So the trip that took about a year of planning scheduling finally happened. We land in Iceland at 5am. Exhausted we get our rental car, and drive to the Blue Lagoon for the first shoot.
As soon as I turn the corner and see the first bit of it I'm blown away. Even the lakes in the Canadian Rockies aren't this beautifully blue. Surrounded by Volcanic fields. I'm too tired for it to really sink in. I'm in Iceland! We made it. We relax in the ho...
2015-09-26 22:29:33 +0000 UTC
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Nicole and I decided last December that we were going to make this trip happen. Before I realized that the work she and I do together should be something of its own, before I really even understood Patreon. So we booked the trip, and have been the stressful and exciting process of planning the whole thing out.
Planning these trips has gotten so much easier over time. You can scout locations with instagram hashtags, 500px, tripadvisor, and plot everything out ahead of ...
2015-09-25 16:00:06 +0000 UTC
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While Mika was in town I decided I wanted to play around with a technique I haven't really touched since when I was at Antonelli...Soft Focus. Every photo class I have ever taken at some point would mention Vaseline on the lens, and so back in 2006 I decided to try it, and got pretty cool results, and with that I went on to never us it again.
Until Mika agreed to let me play around with another soft focus technique last month...the black stockings. All you re...
2015-09-12 22:13:57 +0000 UTC
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The past two months of shooting for Temperance have been some of the craziest and most creative I have ever experienced. It started full speed when I got home from Canada with my shoot with Brooke Eva, Mika Lovely, and Jordan Bunniie, and continued like a freight train from there. It feels like its been a year. I've been pushed creatively further than I even thought I could go.
Was it 20 shoots or 30? I don't even know its been a blur.
More and more I'm ...
2015-09-04 00:20:33 +0000 UTC
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It took me years to finally get to San Diego, but after meeting Venom in Ohio while I was on the road for 50 Models 50 States she let me know that if I ever happened to make it down there I'd have a place to stay. That is usually about all it takes to get me somewhere. Then I started seeing the absolutely amazing photos she was posing for and taking in Southern California, and I knew I was going to have to make the trip as soon as possible.
Our first shoot went absolutely amazi...
2015-09-02 22:12:33 +0000 UTC
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As August comes to a close and September begins I think it'd be a good thing for me to come and thank you all profusely for your support, and talk about where we are headed! When I started Patreon I really had no idea how successful it would be. I had a shoot for the moon goals of $800 a month that would really allow me to focus the majority of my energy here, and well we've hit that and more. I amazed and moved that so many of you have came to help make this happen.
The...
2015-09-01 20:07:45 +0000 UTC
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What do you to when you have a completely full schedule for a month, and last minute two of your favorite people happen to be in town on your one planned day off for close to 30 days, and they want to shoot? If you are me you say yes...you always say yes!
London has been one of my longest running collaborators. Years ago when I was very very unknown and had trouble getting people to work with even just monthly London gave me a chance that made a huge difference in my career. &...
2015-08-31 17:03:41 +0000 UTC
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I've been in love with the creative brain of Vivka since the first time I stumbled across her model mayhem bio. She is a goddamn tour de force, a one women artistic army that can make her visions come to life like no other. Part of my path as a photographer has been learning when to get into the driver seat, and when do hop in and go along for the ride. With Vivka I'm a in the car behind using my adaptive photo skills to figure out how to translate her vision. Its a diffe...
2015-08-27 22:38:53 +0000 UTC
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Since I got home its felt like I've been running a marathon. In a good month I shoot once or twice a week. I don't even know how many I have done since I've been home. Brooke Eva, Mika Lovely, Jordan Bunniie, Hazel Honeysuckle, Dangrrr Doll, Freshie Juice, Cat Headlund, Tanya Dakin, Tilly Mcreese, June St Paul, The Great Catsby, Ellen Stagg, Sierra McKenzie, Minh Ly, Floofie, Lillias Right, Rachel Dashae and Reed Suicide, and that is just for Temperance. I'm getting close...
2015-08-19 01:39:21 +0000 UTC
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The first time I left my time zone I drove 16 hours across the country with a taxidermy fox to Kansas City. When I arrived there was Mary on the other end of the road. She has a warmth that made me feel like I was instantly home again. Over 100,000 miles later Mary and I finally had our second shoot. I’ve ditched the fox since then, and really matured as a photographer, and I think we’ve created something really really special.
