Fear. Rational fears affect me. Large scary men with knives and guns. Small women with SUVs and cel phones. Things that are truly dangerous. The irrational doesn't much interest me. Except that I read about it all the time. Escaping into worlds that don't exist by suspending disbelief is somehow easier than escaping into some fictional but rational world where details don't compute.

I'm finishing one of the former novels currently. Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock is a tale set in post WWII England and involves a piece of primaeval forest where the myths of England hang out until needed. They include prototypes of Robin Hood, Arthur, those guys that run around with antlers and so on. One suspends belief early on and enjoys the ride. Recommended.

That said, my Hallowe'en routine involves locking myself up in the studio, leaving no light visible and expecting that any urchins who would waste their time trying to find dwellers in my industrial area would simply not bother knocking at what should appear to be a cold uninviting warehouse of some sort. In my eight years living at the studio, none have approached.

My friend Lucky Bastard (see the link) has a totally different approach. He wears a Santa costume, heads for his local bar and finds his lap occupied by an assortment of 21+ "little girls."

I like his approach better, and may attempt my own version of that next year.

This is Dani, one of the best models I've ever worked with. She has the ability to become her character. Photographed in a now non-existant boutique in San Diego, lo those many years ago.

It's been too long since the last shoot, so I contacted a few models about making some pictures in November, and it looks right now like there'll be at least two photoshoots coming up. A friend recently asked about any difficulties I have finding models. I've talked about that before and I don't see it as difficult. But then again, I don't really shoot all that often either. Sometimes models contact me, usually more experienced ones that want to be part of this, and other times I contact models who appear to be the type that might consider it without running away screaming. Of the models that contact me, I usually end up photographing them. Of those I contact maybe 20% or so end up in the pictures.

What I look for in models that I contact are physical attractiveness of course, a sense of fun and humor because this stuff really is fun and funny to make. An awareness of her own sexuality and the willingness to show it. That last can be that she's done some nudes before or that I subjectively perceive she's just aware of herself and likes showing her sexuality off. Once in awhile I find that the girl had thought about contacting me, but figured she didn't have a chance. Silly girls.

Just some thoughts for male photographers of young women: These girls are very aware of who we are and our real motivations. They can't be fooled. Always be honest. And they are often a whole lot smarter than we are as well, or smarter in other ways. Don't take their values and ideas lightly. This is a cooperative effort, the making of photographs, and it takes both partners to succeed.

Jackie once again in my motel room in Minneapolis a few months back (it seems like years...).

The model here is an impressive woman. I won't give you all of her credentials, but she's over six feet tall and weighed about a hundred-seventy. Athletic, intelligent, very well-educated and very ambitious. An archetype of the female superhero. As with a few models, I've lost track of her since way back when this was made.

The lighting here was a xenon parking lot security light, which, daylight colored, provided the blue on this tungsten biased slide film. She was under bushes which made all the mottled shadows. This is an old scan and has some of the technical flaws that came with the territory back then. Not enough contrast range to show everything that's on the slide. And of course I over-sharpened it to look better with the CRT I used back then. And the slide itself isn't sharp, mostly because I tried to hand hold for what was probably a one-second exposure. It was pretty dark along that periphery.

I used that location three or four times and may have posted pictures made there before. When I first met this over-the-top Texas girl it was at a downtown cafe. We each had our books along and exchanged comments over coffee. She was going to change the world. And if the world didn't change because of her specifically, it certainly has changed because of women like her. She was one of those Alpha Girls I wrote about earlier.

The money was burning a hole in my pocket. I probably should have gotten some tires for the truck, but they look good for a few thousand more miles, so I dropped by to see Ken at "Camera Exposure," the mostly used equipment shop that's been up on Adams Avenue forever. Well, for the 20 years I've been shooting anyway. Mostly I needed a better cable release for the little Horseman view camera I've been wanting to go exercise, but as usual I started drooling over all the cool film stuff that's going dirt cheap now that digital has attracted the less-than-hard-corps.

Anyway, Ken pulled out a box of consignment Pentax 6x7 bodies and I looked through them and found a nice one. He quoted me too much, so I countered with a lower bid. He had to call the guy that owned it and we couldn't deal. So Ken pulled out a body that the store owned and offered it for a lot less. It doesn't have the mirror lock up feature, but I shoot off-hand and never use it anyway. It was clean, though it needed new seals. He found where someone had engraved a SSN on the bottom and lowered the price even more and I agreed. Left it with them for an hour and the seals are nice and fresh now.

So...with the purchase of a backup body in medium format, it looks like I've decided to stick with film for quite awhile longer.

This is Paige again, photographed with a Pentax 645, a camera I've effectively given to a friend now that I'm using the larger 6x7 format. That 645 had a lot going for it, but it depended too much on buttons and menus and I've always preferred dials and wheels. And now that I'm trying to do more detail and less grain, the 645 just wasn't giving me enough of what I wanted.

A most interesting blog is back. Lone Sloan Delirius have returned to the land of the living. Gender politics and sex are frankly discussed and dissected (and argued) by these intellectual-sexy people, providing consistently good (though too infrequent) reads. These posts are to me like a fresh book - I want to reserve time and get comfortable before starting, because I don't want to miss any part through undue haste. The opinions and observations are honest perspectives and don't always make me nod in agreement - but they always make me think. Think to the point that I'm driven to comment too frequently. The best thing that writing can do is to make people think. The second best thing is to entertain. LSD does both. (They also make me envy their strange familial grouping.)

