This Just In!!!!

A photographic journey that will surely raise your body temperature. Are you ready to SWEAT?

Shooting Fitz

Fitz, what can I say? Well, firstly he is a real cool dude with a promising future. He needed to ad some more commercial, fun stuff to his port, so he made his way over a few days after the tornado's ravished Atlanta. It was another rainy, gloomy day in ATL, but things got brighter once our shoot started. He is not the type of dude that likes to smile at all and you will rarely ever catch him smiling. However, I managed to pull it out of him. He is also multi-talented! He is a model (print and runway), an actor (shot his first independent film this winter and just got cast in a Major Motion Picture to be shot in Hollywood this summer) and an up and coming Ultimate Fighter! So don't get shit twisted and step to Fitz on some next shit because he will knock a nigga out! I really believe that this dude has a real future ahead of him. Oh, and he is doing all of this and doesn't even have an agent. That is sheer determination! Also, look out for Fitz in my 2009 Calender. Here are a few more images from our shoot:

Putting Together a Series

I decided after years of shooting that it was time for me to do my first series. So here it is! Hopefully this will help any other photographer who ever thought about doing a series. I started it in May and was not finished until September. It was a long process, but it was well worth it. There were a few more elements I wanted to bring to this series, but it didn't quite work out. That is one of the first thing you must realize when shooting a series. You will not get everything you visualize in your head for your series. There will come a point where you will just have to draw the line and put your series out as is. I really wanted at least one BBW for my series. I firmly believe that weight and height has nothing to do with beauty. I do not live or play by the rules of the fashion industry. Fuck them and their ideas of what beauty is! I am into art and art has no parameters. But yes, I really wanted a bbw or even a heavier couple for the series. But after a few cancellations and talking to a few other women that just didn't have the confidence to do it. I decided to put the series out as is!

How It Started

The first person I shot for this series was Jeff. He is from Belize and works for an airline. So he is a very worldy dude and just an all around good guy. He actually came for a totally different shoot.


But I caught such a good vibe from Jeff that I asked him to do the shot for me. I had been thinking about starting this series for a while and finally decided to act on it. He jumped right in and my vision came to life. We caught that amazing shot. We were done in fifteen minutes and back working on his other pictures. There was one other possible shot I thought about using:

Although this one was cool. I think I made the best decision with the one I chose.

Shooting The First Male and Female Together (Najuan and Tasha)

These two had just met about five minutes before we took this shot. I knew Najuan because I shot him before, but I had just met Tasha over the internet about a week prior. She was looking to do some artistic pictures with a male. I felt like the universe presented us to each other. Because I thought it was going to be difficult to get the first female to pose with a male with them both being nude. Not that its so hard, but there are so many slime ball photographers out there giving the rest of us a bad name that I counted on meeting some resistance when dealing with women with this series. But Tasha was a strong, confident woman and again she was looking to do some artistic pictures herself.



They arrived to the shoot early on a Saturday morning. I introduced them and then we had "the talk." I just put it out there. I told Tasha that Najuan is a man and she is a very attractive woman and you both are going to be nude and oiled up so there is a chance that things might rise during the shoot and that it was only natural. And if that did happen and she became uncomfortable we would stop shooting immediately until things calmed down. She laughed and said she would let me know if became uncomfortable. So after the talk they both jumped into the spot and I let them just stand there for a minute with their towels on to get a little comfortable.
Then we began shooting. You have to always make sure your models are comfortable or you will shoot will reflect the uncomfortableness. But not only that, there is a trust factor between photographer and models that i feel a photographer must maintain! Another tip, when talking to a model about shooting artistic, if they are hesitant at all it's not worth it. Everybody is not meant to shoot artistic pictures. If they have any reservations about it, they are not a good candidate. It's just not worth it. It will show in the pictures and it will just be time wasted. The model has to be comfortable with themselves before they could ever be comfortable with you. So keep that in mind. Again, if your models are comfortable, the result will be hot pictures.

Shooting Will

This was Will's first real photo shoot ever. I think he did a great job. Between you and I, Will hates this picture. And I don't know why. Why do you hate it Will? But again, for this to be his first shoot I think he did a great job. Big ups to you dog!! Will saw some of my work online, contacted me and drove all the way up from Memphis for the shoot. There was one other runner up picture that I was considering:
But I think I went with the best one. But Will and I did catch some great other shots that day outside of the series. Here are a few:


Again, Will did an amazing job to be his firsts shoot ever!

