes this will happen for reasons that have nothing to do with the art itself. It may be the mood of the audience at the time, it may be the context in which the art is presented, it may even be due to some feeling for or against the artist responsible quite aside from the art itself. Hopefully my audience will get the mood I was going for here and enjoy these pictures. 

The first is one that deviates from the evil mermaid theme, and goes in a more traditional vampire mode. I thought it had a nice Hammer horror movie feel to it once I added the shadow, something that was tricky since it was shot on a bright clear day. I couldn't quite get it to feel like night, but at least it didn't feel like they should have bluebirds on their shoulders.

These are again not really mermaidish, but a bloody woman in the water. Is she a ghoul, splattered with her most recent meal? Is she a victim, bleeding out? The air of menace she puts forth would suggest the latter. But the great thing about art is how the audience can make it whatever they need or want.

Here are a batch that hew more closely to the theme. A mermaid feasting on the heart of a sailor unlucky enough to have fallen into the water and within her grasp. A scaled sea creature showing off her trophy skull from some poor victim. A scaled and horned mermaid luring the viewer to their doom.

This shot was meant to be a battle between dark and darker, the various sea witches and mermaids fighting against the fire breathing demon for dominance of their swampy abode. Note the flaming sword as well as the fire breathing that was all done by a model who was trained in doing these sorts of things. None of this was added after the fact.I think it makes for a very cool little scenario, and I'll be sharing more of these shots in later posts.

I was playing with color and accent here, so I made the picture black and white but her lips are returned to their original shade of red and her eyes their original shade of green.

And here we see her join the mermaid for a snack of the sailor's heart from earlier.

A more romantic take in this one, with a mermaid wooing her love. So instead of dark I went the other direction and made a nimbus of light to give an ethereal feel to the shot. I wanted to make it feel like a fairy tale made flesh.

And one more of our horned mermaid lounging on a rock. Her makeup was fantastic and she is great at giving those come hither stares. I warrant most men would find it hard to avoid her snares.