Had coffee with the Ex yesterday. She's arranging a show of our daughter's paintings, the kind of event the Ex does well. So now I have that show to anticipate with the crowd of our old friends showing up along with the daughter's younger ones. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Putting smart young people in the same room with interesting and smart older folks is a neat dynamic sometimes.

And lastly, my friend Leo Lam has translated the interview with "Photo" of Hong Kong and I'm pleased to say they got everything substantially right. These things, even in English, tend to be badly mangled and I've been reported living in Manhattan or Los Angeles by other mags.

This is Angela in pretty panties, photographed in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada last June. We continue corresponding, trying to come up with something interesting for the next shoot. I think I've used this picture before.

Paige had just done a layout for a porn fetish magazine in another room of the funky motel, with a photo- grapher that I know, but am not particularly fond of. I'd run into him at parties and shows and he's very distant and cold. I've heard the same thing from models, some of whom believe he's bitter, conflicted and gay. I don't know - I just know that I've never had an actual conversation with the guy. Most photographers I run into are friendly; maybe the ones who've heard of me a little moreso than those who haven't - but usually willing to talk. Sometimes one will appear distracted or maybe envious, but usually we can at least compare notes on models, experiences with pubs, cameras or whatever.

I make it a point to meet photographers when I travel. Back when I was doing "fashion," I looked up fellow travellers like Chip Willis and Dave Levingston (linked there on the right). When I was doing fetish, I'd get invited to some parties up in Los Angeles, and would try to get up there for them. As L.A. and San Francisco were the two centers of fetish in the States, the parties were dense with famous folks, photographers and models. It was interesting to find that I was one of them. With the work I'm currently doing, there aren't a lot of photographers in the niche, as it isn't really a definable niche at all. So I look up guys that I've corresponded with or who I feel do interesting work. These are almost invariably good people. I guess the assholes aren't going to want to sit and drink coffee and talk anyway, huh?

This is Paige, photographed in Los Angeles. She's worked up some horniness in the shoot preceding, but got off in the dark quiet of my motel room.

Back when I was shooting mostly bondage, my studio setup was pretty spare. The stage was a homemade workbench padded by a folded Pendleton blanket, which was all covered by duvatine. The background was black paper mounted on a Bogen holder with the sides and wall covered by more hung duvatine. There's nothing fancy there. No contraptions for suspension or custom-made spanking chairs or any of that.

So a few days before I was scheduled to shoot Little Robin for the third or fourth time I figured I needed something new or it would just be a rerun of an earlier shoot. I went down to Home Depot and bought one of the tall sawhorses. Brought it to the studio, painted it grey and put some ring bolts through the feet.

It fit nicely on the stage and was stable, though there wasn't a lot of manuever room left. This new prop gave me a few more options. The model could be belly-down longitudinally or laterally, facing the camera or facing away.

So I used the sawhorse for five or six models, then when it became a problem to store with the growing stable of motorcycles and I was backing away from bondage, I pulled the ring bolts off and set it outside for some lucky scavenger to take.

Models are Tyler, top, and Little Robin, bottom. Well, they're both bottoms...

Making something unique in photo- graphy may be done in a few different ways. The ones that come to mind are technique, ways of seeing and access.

Technique, of course, would be any new way of using the craft, including digital or analog manipulation or new ways of using light capture. Man Ray is a classic example with his non-traditional (now quite traditional) use of film.

Ways of seeing would include an individual's personal perspective as shown by his body of work. The way someone looks at something may describe him, for example Guy Bourdin's harsh look at both women and fashion.

Access is what I want to talk about now. Much memorable photography comes from special access to the subjects. In the latest PDN there was an article about a guy who did aerial photography from an experimental plane he hauled around in a trailer, which was also equipped with digital lab and living quarters. He could pretty much launch and land anywhere then deliver images via a satellite dish on the trailer. He effectively has access to airspace anywhere in the U.S.

Memorable images also come from war zones, where active or passive support of the military is required. From hospitals, crime scenes, bedrooms, and other places where one may not simply wander in. Access to celebrities at private functions, access to the inner workings of industry, of politics, of fire departments. To the back stage of Cirque du Soleil.

Seems to me that once a photographer can reliably make pictures, the single thing that will increase interest in his work is if he has access to places and people that other photographers don't.

This photo of Phelanie (probably not her real name) isn't a very good example, but it was handy.

The folio now has nine 16x20 prints. Three to six more is what it needs. Actually it physically can only hold ten, but that's too few for a show. I probably have enough medium format negatives that are good to do three at least, bringing it to twelve. I should start looking through them as I'm getting anxious to be done with this and start doing something different. Maybe quit for a year or two to think about it.

A lot of things are influencing me here. I don't think there's going to be anything new coming out of the current subject anymore. I've about finished up the genre. And I don't want a reputation for only making "dirty pictures." It's fun and all, but I'm ready for something else.

The one idea that's got me kind of excited is deep urban cityscapes. Wide angle, medium format, gritty. Maybe at dusk or dark. No people if I can avoid them, just buildings and streets from ground level. I don't have anything to show along those lines, and even though it should be easy for me to go do it now, I haven't started. As I said, I need to think about it for awhile first to see if there's something there to be shown.

This is Jackie. Motel. Minneapolis. Last month. Even I wonder how I could get tired of making these photographs, but I am.

Prints shipped. Magazines mailed.

Sigh...

I was going to post something about outsider art today, but sitting down at the bookstore thinking, it became increasingly obvious that I don't know anything about it and don't much like what I've seen. So that will have to wait until some inspiration grabs me. Or until I do some research.