The Second Couple (Quick and Beionca)

Quick and Beionca, two of my favorites. These two already knew each other but they weren't a couple. Just two professional models having a good time. Beionca has these killer bedroom eyes that will put you in a trance! Quick is naturally full of jokes, so they spent most of the shoot laughing. A few times I had to step in and say no more laughing because I needed a more serious emotion. But overall, it was a fun and easy shoot. There were definitely a lot of images to choose from. Here were a few runner ups:

It was really a tough decision. However, my favorite artistic picture of these two was taken after we finished shooting the series. I will give you a sneak peak:

Shooting a Pregnant Woman for the Series (Regina)

I wanted to have a pregnant woman in the series. However, I knew finding one was going to be a task. I put an ad on craigslist, I got a descent amount of responses. But most of them said they had to check with their husbands to see if it was okay. Then I would never hear from them again. So I almost thought it was not going to happen. However, when I was shooting Quick and Beionca I mentioned to them that I was looking for a pregnant woman for the series. Quick immediately said he knew one. It was a good friend of his that had done some modeling before her pregnancy. I stressed to Quick that I needed him to make sure she was clear on what I was doing for the series and to make sure she was fine with it. Because I don't like for people to be surprised when they arrive to shoot with me. I like them to be well informed before they even make a decision whether or not they want to do it. Quick called me back the next day and said he spoke to her and she wanted to do it.

In waddled Regina two days later. She was such a little pretty brown woman with this huge belly. At the time we shot she was only 7 months. But she was carrying twins! I explained to Regina how we were going to shoot, she went in the bathroom and changed and we began to shoot. Now with Regina, it was really, really hard to decide on which image to use. She had sooooooooooooooooooo many good images. Not to mention she almost caused me to turn my whole series black and white because of the way her images looked. Here are a few:



As you can see, it was a very hard decision and there was no right or wrong image. Quick is not one for playing the background in any situation, so he jumped in a few as well.


But I decided not to use the ones with Quick for the series for a few reasons. One being, I already had him with Beionca. Second reason was because Regina's images were strong enough on her own. And the main reason was, I didn't want to cause any problems with the twins father and Regina. Even though it was totally innocent, professional, all in the name of art, and she said it was cool, I just felt a little funny about those. But I do really want to say thank you to Quick, Regina, the twins, and the daddy for being understanding and being a part of my vision!

Out Takes!! (Images I didn't Use In The Series)

I didn't include this image of Jamaine in the series because we had so much other shooting to do that day, so by the time we started shooting for the series it was already dark outside and I had to create lighting for the shot. I wanted the whole series to be done with natural light, not man made. But I will definitely use him in my next series. He is a real cool dude and very easy to work with.
Miss Lyss and her fiance. I didn't use there pictures for two reasons. One, they got lost on the way to the shoot for a while. So by the time they got here all the natural lighting was gone. So once again, I had to create light. And as I stated before, I wanted this series to be all natural lighting. The second reason was, this image and a lot of them came out just a little bit too sexual. I mean what did I expect, they are a real couple and they are really in love! Isn't it obvious? Here are a few more.

Again, if it wasn't for the lighting they would of made it in the series for sure. Thanks to both of your for your time and understanding. And I wish you the best with your relationship and we will work together again!



Ken!! I really loved this image, but it just didn't fit. There is a lot of action going on in this image but the rest of the images are kind of laid back. He almost looks like a fighting Praying Mantis (I mean that in a positive way of course.) One day I will get to use this image for something because I really do love it. Thanks again to you Ken, for your great posing and understanding.

Thank You!!!

I would like to thank everybody involved in this series and yourself for viewing it. Again, it was a lot of work but I would do it all again. And I will be doing it again soon! Please leave me any feed back or feel free to ask me any questions.

Also, if your thinking about shooting a series yourself. Just do it!! Even if you shoot it with a cell phone camera, it doesn't matter. If you need models, look for modeling sites on the internet. There are plenty of them. Thanks again, for stopping by and look out for my new series. If you would like to be involved in my new series, drop me a line.

Peace
Seven