Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The Coiffure Conversion: Anthony By Andrew Bowman

The Long & The Short Of It...


I don't you know about you but I have been in a life long battle with my hair. My hair is thick and wavy and has a mind of it's own. The wavy becomes curly when it is humid or damp and although I have grown to appreciate it as I have gotten older, but in high school, on hot muggy days, I often felt like I was sporting an SOS pad on my head.

The Short:


For some reason, when I began University I decided to grow it out. It drove me crazy as it grew over my ears and down my neck. I let it grow to just below the shoulders before hacking it all off one night in frustration. With thick, wavy hair, when it grows, it doesn't just grow down, it goes out. Subsequently, my long hair was often back in a pony tail. I always wanted straight hair that I could just shake dry when out of the shower and get on with my day. I now keep it fairly short. Although I have not exactly won the battle, I am able to keep the enemy at bay, except of course on those humid Northeastern days.



What I do remember liking about my short time with long hair was the ability to use it as camouflage. When sitting in class, especially a boring one, I could stare at any of the hot guys I wanted to with my eyes mostly covered by the hair I placed in front of them. People often commented how different I looked with long hair. It often changes, or hides the curves of your face. My usual preppy look, was for that brief time, replaced by someone a bit less conventional, I liked that. Sadly I cut that away before I really acted on it.


For a brief period the way I wore my hair changed, ever so slightly, the way I looked at the world.



Hair length was also a factor in my choosing Anthony as the next model to showcase the work of Oxford's Andrew Bowman. I first featured Andrew's work last month in my profile of model Lee Mayson (I Do:). When I was going through Andrew's extensive selection of images, I actually save images of 'short haired' Anthony and 'long haired' Anthony, thinking at first they were two different models.



Anthony has an incredible body, always perfectly captured by Andrew in each of there many shoots together. With Anthony long hair; the model seemed bigger maybe even more buff. Maybe it was the time lapse between shoots or maybe the hair length has you view his body from an entirely different perspective. Anthony has a very distinct face, strong nose and unique beautiful shaped lips. With his long hair, his features are slightly muted and attention is drawn off his face to the hair that surrounds it.



Anthony's impressive physique comes from his time as an amateur teenage bodybuilder and the many junior competitions he participated in. Anthony was first recommend to Andrew by a fellow photographer. After spending some time viewing some of Anthony's exercises and competitions, the photographer incorporated some of his poses and body movements into the two shoots they did together last February. The two pics on the bed above were part of that shoot.

The Long:


'Anthony likes long shoots, our first together was 7 hours and the comments I got were so positive I arranged another shoot a few weeks later. Basically the first shoot had a Valentines theme with flowers, also I got the top hat for him especially for the shoot. Lots of underwear and fitness pic too of course! It was the second shoot where we did the images with coloured socks and more flamboyant stretching and posing. I knew he was moving to Spain so i wanted to get another shoot in. He had already started growing his hair and he hasn't cut it since - hence a year later very long hair! He came back for a brief holiday so we fitted another shoot alongside lots of others he crammed in.'
Andrew Bowman



1 comment:

Bobby F said...

The hair on my head grows like grass. I have to get a serious cut about every 5 weeks. I have NEVER let it grow out. I now have the stylist use a 1.5 guard on the trimmers for the sides and the back and I ask for the top to but cut just short of standing up. I guess my mentality of keeping the hair super short goes with the smooth style for the rest of my body. :-)