This is Tereza masturbating. No light to speak of, and probably a 1/4 second exposure or so at ASA 5000 or so. Looking back at it, I wonder why I picked up my camera instead of lending a hand as she was my girlfriend. Maybe photographers have strange motivations, or maybe it was just me.

Sigh...

Chloe dropped by to shoot. A lot of entries have started with those words. She was dropping in a lot back then, either to shoot or just to hang out. Can't say that bothered me much. These days it's rare that a model just drops by, but then again, I'm not shooting a lot locally right now. We'd done a lot of work and were running out of ideas. But I set up the black stage in the studio, duvatine draped on a blanket-padded workbench in front of black paper and duvatine background. Probably a single tungsten hotlight bounced off the back wall, and we exposed some film.

These pictures were not done in series. Notice that the shoes aren't the same. I suspect the nude one was done first as I tend to dress the models after doing nudes to keep lines from the skin.

Chloe may have been the last girl I photographed before I stopped shooting in 2004. In fact I think I still have some unscanned film of her and a girlfriend she brought along. Might have even been this shoot - I'll have to go look. I don't think I was happy with the way the other girl looked - her tats were distracting and not very well done. It was kind of a kinky shoot though and there was a lot of ass-slapping going on, and I know I got my licks in on both their butts. But the pictures just didn't do anything for me. I guess there's not necessarily a relationship between having a good time during a photoshoot and the quality of the resulting photographs.

That's a pretty big admission for a guy that values process as much as product and claims they reinforce each other.

Chloe, photographed sometime in 2003 or 2004 in my studio.

Post number 300! I never thought the blog would last this long.

When I started blogging it was because I'd lost interest in my other websites. They hadn't been updated in a long time and I couldn't see any good way to put the new stuff up and take the old stuff down without a whole lot of manual effort. And I didn't really have a way to talk about specific pictures or other stuff in the old HTML 3.2 code with which they're written. I'd been subscribing to RSS feeds of a bunch of interesting blogs and looked forward to reading them every day and it finally dawned on me that I could do that too. It wasn't like I'd be competing with BoingBoing, Jalopnik or Wired, but at least my blog could be dynamic, rather than static.

I worried from the start that I'd run out of first-rate photographs. Well, that happened, so I pulled up second- and third-rate pictures, new and old, and put them up too. Eye candy to keep people coming back. M&Ms rather than truffles, but eye candy anyway. And you folks just keep coming back! Thank you! It warms the cockles of my heart. (What is a "cockle" anyway?)

Linda Tran (google her) in my studio awhile back. I've just re-scanned a bunch of 35mm Tri-X negatives, and this was among them.

Edit: Actually this is post #299. The temporary post I used to hold the picture of Linda seemed to have counted toward the total, so when I deleted it, the counter backed off one. Oh well, once a fuckup, always a fuckup...

A fresh photograph of Jackie. Most of the earlier ones I've shown of her have been bondage, which we shot toward the end of the photoshoot. While it's way fun to handle girl-flesh while tying them up and all, I prefer to photograph women enjoying themselves. It fits with the body of work I'm making right now. And it's fun to watch. And it's nice to be trusted as much as they must trust me to allow that. Damn, she's beautiful!

OK, that print for the private buyer. I saw it and rejected it. Communications problem. I want the image size to be 11x14 with cropping rather than a full-frame printed onto 11x14 paper so Gene will re-print for me. I may not have mentioned it, but I'm also going to use that image in my 16x20 art folio. The prints are fine - stunning. Beautiful. Gene Nocon does outstanding work; if he didn't he wouldn't have been Bailey's and Beaton's and Sieff's (among others) printer back in the day. Anyway, I'll be picking up the revised prints on Friday. Because I've always priced my prints to keep people from actually ordering them, the price, regardless of print size, is now $500. Don't everyone start emailing me now...

Jackie, playing with herself in my motel room in Minneapolis about three or four weeks back. Lovely girl.

Once again we are delighted to have guest photographer Dave Levingston contribute. Actually I made that a condition of linking to his brand new blog.

In May I made a trip to New York City to do a studio shoot with Theda and another favorite model, Kat. When I contacted Theda about the shoot she said she would like to also shoot in a somewhat famous, but cheap for Manhattan, hotel. So I got a room…5th floor walkup and she came over to the hotel after the studio shoot. I work in color and this room really worked for that. I love the colors in this shot with Theda’s body becoming the only somewhat non-color element in the composition. I had just gotten a new lens before this trip, at 12-24mm zoom. It let me do wide angle work with my digital Nikon again, and made this shot possible. Light is from the single window. Shot at 12mm, f/4.5 1/80, ISO 800. Exposure done in program mode with a -1.3 compensation. The program exposure mode on most modern cameras is much better at getting the right exposure than even the most meticulous photographer with a hand-held meter. You just have to know when the program mode is going to be wrong. That’s easy with a digital camera. Just look at the histogram and see exactly where each tone in the photo is, using math, not guesswork. Using those tools it is very easy, and very precise, to set exactly the exposure you want to get the look you are after in an image. It helps to know a bit about the zone system and to have some ability to pre-visualize what you want the final image to look like. Here all I really had to do was be careful to hold detail in the highlights and then pull up the shadows in photoshop later.

-Dave Levingston

Thanks Dave. And...you're linked!

