DRL Photography #1

I had every intention of sharing this first part of my December photo shoot with DRL Photography before now, but life got in the way.  To be honest, I've felt a lack of motivation over the last two weeks that unfortunately has affected my ability to be creative and focused, but I'm happy to say that I'm back on track and ready to continue with posts on a regular basis!

Up first on the agenda is this initial entry in a series of posts detailing the second of my three photo shoots in December.  I connected with Dan of DRL Photography late last year through Model Mayhem and we began making plans to work together shortly after.  I was initially a little concerned that I wasn't the type of model Dan was looking for, as his portfolio consists mostly of very muscular men, but he was complimentary regarding my build and felt it would be a good fit, so we finalized plans to shoot the second week of December.

To my surprise, Dan, who is from Rhode Island, was willing to travel all the way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to work with me.  From what I remember, I think he said the trip ended up taking about seven to eight hours!  I was honored he felt as though I was incentive enough to come all that way and I wanted to make sure we got the most out of our time together.

We had made plans to meet at a fancy hotel here in the city and shoot in the room Dan would be staying in.  When I arrived early that evening, Dan had his equipment unpacked, set up, and was ready to begin.  The room itself was gorgeous; very upscale and distinguished, and I knew it would make a great backdrop for the series of photos we planned to take.

In reviewing Dan's portfolio before we met, I knew he liked to work with light and shadow as well as high contrast to bring out the subjects in his photos.  Up until that point, most of my professional photography work had been done during daylight hours and utilizing natural light in addition to supplemental lighting, when needed.  This was to be my first shoot at night and on top of that, the hotel room we were working in was very dimly lit.  There was definitely a "mood" to the atmosphere and I hoped that we'd be able to capture that feeling in the photos.

I started off the shoot in a dress shirt and jeans, along with a custom-made DRL Photography gold belt buckle supplied by Dan, standing in front of the mirror and slowly undressing.  After some initial conversation, we'd decided that we wanted these photos to be a series that almost feels as though it tells a story.  I later came up with the title "After Hours" and I hope, after seeing these initial photos, you'll agree that it's a good fit for this dark and moody aesthetic!

After we finished shooting the first series of photos at the sink, we planned to move over to the bed for the next group of shots and then finally to the bathtub, saving that for last since I would be getting wet.  As I've mentioned before, I do enjoy a natural progression in terms of undressing during a photo shoot, as it definitely helps in making me feel more comfortable when I do reach the point of being fully nude in front of a photographer and this shoot was no exception.  Dan and I were actually having great conversations most of the time while shooting and he was an absolute delight to work with.

After painstakingly reviewing over 500 photos from this shoot, I've narrowed down this initial group to a series of 12 that I think best represent the first part of this visual narrative.  Dan provided me with high-quality photos and I'm passing those along to you, so I apologize in advance for the larger-than-usual file size!  I'm always a stickler for the highest quality when it comes to sharing media so I didn't want to sacrifice resolution for file size.

To make the download process a little easier, and because Patreon has a file size limit, I've created 2 separate ZIP files containing 6 photos each and attached them below.

If you'd like to learn more about Dan, please visit www.drlphotog.com.

I promise I'll be back soon with more amazing photos from this shoot!

- Michael