The outdoor portion of our shoot had t...
2015-08-16 22:42:46 +0000 UTC
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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...
2015-08-14 22:03:20 +0000 UTC
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Heading into the Canadian Rockies we knew that we were going to have our mines blown by the landscape, and the abundance of large land mammals, but that was just the beginning of it. We definitely weren't prepared for daylight to last until midnight, and for the sun to be right back up by 4am. Steven, Nicole and I have been traveling for years together now, and we have living in a small car down to a science, but Canada was the proving ground for years of practice, and it really real...
2015-08-13 19:02:45 +0000 UTC
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I've lost track of how many shoots I have done since we got home from our trip out west. The first day I get back from a trip I have a post trip ritual of panicking that I have nothing to do while I am home, so I reach out to anyone I have talked to about shooting, and then my schedule becomes crazy!
I don't mind though. I like the challenge of trying to keep creating unique images in the Temperance room. My shoot with 2015-08-12 20:36:21 +0000 UTC
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The banks of the creek outside of Columbus, Ohio were flooded, and the waterfall I had intended to shoot at was unreachable. The main reason I try and get near and around waterfalls for shooting are because they normally are in some sort of steep canyon, which means shade, which means nice soft light. As soon as we realized that wasn't going to be possible for our shoot we decided to try something a little different and hiked into some deeper forest.
Normally I wouldn't rea...
2015-08-08 19:43:37 +0000 UTC
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San Diego was a little bit of a struggle for me. It is easily one of the most beautiful cities in the entire country. Its amazing beaches, cliffs, forests, and architecture always leaves me amazed, but its sunny pretty much every day. Shooting really early in the morning is great, but after a month of camping and sleeping in my car it was hard as hell to get out of bed at the ungodly 5am sunrise to catch some fog.
Also I destroyed my leg the first day I was in town. &nbs...
2015-08-07 20:43:43 +0000 UTC
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Its a summer tradition for me to shoot in the forest by my house. The hot weather and vacation fills my favorite places to the brim with tourists from all over the country. Bad drivers, children, and nightmarish campsite crowding means I retreat from the road and national parks to my home until fall or winter. I enjoy nature for the isolation it brings, and this time of year that means I spend a lot of time in the Wissahickon.
I've been trying to shoot down here at least...
2015-08-05 18:52:44 +0000 UTC
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The beginning of July I finally got to work with the amazing Freshie Juice for Temperance. The more I continue this project the more exciting it becomes to be able to utilize eroticism, reflection, voyeurism, and photographic techniques to show this.
Freshie was a blast to shoot with and really helped to explore sensuality. Every model I work with bring something new and amazing to the camera, and every shoot makes it that much more challenging to not create the same images as...
2015-08-03 21:40:14 +0000 UTC
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Nature in Los Angeles especially secluded nature can be difficult to come by, but the number of models that reside there who are incredibly talented makes hiking out into the forest and shooting sneakily mandatory. I drove up from Hollywood to Stony Point in the late afternoon to meet up with Alysha and shoot in a popular rock climbing area called Stony Point. To get to a spot that was secluded, had nice light, and provided an area that worked compositionally was a little difficult. ...
2015-08-01 17:01:03 +0000 UTC
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How do you capture something as vast as the ocean? There are so many ways it presents itself: violent, serene, alive, bright, colorful, overcast. You could spend a life time on the Oregon Coast and never take the same photo...never see the same day.
My love for this place pushes me to keep exploring and shooting. Long exposures, short exposures, 17-400mm in lens choices. The only way to take landscapes is to keep pushing and shooting with a different eye. I'v...
2015-07-30 17:05:45 +0000 UTC
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When we get a hotel the goal is to sleep, shower and shoot. It seems unless you are in Arizona 150 miles from one of the major interstate's you are going to be paying a minimum of $60 for a room that doesn't have cockroaches. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. I scored a room two years ago for $15 a night. The temperature settings were intentionally broken off the AC, and the shower had an intense layer of rust covering everything, but it did the trick for ...