Photogaphs should transfer to the viewer some idea of the character of the subject. Whether it's the magnificence of Half Dome or the personality of Angela here. And while some portraits, like that of German industrialist Alfried Krupp by Arnold Newman, seem to show the complete person, they are actually showing only selected characteristics. The photographer chooses those characteristics, often based on the limited time available during a photoshoot. And as everyone who's been there knows, Half Dome doesn't always look like Adams depicted it.

What obligation does a photographer have when selecting how to depict a particular person, specifically if the photograph is intended to be a portrait?

Angela, the angelic side, photographed in St. Johns, Newfoundland last June.

This is a real candid photograph. My girlfriend at the time, Tereza was sleeping nicely and I had the camera so I photographed her. I like to think I plumb wore her out, but probably not. Pushed the bejesus out of that 35mm Ektachrome 320T, probably somewhere around +4 stops. The tech sheet doesn't go beyond +2, by the way. I'd used it to +3 once or twice, so I knew it would go that far, but +4 gave me these huge grainballs of audacious color. The only light available was some night ambient coming in the window in the upper left of the pic. Damned near a magenta/cyan monochrome.

Anyway, it's been a long time since she moved on to a biker. Then an ex con. Then a bouncer. Etc. Fun while it lasted though. The girl could surely bump.

The last two rolls of Jackie are now in the wash. I'll probably start scanning them tomorrow. Actually, they're the first two rolls, including the obligatory frame of her holding her driver's license. Most of the stuff shown to date, like this one, have been bondage, but I think these two don't have any of that. It's the luck of the draw which film gets done first as I don't mark individual rolls unless they're exposed at a different ASA. Standard exposure of this film is ASA 1600. Nice balance of detail and grain in the 6x7 format, and this film shows a fine contrast range at that speed as well. Maybe just a tad contrasty. I'm told it's a true ASA 800 film.

I bought some photo pr0n today - "Photo District News" (PDN). First time I've picked it up in a couple of years. It doesn't seem to have as many hardware ads as it used to. I expect that's because current information on the web precedes print media and advertisers need to react faster than a month's lead time. Some lights and a lot of portfolios and other accessories. It's still the best trade mag for commercial photographers and is a standard against which to judge such work.

One day delay picking up the deliverable print from Gene Nocon. Hot job of his got in the way, he said. No biggie. Tomorrow. And I'll be dropping off this one of Lapis for my folio. And she'll be getting a Nocon print as well for her "work." It took three or four months to decide on that picture. First, it fits with the "feel" of the other eight photographs, and it stands by itself well. And I think I was swayed by the glamour of the image. So, that one becomes number nine.

Jackie, in my motel room in Minneapolis a few weeks back. Looks like she's sorta waiting to be...uh...nevermind. More of her to come after it finishes washing, dries, is cut and I scan it.

OK, back to nostalgia. These are a few of the cameras I'd like to own someday:

Rollei 2.8F twin lens reflex. This is the best version of the box that started it all. It produces 6x6 cm exposures on 120 film, and, like all Rolleis, is extremely high quality.

Rollei SLX, SL66, SL66SE or other non-motorized single lens reflex. Again, a high quality camera with the special trick of having a built-in lens tilt. Also 6x6. Makes Hasselblads look cheap.

Plaubel Makina 6x7. This is a big rangefinder with a Nikkor 80mm F2.8 lens. It uses a bellows and scissors arrangement to focus. Known to be fragile, but a pretty piece of equipment.

Leica M4, M6 or MP. The M4 was the last of the "quality" Leicas, where the logo was engraved then painted. All are mechanical cameras. The M6 and MP have advisory light meters built in. This is a 35mm rangefinder. THE 35mm rangefinder, actually. While very fast glass is available, I think the 35mm F2 and 75mm F2 would work just fine for me.

Minolta CLE. This is a Minolta improvement on the Leica/Minolta CL, a tiny rangefinder that took Leica mount lenses. With the slower lenses the reduced rangefinder base would work just fine. While not fragile, these are also not repairable, so it would have to be considered a consumable camera.

Fuji 645 folder. Another rangefinder, but this folds to fit in a coat pocket. Not terribly fragile and the bellows that allow folding are the weak point but can be replaced. Maybe the ultimate walk-around medium format camera. If I recall, it's got an F3.5 lens, so it's mostly a daylight camera as well.

I never have owned any of these. It's likely that if I did, they wouldn't be all that wonderful so they remain the stuff dreams are made of. Rangefinders are awkward to use vertically (except the Fuji that makes verticals normally), and boxes like the SL66 give reversed images in the waist level finders unless a prism is added, which also adds bulk and complexity.

For using, that old Pentax 6x7 seems to strike the right balance. So for now, no money's gonna be spent on pretty toys like these. Maybe someday...

Ashley in my motel in Winnipeg last November. Photographed with the P6x7 and a normal 105mm f2.4 lens.

Tomorrow I'll pick up the client's print from Gene and drop off a negative to be printed for my folio. I just counted and still only have eight 16x20 prints in it. This will bring it to ... nine. I still need three to six more to feel comfortable.

In other news, my brand new (and still tentative) rep and I have been chatting about what periodicals she'll be sending my work to and what galleries and book publishers she'll be approaching, with what work. We're not quite on the same wavelength, but getting closer. I hate marketing, so when she suggested I do a book, I suggested she do it and I'll just provide pictures. We'll see how this works out.

Josielyn and Linda. Linda should probably have paid more attention to her toenails, as this was supposed to be a foot fetish session. Then again, I have no idea what foot fetishists like, so maybe this works.

Edit: One day delay on picking up the print.

