I love the human body, and from my work you can see the male form is my focus. Its so interesting how it is the one thing we are so close to and still the one thing we are, as a society, so far away from. I think the nude still has a taboo around it. Male nudes most of all. I went to the photography show at the Park avenue armory recently and was on the hunt for male nudes. I knew it would be a battle, I weeded my way around landscapes and objects, over female nudes and down deep under it were some great male nude images. Seems to be the place you find them if your outside the "GAY"/ "erotic" market. Under it all at the bottom. Not to say some work does not get play because it does, its just interesting to me how and where it fits into the bigger picture. This set of images were shoot from 2006. The images are bold, I often myself, question some images and look at them and think, is this too much? Do they some how cross this line I have in my mind. I want so much for my work to be about an investigation into seeing the body in its beauty. Im not interested in being an "erotic" photographer, I find that way to easy. I know that there is a big difference between nude and naked. Between looking at something sensualy, and showing some one something eroticly. My work is about how I see things, or how I would like to see things, I think thats why all artists make things because in the world around them they are not seeing the things they are drawn to in the way they wish to so they manifest it for themselves.

So I may be crazy but i figured if I am going to be looking back at shoots I might as well show everything. I found this shoot I did in 2006 at the studio I shared with the painter. After I moved in, about 3 mounts latter, Robert my studio mate fell and broke his hip. Well hit by a bike delivery boy wile walking his dogs kind of fall..... I was left with the studio to my self. I painted my big wall a deep blue black and started shooting Still life when I could not get a model to work with. On this day I had been ready to shoot a flower still when I found a model. I shot him with the flowers. It is the kind of shoot that again has taken so long to edit... We shot a lot of images and so many of them stand out. So todays post is this shoot. It begins the black back drop section of my work where all space is a void of black and the focus is on the body. I find the human form and flowers, nature, to be so amazing.

I have been working on this project that has me looking at a lot of photography of the male nude.
I have galleries sending me photos now and the selections people make are so interesting. I am seeing so many images that look like well composed snap shots, and it has me thinking about my photography. I think because that is so far away from what I do. Its hard for me to impose a story onto my images or to take pictures that have that built in. I guess that is what makes my work mine, and maybe why I do it. I tend to build these settings and photograph the body in them. No story other then the truth of exactly what is in front of me. I think it matches my personality, and other activities that interest me, like doing yoga and massage. They are both so real. So much about being in the moment, being connected with the energy of that specific time and working with it. This set of images is from a series I did called CIRCUS, I think it was an attempt to add a story line into the images that ended up adding colors and shapes but no story other then where is this crazy place this model is shot in. Maybe that's a start....... Possibly if I went with a model to the circus and photographed it it would be something new.....

After a wile of looking for models I began to cast my shoots on Craig's list. It turned out to be a good resource for me. It reminds me of going fishing when I was a kid. You cast your add an wait.... Seeing if someone on the other side will bite. Often its exactly the same as fishing and you hit a feeding frenzy. Some adds I would place I would have 10 to 20 replies, and a variety of people to consider. Other times your add just floats out in cyberspace with no reply. Or your line is cut... On Craig's list it called FLAGGED... When I left my studio on 2nd street I decided to look on line to see if I could find a new space in the city to work in. I was lucky and the first add I followed up on turned out to be the place. I packed my things and moved over to Broadway. I took a space in a large studio sharing with a figure painter named Robert. Robert was an old school, very classic figure painter. He had a long grey beard and GRUFF attitude. We hit it off well on our first meeting and soon I found myself tucked into the dark corner of his space. It had 2 windows that faced a light well that hardly produced light. In stead they seemed to simply allow smells from the light well to penetrate our studio. I looked at it as a challenge and switched from shooting with sunlight to shooting with studio lights. Of course I had no money so I grabbed a few clip on light from canal street and a white paper bag and returned to a style of lighting that I had developed in high school shooting pictures in my best friend mikes bed room. This story of the space came to mind when I looked at this shoot I call it painted bodies. It was the last shoot I did in that studio, space # 417. More images will come and many more stories but since I'm looking back I must be starting with this.

Seeing work a new. The friend I shared this studio with was a very wise soul. We would sit and talk for hours about photos, music, and the act of creativity. She and I were fellow waiters at a Mexican restaurant on St marks place. She was the person I was paired up with when I was hired. She was given the job to train me and show me the ropes. We hit it off great, she called me Riley. Working together every day we got to know each other well and found that the draw of the night, late hours of drinks and party favors were something we had in common. Her and her girl friend had moved to Brooklyn and were using her girlfriends apt now as a studio, they asked me if I wanted to rent the small front room and I did. I have no idea what happened to Guinevere. I have tried and tried to contact her with no reply..... The last time we spoke was after I had moved out of the studio and we met for coffee. We sat on a bench outside in the sun and she told me that she was moving to Portland for a wile. Doing and apartment trade, and would be back in 6 months or so. She never returned. She once said that as artists we can make things that are often way before there time. Songs that we rite, photos that we take and then slip into a folder or a box because we cant relate to them. Then years latter we pull them out and they make complete sense. Life has had its ups and downs and the work that was foreshadowing that opens up and and comes to fruition. I kept that in my heart from the night she said it and have lived by the philosophy ever since. Who knows maybe our friend ship is just slipped into a box for a wile and some day we will meet again and it will all make sense. This shoot is a perfect example of this, I remember I met this guy at the cock on 2nd street and avenue a one night. I got his number in the dark and set up a time to photograph him. I figured it was one of the many late night plans that would never pan out.... I was surprised the next day when the buzzer rand and he was there for his shoot. I never looked at the pictures until today 7 years later, and I love what I see.

Going way back all the way to the start with this set of images.
They have a pixeled look because my camera was small. It is the first shoot of the male nude I did in my studio in the east village. I met this model at a bar, he reminded me of some one very dear to my hart and I asked if he would pose for me.
The shoot used the amazing light that came into my room from a south facing window. The studio was small and I shared it with 2 friends, a musician and a designed. It was my first studio outside my home and it still holds an amazing place in my hart. I was not in it for very long, I think about 3 months before I was asked to leave by my studio mates, something about a family member moving to town and needing a place. It was a ground floor apartment, old and funky, on 2nd street between b and c, I think...... Life was a wirl wind for me then, a time of going out to late, drinking to much, and searching for something... I felt like a black cat sneaking around the city at night looking for a place to rest. Its amazing how different things are now from then, and how real the photographs look when I see them now. Its great to visit with them, look back and see what I was seeing, remember what I was feeling and remeber the friends and people of that time that have all now changed.

I am back in the studio starting a new archive project so I figured it was time to start up the blog to show you what I have been shooting. Its funny I have a new job where I am looking at a lot of photography. I am working on building a collection of the Male nude for a client and it has me searching the world for images. Now that I am looking at so many other amazing images of the male nude I would like to start to share my work more with people. I hope you like. I will be going back and archiving shoots and pulling images to show. I do sell my work so if anyone is interested let me know.

This selection is from a shoot I did almost 4 years ago in an amazing studio I had on Broadway in NYC.