2015-07-28 23:14:06 +0000 UTC
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By the time we arrived in Portland we were completely exhausted. After leaving San Fransisco we averaged two locations a day for 5 days straight while still managing to fit in multiple 8 hour drives. After 6 years Steven, Nicole and I have all become masters of sleeping in the car, but the pacific coast part of our trip took it to an entirely new level. Where we normally fit two people we were managing three including all of our gear. It was the proving ground for our eve...
2015-07-27 12:56:20 +0000 UTC
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I get asked all the time what my favorite part of the country is, and there is a very real and certain impossibility in trying to choose just one place. This country is too vast, and too differing in landscape for that task, but the Redwoods Highway is definitely in my top 10. I've made sure to stop in Redwoods every trip since I first went there unfortunately without Nicole. When we decided that we were going to do a trip like we used to I had visions of shooting her in the Re...
2015-07-23 22:38:18 +0000 UTC
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I found out today that with one of the updates Patreon released caused a problem with a lot of my posts (4 months worth) so tonight I went through and fixed every one of the creations that were affected. It was a pretty easy fix, and really it is something I have been meaning to do as the new creation manager has a much better look to it!
In other news this month I am trying out a few new things. If you are a $10 a month or more patron you've probably already noticed that in addit...
2015-07-22 00:51:18 +0000 UTC
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We snuck into the forest behind Cam's house with rope, and my 5dMKII. The hot weather, direct sunlight, and mosquito's were pretty oppressive. I hate summer. We knew our shoot had to be quick because before I had even finished tying her up we were being bitten by bugs.
Fortunately the leaves of the tree's provided us the shade we needed, and Cam's ability in front of the camera even when tied rather tightly with rope, or especially tied up with rope shines through...
2015-07-20 02:01:14 +0000 UTC
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Sometimes everything works out even better than you could have imagined. I have been trying to work with Jordan and Brooke for I think three years now, but we've never managed to be in the same place at the same time for long enough to make it happen. I was hoping that we would manage to catch each other while we were both passing through the South West on our respective trips, but they took a northern route through Arizona, and I road along the Mexican boarder after leaving White...
2015-07-17 22:20:48 +0000 UTC
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From the first time I saw a photo of Sugar I knew that when our paths crossed we were going to do something amazing. Her presence in front of the camera is a think of perfection, so when the opportunity finally presented itself on a trip through LA I wanted our location to be equally as amazing, so we decided to try and shoot at the rather notorious state beach El Matador.
El Matador can be very difficult to shoot at as it is incredibly popular, and the tide can make the beach much s...
2015-07-16 00:56:05 +0000 UTC
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The East Coast doesn't get a lot of love from other photographers, and I'm guilty of ignoring it for the better part of my photography career as well. I grew up here, so it took I'm pretty used to the geography of the land, and with that familiarity I suppose came a slight disenchantment. I could never see this part of the country with the same eyes as one of my favorite photographers Ryan McGinley, but I've been trying to change that. Trying to find new places, and a rea...
2015-07-14 20:24:45 +0000 UTC
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Finding locations when traveling is one of the most difficult parts of being on the road, so when I hit a city and a model has already taken care of it for me, it is pretty much the best thing ever!!
My trip last fall I did bring a single Alien Bee 800 with me, so that I could shoot at night. The short days of late fall and winter made it very important that I travel with some studio lighting in order to optimize my productivity. It means a lot less extra room in the car, sinc...
2015-07-13 20:23:48 +0000 UTC
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Time away was good. Just before we left I wasn't feeling like I was at the peak of my creativity for the series, but the time away gave me a lot of time to think of new ideas and ways to shoot! I think these breaks are one of the only ways I can stay creative.
Shooting with Cat when I got back was fantastic. Its been years since we had an opportunity to work together. Last time I was inbetween projects and really just doing portraits, so I was excited to have our pa...
2015-07-12 18:04:56 +0000 UTC
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It seems like with some of the changes Patreon has made that my automated thank you message, which includes a link to the E-Book for all of you is no longer working! To make things easier I think just making it available with all the other creations will be less confusing.
Creating this book was one of the longer more difficult projects I have ever taken on. I won't lie when I initially decided to take this on I thought it would be easy. I'd already traveled to all 48...
2015-07-11 20:55:00 +0000 UTC
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