OK, enough nostalgia already. Let's think a little about the effect on photography and on the world of the technology that allows high quality images to be made by anyone with the money to buy an auto-everything digital SLR. I don't think this is a bad thing any more than Kodak's "Brownie" turning everyone into a photographer over a century ago. And maybe that's the parallel that should be understood.

When the Brownie was introduced for the price of one dollar 106 years ago, it allowed just anyone to make pictures. The camera was shipped to Kodak for film processing and reloading. The new photographers could make pictures, but couldn't directly compete with those using existing technology because the Brownie didn't have aperture of shutter speed controls, nor did the users have the understanding of photography necessary to use them if it did. But the world was flooded with photographs that couldn't have existed before, and the sheer quantity of pictures meant that some would be memorable and some would be important. The Brownie and its successors create the mass of images that Sontag writes about in her seminal work On Photography.

Unlike the Brownie, current Digital SLRs are capable of producing high quality photographs when used by people that understand the basics of photography and optics. Even point-and-shoot cameras and camera-phones may produce passable images. So once again, there is a popularizing of photography expanding beyond those who have studied the craft to those for whom study isn't necessary for technically good pictures. (Digital SLRs are also being used by many photographers who have decided to eliminate the cost, work and time lag of film, though the proportion of these to those who have never used film is probably negligable and will be ignored.) Along with the new ability to show these pictures to the world via the web, the new world is flooded with photographic imagery. Some of which will be memorable and some of which will be important.

As with the Brownie, DSLRs are adding to the quantity of photographs, but are not greatly adding to the "quality" of photographs, where "quality" is defined beyond sharpness, resolution and exposure. More things intended to be private are being made public - the Brownie didn't really allow that. I think the biggest impact though is that the chaff of pictures makes it more difficult to recognize or sort out what is good.

Though the needle's gotten marginally bigger, the haystack is now huge.

Jackie, tied up as she liked it, in my motel room in Minneapolis a few weeks ago. Fine photography? I don't think so, but I'll tell you for sure in five years.

All the old magazines that have been stacked around are being tossed. In the process each gets a final look-through, just to be sure I really want to throw it out. But they're all going, except those with my pictures in them of course. The neatest thing about old magazines is that they have ads for the equipment I've used and lusted after. While I will fight to defend the principle that equipment doesn't matter, I'm also a hardware geek.

I love the ads where Hasselblad is making a last desperate attempt to be cool by marketing colored bodies. I wanted a yellow 501CM, if I could have afforded it and didn't need mirror return. I've never even seen one of those. Lighting ads where the manufacturer or distributor is trying to convince buyers that paying twice as much makes sense if there are ten stop adjustments rather than eight, AND it's got a European name. Carbon fibre tripods that cost more than any camera I've ever owned. Equipment cases for travel that will protect against nuclear events, and maybe, just maybe, luggage handlers at airports. And the stuff that almost made it ... Leica and Contax SLRs, Hassy 645s, Konica and Hassy rangefinders ... good ideas, good hardware, trying too late to break into locked-down markets.

And the featured photographers are the heroes of my photographically formative years. So many have broken the surface only to disappear again - folks that were famous for a year. Either they were one-trick photographers, or they were established commercial guys who got their moment in the sun, or they were artists that have died now. In one case, an artist raised the hackles of the nation, then settled back into West Coast fashion photography. No names - I don't want this post showing up if these old heroes of mine self-google.

This is Lindsay, photographed in my hotel room in Chicago earlier this year. She was so much fun...

They wanted to smoke and I won't have that inside the studio, so I agreed they could outside provided they left their clothes off. Nicotine is powerful and they stepped outside and leaned against the wall, holding onto coats in case traffic appeared - that's what Robin was looking for.

Having a camera gives one power. Not only the power of the final images to cause viewers to consider, but the immediate power over the subjects. The kind of power to require models to go outside naked to smoke, or to convince models to do things they wouldn't otherwise do were it not for the promise of the photographs and the power the camera brings to the user. The power is not absolute, but it is real and as with other sorts of power the user must be aware of it and use it responsibly.

During a photoshoot, it's expected that the photographer will pose or move the model around for the images he wants. Directing. Posing. At the extreme opposite end are the cases where an influential photographer deliberately humiliates or demands sex of an ambitious model, who hopes that will take her to the next level of fashion modeling. In between there are legitimate and illegitimate uses of the power and much of the area is grey.

My own demand that Chloe and Robin smoke naked resulted in this and two other photographs. No traffic came by. There was no cost to them and in fact they didn't object at all, but thought it was sorta kicky. At those stratospheric reaches of fashion photography, it's entirely possible that the exchanges are also thought to be part of the game that all players want to be involved in.

There is also the very bad stuff. The extortions, humiliations and pursuasions against better judgement that really do happen, and really can hurt models in particular. The power that simply possessing a camera has requires responsibility in its use. Particularly where real live human beings are concerned.

Chloe and Robin smoking naked outside my studio back in 2002. Snapshot by Me, Dictator.

My darkroom is packed away because of a lease issue. So when I need B&W prints I have them done by Gene Nocon at "In House Photography." Gene's famous. Google him. He's also very good and is the guy that's printed the eight 16x20s I have in my current folio (not to mention the fashion work of almost all of the '80s London photographers including Cecil Beaton).

