The second in my series on food.  Emily is a Chicago model who was up in Madison last October.

I am extremely pleased with how these turned out.  Emily is an outstanding model and I would recommend her to anyone.

I’ve known Alicia for about five years.  (You can see more of Alicia here) We’ve worked together a number of times and the photos always turn out amazing.  So when she contacted me about doing some pinup type photos I was eager.

One of the things we did is shown above.  I have a lofted area that looks over my living room.  It’s one of the reasons I bought this unit.  Particularly because it lets me lean over and shoot at people laying on the ground.  The problem is that I usually forget about it when I’m shooting.  So it was nice to actually get to use it.

I am very impressed with the two images above.  I think they both look very retro, very much in the pinup style.

Since the begining of the year I’ve been trying to do this series of photos with models covered with various foods.  Flour, cocoa, sugar, and others.

The problem was, I’d have tons of people interested, but after a few messages they’d disappear, stop responding.  Or maybe some would respond, we’d actually set up a shoot, then at the last minute they’d cancel.  Both of these scenario’s happened MANY times.  I was begining to think the series was cursed.  So I stopped looking for a few months.

Then Elena contacted me, and we actually got to set up something and shoot it!  These are the results of that.  Elena is covered with flour in this set.

Keesh Lorraine is an amazing model in the Madison area.  You can see some of her other work on her Model Mayhem site.  I first contacted her about working with gold leaf, such as the ones I’ve done with Rebecca.  We ended up going a slightly different direction doing outdoor nudes at Devil’s Lake State Park.  While not the first time I’ve visited the park (many times as a boy scout), it was the first time I’d photographed there.  And I hadn’t been there in quite a few years.

After stopping at the Visitor’s center for a vehicle sticker, we went to the south side of the lake to climb the east bluff.

In the far left distance you can see the lake, about a third of a mile away.  At this point we’re about 200’ above the lake, though we’d only gone 75’ horizontally.  I’d wanted to go higher, but, um, I’m not in that good a shape.  So we stopped here and got quite a few pictures.

  As you can see we’re above the tops of most of the trees.  The colors of the rocks, and the lichen really match well with her skin.

This next pictures is my favorite.  The diagonals of the rocks, the matching angles of her arms and legs, the straining of her muscles.

On the way back down, we took a little side trail, and found a boulder field much closer to the ground.

To me it looks like she belongs there.

Not much text with this post.  Still working my way through all the pictures from that night.  Click the pictures for larger images.

Yeah, it’s been more than a few days since my last post of Rebecca.  But better late than never.

I really liked the way the sunflower looked when I used this other black and white conversion.

No real comments on these, from the same day as Rebecca on the Prairie and New Picture of Rebecca.

Lyjya is a new model here in Madison.  She contacted me on ModelMayhem. 

That’s right she has super powers.  She can defy gravity.  She can fly.  I have the pictures to prove it.  These were taken in the hallway next to the Memorial Union Theater.

So this is a very large post in terms of the amount of pictures.  Depending on your connection it might take a while to download them all.  We took these pictures just after the last set.

So JimmyD (http://twitter.com/pgshooter) tweeted the following article From Polanski to “Big Love”: Hollywood’s Twisted View of Child Sex Abuse by Marci A. Hamilton.  Some of the article I agreed with, some I didn’t.  I read a few of her other things and again, some I agreed with and some I didn’t.

This post isn’t about any particular view that she and I share or differ on.  It’s about her apparent non-desire to communicate with her readers.  There is no comment system.  I could not find an e-mail address anywhere on the site.

I, and many others, especially of my generation and younger, have come to expect the ability to interact with content creators.  Be it a musician, photographer, writer, etc., the idea that you’re finished once you’ve created something is very much a last century idea.  I know that sometimes in the blogs I follow the comments are more interesting and informative than the original work.  I’m not saying that to be detrimental to the creators.  The original work is generally outstanding, but the ability to question, appreciate and criticize, especially when paired with the different views, experience and knowledge from people all over the world, makes it better.

Creators that I can’t communicate with seem to be saying “This is what you should think (do, look at, listen to).” rather than “This is what I think (do, look at, listen to).”  It’s the difference between a lecture of 300 students, and a discussion with the professor at his/her home.  It’s the difference between radio and iTunes.  It’s the difference between being passive and being active.

And I would much rather live in a world of active people, who are part of the conversation, than passive people who do exactly as they’re told.

Sydney Max being active