I have caught up with all my commercial photo work for the year and this site is now tweaked and I’m ready to begin adding new material.  It has taken a couple weeks longer to clean up than I anticipated.  I spent this week working with the gallery component developer adjusting and figuring out all the issues with the galleries and how they would look and function across all platforms.  This was the last major issue to work out.  The site is now visually linkable and fully functional.

Recently I have been looking at all the people I have shot over the years and, considering this is Montana, it seems quite remarkable to have so many!  I had a new guy in the studio I was shooting this week.  Someone I had begun working with last year but we didn’t get too far with the process because he was so busy.  It was so fun to get back to shooting this sort of stuff.  When I began shooting naked men they became more of a study to help me develop lighting techniques for my regular photographic portraits.  I have a great studio and lots of variations on lighting filtration equipment.  I have collected just about every type of light filter size and shape available to focus light from a broad softness to a pinpoint direct spot.  The naked male is the easiest subject, because it is all skin tone and in portrait photography is it all about lighting the skin in beautiful ways.  It also allows me to focus on compositional elements.  The next step is the photographic process is to figure out the personality of the subject and match the lighting technique to get to the core or essence of who they are.  Some people are soft, some are hard, some are sculptural, some not.  Next I factor in my relationship to the subject.  What feelings does this subject evoke within me.  Are they alluring, raw, do they connect to me or are they evasive.  What part of my own life intercepts with theirs, do they bring out a remembrance or connection to a time in my own past or sensual development?  We all have memories of times we connected with someone on a very sensual level that lingers in our thoughts that we would like to relive.  Photographically these become great ideas for exploration.  When you begin to put all these elements together this is where photography really become fun.  I am lucky I don’t do this for commercial gain so I can just focus on what’s important to me in a sense becoming my own personal journey.