But as a photographer and digital artist himself, Gene's preferences aren't always in line with mine. Any negative is open to a wide range of interpretations. One that I just dropped off he saw as a good choice for a high key print, while I saw it as a dark photograph. He'll print it my way because that's what the client expects, though I hope he also produces a high key version so I can see what he's talking about. As I won't pay for that one, if he does it, it will be to show me just how wrong I was. High key isn't my thing, but I've switched styles in the middle of a horse before, so you never know.

This is the lovely and bodacious Angela all naked and cozy in my hotel room in St. John's last June. I expect to be photographing her again over New Years up in cold country. She's so cute!

Yesterday I was asked why I blog. Several canned answers came to mind, most of which are trite or even dishonest. No single real answer surfaced. The purpose of this post is to work my way through to an answer.

"Why do you blog?" is similar to, "Why do you photograph?" and rooted in, "Why do you write?"

The non-trivial answer to the former is that I have to make things, and photographs are among the things that I seem suited to making. Making photographs as objects gives me the same kind of satisfaction as machining a jewelry box of mesquite burl or chopping a motorcycle. For me there must be some creation, and right now it is the making of photographs. Something must be said about the subject of course. I photograph women, mostly nude sexual women, because I like women. I would photograph other subjects if models weren't available (and have), but as long as women want me to photograph them, I see no point in diversifying.

The latter question is answered differently. Writing doesn't produce objects in the same way. It produces or sorts thought or ideas. The act of writing entertains me and forces me to organize myself into some level of consistency. And the results sometimes please others, providing me with pleasant feedback. I enjoy reading, so writing follows naturally.

This blog is a place to write publicly and to show my photographs. This medium is the easy alternate to books and magazines, the older media. It is easy because there is no barrier to entry and little in the way of costs. Monthly readership is on the order of mid-level to smaller magazines and climbing steadily. Of course, I do realize that many of those who skip through are only looking for pictures of naked chicks, but because the web is accomodating I can also see those who come here, read page after page, then come back the next day. Paper media demographers would kill for that kind of insight.

And there is instant feedback. Readers are invited to call "bullshit," or pat me on the back for my obvious genius. The feedback mostly functions to make me feel good, but isn't feeling good an adequate reason to do things?

Because I am obsessive/compulsive, some day I'll quit the blog. Something else will have attracted my interest. For now I write and show my photographs here because it feels like I'm making something new at a meta level by showing my photographs along with whatever is on my mind as I write. And I get to meet interesting people - readers and other bloggers.

This photograph of Alex was made when she dropped by the studio after a shoot with another photographer. She was pretty tired so we only exposed maybe twenty frames of 35mm Tri-X. This one was a quick catch as she was moving. Alex is a makeup artist in Los Angeles.

Back in the Olden Days...

Almost everything I know about photography was learned in Photo 100, Introduction to B&W Photography, which I took at San Diego City College in the mid-eighties. Only manual cameras and lenses were allowed, 35mm or 120 format. Incident metering was required. Only Tri-X developed in D76 was allowed. Edge separation, frame integration, perfect negatives and perfect prints were mandatory. Negatives were submitted along with the 11x14 double-weight fibre-based gelatin-silver prints (which we made in the school darkroom) for grading. Full frame printing was encouraged. Spotting was done with SpoTone on a #000 brush. Grading was not "on the curve," but absolute.

For me some things have changed since then. I still have never owned a zoom lens and still shoot almost everything completely manually, but because of airport security issues I've changed film to the unquestionably fast Ilford Delta 3200 so TSA is inclined to hand inspect without argument. My darkroom is disassembled and stored, so I'm not printing my own work (and I miss it).

But grading is still not on the curve. It doesn't matter how many photographers do better or worse work. What matters is the quality of the work itself against a standard of perfection. Not that many will ever reach that goal - not that I will. But perfection can be the only standard.

The internet has been a good and bad thing. It's good in that it allows communication and interaction. It's bad in that it lowers the bar. People think that if something looks good at 72dpi it's a good photograph. Most of those people have never seen an actual photograph. Magazine reproductions are as lame as jpegs. Book reproductions can be better. But until one has seen an Ansel Adams print (and I'm no real fan of his subject), done or supervised by him directly, one has not seen a photograph. That rolled-up poster you bought at the Half Dome Gift Shoppe isn't a photograph.

OK, without a darkroom it's harder to judge. I can inspect the negatives for the full range of density and adjust my developing time. I do that. It's getting better. I can wait for the right image before I open the shutter. That might be getting better, but I'm not sure. I can scan and trust the imaging software histogram to tell me the density distribution of what would otherwise be a straght print, then adjust to suit.

Still, there's huge room for improvement. Sometime before I die I want to make one perfect photograph.

This is Jackie all tied up in my motel room in Minneapolis a few weeks back.

I'm thinking maybe a trip up to Newfound- land over New Years to photograph Angela again. Maybe James Graham (see the link) will join us. He and I would have to each bring along a model though because three models and two photographers means...catfights!!

We'll see how that goes then.

Linda playing with Josielyn's foot back in January 2002. I'm in the process of rescanning a lot of Linda's pictures and when doing that find that I interpret the negatives differently. Slightly different cropping. Holding the hair separation from the background just ever so slightly. Lower contrast. There are pictures of the two of them completley nude somewhere below if that interests you. It should, of course.

I've been home sick again today. Once again functional, but hacking and coughing and pretty disgusting. I'm hoping I can get to the office tomorrow or I'll be inundated when I do get back.

