The beginnings of The Jungle

It started in New York.  After Kacie Marie moved out of Philadelphia I had no choice but to start make the trip to New York to keep shooting.  I'd been avoiding this sort of thing for years.  New York is everything Philly is not.  Mainly its expensive, and its hard to find places to shoot.  I pretty much have things down to a science here.  If I want woods there is the Wissahickon, plain studio, or a fancy set there is my house.  In New York I'm at the mercy of the knowledge of the model, or if I'm lucky a host that has a room big enough to work in.  Then Kacie took me to Prospect Park and that all changed.

One of the huge benefits to shooting in New York and the main reason The Jungle even exists as a series is the legality of toplessness.  As long as we don't bother the public, the public doesn't bother us.  Up until this shoot with Kacie if I was shooting outdoors we were just going to do full nudes in nature.  This shoot sort of introduced me to the idea of doing some retro styling outdoors, and with that came some experimenting with shooting style/processing.  My shoot with Kacie would have more than likely been a one off little thing had it not also been my first shoot with the Sigma 85mm F1.4.  With this lens I found that I could turn harsh dappled light, a little bit of greenery, and retro styling into something really special.

Also if you can make the woods of New York look cool then this was a series that could travel.  No place in America is more built up than New York.  Every town has a bigger green space, so why not continue to pursue it.  It let me focus more on making my nudes in nature something special that Nicole and I do, and gave me an outlet for experimenting with other models.

I owe much of this to Kacie.  She and I have been working together for so long that her pushing me outside of my box has always led to awesome new things.  She's one of my favorite people on this planet, and one of my favorite people I have been lucky to work with many times.

I hope you all enjoy this addition to the archive.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c4e6yh995dtdocq/AACi2ck0yq-DN-dsJdkNw11wa?dl=0