MAXIM September 2006

Hey so here is a page from my Maxim story. It's really pretty funny, its the winners of a "best butt- czech republic". Ah the humor in this life!

New York

Hey guys, I'm comming to New York for a number of work projects! I'll be in town starting September 1st and I will be in town for about three weeks. I'll post a bit more about that soon!

Perfect Beauty.

I've been experimenting lately with doing makeup on the computer. It's a pretty involved process, but it's very fun. The trick is to get a girl with PERFECT skin, and then do light simple makeup. Then it's hours of computer work to get it how you like. The hardest part though, is really figureing out how you want it. Then it's figuring out how to get it to look like that. Here's a sample.

Ivanka Trump

Theres a picture in the tabloids of Ivanka Trump where you can see me. Curiously enough, I get labeled as her "Dennison Bertram, Ivanka Trumps bodyguard". What the heck?!?!?!?!

testing

So I keep testing. Today I got two great girls. By great I mean, awesome. One of the girls was really good, the other girl was incredible. I don't know if the agency I shot her for even knows how good she is. It's a small agency with a small selection of girls. But play their cards right and they could build the entire agency off this one girl. This shot, is from the really good girl. I have yet to show you the incredible girl.

Model Test

I've been testing alot lately. I don't have the time to do enough prep work to shoot 'proper' fashion stories, and I need to make some money for an upcomming trip. So! It's model testing for me. I've been doing alot though, so while in the past I would go in and 'photoshop' a bunch, now I prefer to shoot it exactly as I'll leave it. Thus freeing up the untold number of hours I usually put into retouching. This shot, is from today's model test. I'm doing it in the style of the agency hence the glossyness. There is so little photoshop on this image that I'd feel comfortable 'claiming' there was none. Although of course there is a touch. But honestly, at the resolution of images on the internet- you can't see what I photoshoped. Yes, it really looks like this right-out-of-the-camera. Pretty cool huh? Filters baby. Gelled Softboxes and filters. Oh yeahhhhhhhhh.

Complicated and MAXIM

Wow, life got complicated recently. I'm in a fight with a good friend over a work assignment which is not pleasent at all to deal with. It's really an unfortnate situation as well, but obviously I won't go much into detail.

That aside there are some really cool things going on. One is, I have a five or so page shoot comming up in MAXIM! I don't think I mentioned that, but I'm really super excited about it. One of the things I am excited about is in that in one of the outakes shots I took a picture that will probably remain one of my favorite shots for the rest of my life. Its such a remarkably candid shot that I find myself just staring at it. Although I won't post the shot here, (a touch explicit, it was MAXIM after all) it's of three scantly girls running away across the lawn to get changed and at one moment one girl just turns back and smiles and *click*. You immediatly know it's timeless.

John William Waterhouse

Wow, I just discovered the paintings of John William Waterhouse and it's almost like a religious experince. The way he paints is exactly how I wish to photograph. The images are almost exactly what I see in my head and what I've been trying to do for some time now yet simply haven't had the abilty (money, time, organization) to pull together. But now seeing these images, I know. It's clear exactly how I want to do fashion. Now I just need to find some way to actually do it.

Vector Imaging

Believe it or not, this image, as photographic as it looks- is not a painting. Rather it is a vector based images drawn in Adobe Illustrator. Pretty amazing huh? This is the stuff that people do to animate charecters, and perhaps one day, do fashion photography without a camera.

whoa.

Here's the link to USSA METHAWITTAYAKUL's work.

Other side.

I don't normally talk too much about my personal life. Mostly because a good number of clients (to my surprise) take the time to read my blog, (thank you!) so I try to keep things on topic. But I think every once and awhile I need to throw in a little touch of reality.

Contrary to what most people think, this is not all parties. It's fun, but the parties are honestly few and far between. It's hard work. Seventeen hour days. Poor sleep. Sometimes foul people. Often you work harder than you should, and you are always self critical in a desire to push yourself to be better at everything.

These things though, aren't the tough part. These things are the parts you expect when you do this job. You expect it to be tough. To fight, to argue. If you love the job, you expect 17 hours days. Indeed, you relish them. In this business to be successful you work so hard that you forget how to not work. When the rare free moment comes around you actually feel depressed, not released. It's not just photographers though. It's makeup artists. Models. Art directors. Everyone. We are like a patchwork of semi-lonely work-a-holics that don't mind seventeen hour days because really, we don't want to leave set and go home. At home we're LONELY.

There is a special camaraderie on projects too that becomes an addictive high. I think if anything 'hooks' people in this business, it's working through a commercial, or a particularly exacting photoshoot and feeling the release at the end. Feeling a 'result' of a something you did. Like drugs though, the feeling evaporates pretty quickly though, and soon you find yourself looking for a new fix. It's not just the money that keeps people going. It's this sense of 'belonging' and 'purpose' that keeps people going too. Before long your hooked. It's four in the morning and you are still editing photos. Still picking models. Still planning locations.

The other thing is, this life take a toll on your personal life. It's hard for people 'outside' this little world to really see in. I know very few photographers who are in happy long term relationships. Very, very, very, few. And as a photographer, I can assure you that I know a lot of photographers. But the same can be said for models. Models either have rich/famous boyfriends they never see, or a normal guy they love, but who is jealous/nervous/paranoid that they will never measure up.

It's hard too, for other people to understand fashion/models/fame/etc. It's a difficult thing. It's not hard in the normal physical or intellectual sense, it's hard in the psychological sense. It's hard for people to cope with being 'beautiful'. I know plenty of girls who vomit/don't eat or work out too often. It's hard to commodify ones personality as ones primary skill/product.

But it's not hard in the break a sweat sense.

It's hard in the Lost in Translation empty-hotel-room/difficult to maintain meaningful relationship sense. It's hard in the "is this all I am" or "is this all I do" sense.

But of course if your not in this business or if you don't already know what I mean, then that statement is probably meaningless to you. It's like when models tell people, "my job is really hard" and people just laugh at them. "How hard could being beautifull be?" people ask.

If they only knew.

the art of being absolutely fabulous: part 2

  

the art of being absolutely fabulous

  

How to party

 
Well the shooting with Gilles Bensimon and all the czech/slovak super models wrapped up the prague part of the project. The next phase is in a couple weeks in New York with the girls who couldn't make it in. I think I need to start a 'behind the scenes' blog so I can talk more about the non-work aspect to working. Or maybe I'll just add in more of it here. Anyway this is me (obviously) with Giles Bensimon, Champagne, and mind boggelingly beautifull women. I don't even know if boggelingly is even a word. But if it was word, that's how incredibly beautifull these women are. 

Pace

Sorry I haven't written much lately. I'm up to my ears in work. It's exciting stuff though. Last week I shot a catalogue for a French Clothing company, yesterday I shot a story for MAXIM, tommorow I am working with Gilles Bensimon and Ivana Trump. WHEW!!!!!