On a side note one reader ordered a print of one of the images here on the blog. It will be 11x14, digitally printed by Gene Nocon from the B&W negative. As I told her, I don't often sell prints. I don't really advertise individual prints and most of my buyers are books and magazines. They don't need prints. I do have a huge stack of color images that my color printer (who I've now lost track of) made a few years back. Whenever I had a gallery show I'd get duplicates printed, and as very little sells at galleries (in my experience) they've gotten stashed away. I need to pull them out and do something with them one of these days.

Anyway...sniffle/hack...back to scanning...

OK, this is more of a nipple slip than a nude, but Laura can be seen in the buff in other posts. This is a marginal picture that I don't think I've shown anywhere before. Laura flew out from Missouri in 2000 to work with me. She was a grad student in Criminal Justice and I'd met and worked briefly with her in Billings the year before.

She was the classic fashion model. Showed up at the studio wearing glasses on the tip of her nose, a bulky sweatshirt, leggings with sandals and hair sorta pulled back. She's tall, skinny with real breasts, and was represented back then, but because her studies were more important to her than modeling, wasn't going to go big-time in Missouri.

We set out in the Bronco with an MUA and stopped in various parking lots and alleys to shoot. I was a big fan of extremely high contrast back then and was using 35mm film - Ektachrome 320T pushed +2. The film is tungsten biased and street photography at night tends to have tungsten behind most lights, so it's always been my choice. Pushing it gives big grain and very high contrast. I'm not sure exactly where we made this picture, but it appears to have been under warm tungsten lighting around 2000K-3000K. She had the lovely thin sweater along, so we made this picture.

This is the original scan I made on a very cheap flatbed in 2000. It is even grainier and higher contrast than the chrome. Part of that may have been by choice, but part certainly was because of equipment limitations. I didn't do any color correction as this is the color mix on the slide. If I were to do it again, I'd clean up the white of her right eye and let the rest of the colors follow. I would probably include some background if it was available. Even then, I'm not sure the photograph would really be a keeper.

There is a nice connection between her eye and the camera (or viewer), and the nipple slip could be seen as benign neglect in friendly company. I don't know. I haven't used the picture as it seems to be missing something important. But here it is anyway.

Alpha girls. I know a few of them. My daughter is one and a close friend of hers from high school was another. Her friend, the same age, was two years ahead in school and lived pretty much unfettered by her folks, making mistakes, getting into trouble, but always doing exactly her own thing. That wild child went to Columbia University and last I heard was finishing up her PhD. My daughter declined Columbia in favor of a midwestern university where she studied theater and is now living on her own in Hollywood, doing pretty much what she likes, learning about life the hard way. Daddy bought her a car, but daddy isn't guaranteeing anything else.

This category didn't exist when I was young. I'm sure that girls then had the same capacity, but they tended to live within community expectations - we all did - at least nodding to convention. Convention has been somewhat overturned in the last few decades and in part the web is responsible for that. Girls (all people) are seeing new role models and even those living outside San Francisco and New York are seeing that there is no sin in going after what they want. And what they want is now hugely broader than a house with a white picket fence, 2.4 kids, a dog and a financially secure husband.

The downside (if there is one) is that boys are awed by these girls and the population of alpha boys seems to be declining. Maybe that's not true but only an illusion caused by the rise in alpha girls. There still seem to be enough that our ground forces recruiting is going just fine. I don't know - there's not much written about boys anymore.

This is Tomiko. She was in her late 30's when I photographed her. She'd been a body builder and that was still apparent well after she backed off. Tomiko modeled for a friend lately and she's still going strong, doing what she wants to do. I see her as a pioneer prototype of the alpha girls - the kind of girl I'm glad my daughter too turned out to be.

OK, back to more recent work. This is another of the beautiful Jackie in Minneapolis two and a half weeks back, photographed in my motel. She was quiet as though she was more interested in learning than in chatting. Of course I chattered away enough for two people, so maybe she just thought she wouldn't be able to get a word in at all. Her interest is fetish modeling and bondage is about as close as I've come to that, so I tied her up.

Photographed on Ilford Delta 3200 B&W film at ASA 1600 using the Pentax 6x7 with 45mm f4 ultrawide lens. I've been using that lens a lot lately to pull in the whole room for context, something relatively new for me. This particular image is cropped significantly to get the minimal geometry of the room to work. If you range through the blog a little you'll see that my older work is almost all very tight showing nothing but the girl against black. Well, context is my new black.

Home sick today. This "cold" may be the flu. I'm functional, but miserable, and decided that my colleagues would prefer me home to hacking, coughing and moaning around the office. I suppose I'll get to the laundry finally and possibly finish up Jackie's film. In the mean time, here's Paige again, this time with her S/O actually boffing her.

I know I've mentioned this before but I am not comfortable in a room where some guy other than me is having sex. I have photographed lesbian couples and found I could be objective, and have photographed nude men as well, but it's that erection (not mine) actually plugging in that doesn't sit well with me. I do have other more graphic pictures from the shoot that I gave them for their website but won't use myself. But this one, high contrast, sketchy, implicit rather than explicit, and tight, I like.

I've photographed Paige twice and love the Earth-Mother femininity, with her strong face, muscled thighs, heavy breasts and comfortable attitude. I'd fly to Pennsylvania just to photograph her again.

Paige Evans & S/O, photographed in Harrisburg, PA, maybe four years ago. Paige, if you're reading this, please drop me a comment if you'd like to shoot again.

This picture of Robin (the girl in the surf below) is posted here to illustrate "oiling up models" as is being discussed on a model/photographer website right now.

Yes, I'm the one that applied the oil and that makes me a bad guy in the eyes of the pristine ones who think one should never, ever touch a model. What are they thinking? Of course you can touch models. You do whatever's necessary for the picture. Now, you never do that without permission and never surprise or upset someone you want to keep working with, but touching sorta comes with the territory as long as it doesn't turn into groping (without permission, of course).

Kinda nice to have my own blog where I can spread these radical ideas without being contradicted (though I will publish comments submitted in rebuttal).

Robin, then my muse, photographed in my studio back in the Dark Ages.

Awhile back I put up a profile at Bondage.Com. At that time my entire profile consisted of a to link here. So many of the models I've worked with are members there - particularly the ones who want to be tied up. So I figured I'd go read the forums and see what it was all about. What I found was that it was the typical online experience where everyone was competing for primacy, including the submissives who wanted nothing less than to be the top submissives. I didn't find anything that showed any insight into the "BDSM community" at all. Maybe I didn't read enough, but as with all online communities, the writing was done in shorthand and buzzwords and was abrupt and without nuance.

Last night I put up some pictures of myself and filled out a bunch of questionnaires and profiles and such, being as honest as I could. In doing that the line blurred between what I like sexually and what I photograph. Sometimes that was because the questions were leading and sometimes it was because fantasy and reality overlapped and fuzzed. I guess if anyone wants to know how kinky I am, they could go read that stuff. I've got the free account, and they put a lot of pressure on to sign up for $20 a month by withholding things like emails and viewing of dirty pictures, but I can't see paying $20 to see dirty pictures when I can just go make my own, you know?

So, what happens next? Am I gonna get innundated by pretty women asking me to spank them or tie them up? I'm not sure if I see the point of tying up anyone I'm not going to photograph. We'll see what happens and I'll let you know.

This picture of Chloe was done after she saw the picture of Robin with clothespins (somewhere down below). I use clothespins to hang film to dry, so they're all over the place (you can't buy just eight clothespins). Chloe seems stoic in this picture, but I think she enjoyed it as a game. She wouldn't let me take them off until she couldn't stand it anymore.

She asked, "Do you want me to really do it or just pretend like I'm doing it?" I told her to really do it, so she did. This is Sacha again after her husband had gone down to the bar in their hotel in Billings, Montana. They're both good friends and Sacha had modeled for me quite often before. As you can see, this is another of those full frame compositions, and I think it really worked pretty well. Grainy as hell though. Tri-X pushed to ASA 1600 in 35mm format will do that. Pushing also increases contrast and you can see that here with the blown out highlights.

It's been a quiet day. I got none of those things I listed yesterday done. None of them. I did have breakfast with Lucky and The Blonde (his The Blonde, not my The Blonde from the previous post) before they left to drive up to San Francisco for a couple of parties this weekend. They're expecting a terrible return trip on Monday. I can understand that. Had coffee at the book store. Read a whole lot and rode the green bike around some.

Ah, the exciting life of an erotic photographer...

The following is a reprint of an article I wrote under the pseudonym "Fran Bilder" in January, 2001.
______

She came by the office and said, "Let's go."

"Where?" I said, already reaching for the trenchcoat and the old black Pentax.

"The beach," replied The Blonde, smiling at my incomprehension.

"I don't have trunks."

"You don't need any."

"But..."

"Come on!"

So she drove up past UCSD to the glider port, parked the car, and we set off down the Goat Trail, so named, she said, because it took a goat to climb back up.

The first thing I noticed was that no one had trunks. The second thing was that it was almost all men. The Blonde took off her clothes. She took off her clothes! I took off my trenchcoat. And the wingtips. OK...and the rest, looking I suppose like a beached giant squid.

She read a book. I watched her read a book.

The Blonde said, "Let's go in." Now this necessitates me taking off my glasses, something I'm averse to when The Blonde is around. But off she scampered (and off I sauntered with as much dignity as a slightly pink-assed middle-aged guy can muster in those circumstances).

Back out of the water, she asked me to put stuff on her back. "Anywhere you want," I agreed with more enthusiasm, now that the obligatory going-in-the-water thing was done.

Sun was now beginning to affect other parts of my person that hadn't been outside in a long time. I was willing to put up with the pain, but she'd had enough, so I quickly put the Dick Tracy boxers back on, then the trench coat, then the rest, while she did a reverse strip every bit as provocative as the conventionally directioned one had been.

And we packed up the towel, and the chair and puffing the whole way... I followed her up the Goat Trail.

Fran Bilder
Private Photographer
______

More of these early essays can be found here, though I've quit maintaining that site.

The model in the story and picture is Robin, one of the muses I've talked about at length. One of the most physically beautiful women I've ever met. And one of the most psychotic. And the first woman I ever shaved with a straight razor. While drunk (but she was drunker). No nicks - not even one.

Just got offered a class/ lesson/ workshop on how to photograph nude women. I wonder what he thought I was lacking? Oh well...

The weekend is upon me. Mixed feelings about that. I've got some stuff to take care of, including a haircut, laundry, last year's taxes, developing and scanning film, etc. But I don't have anything really planned out. Putting things off will be the death of me yet.

Another photograph of Jackie in my Motel 6 room in Minneapolis two weeks back. Absolutely excellent butt! Absolutely excellent everything, actually. She hadn't done bondage before but wanted to and decided she liked it. It's in line with her desire to model fetish. Fetish photographers, drop her a line. (No, I can't tell you how to do that, but she's Stiletto on MM, for those that recognize the code.)

Well, I've got to try to get some sleep so I can shake this damned cold. I hate not being able to breathe.

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