Favorite Pic of the Day for April 30th

Above:
Lance by Mike Tossy
-See more of Tristin by Grantham & Tossy below-

Happy Birthday today April 30th

Happy 45th to Adrian Pasdar. I only watched one season of Heroes, but I loved Adrian in 1990's Vital Signs (Here with Diane Lane).


See more of Adrian and fellow birthday boys, Blair McDonough, Johnny Galecki & Jeff Timmons HERE: and Paul Gross and Perry King HERE:



Diane Lane- Hot Scene - Click here for the funniest movie of the week

Pure Pleasure: Man + Graffiti by Mark Grantham

A couple of weeks ago I introduced you to Mark Grantham's work with Tyler, (In Your Face). Not only is Tyler featured in Mark's new book, he is also one of the models featured in Mark's new exhibit, Man + Graffiti.

The exhibit runs the entire month of May at the appropriately titled venue, Pure Perfection. A reception will also be held this Friday May 4th. If your anywhere around the Santa Cruz area, I strongly encourage you to check it out!

First & Second: Lance By Mark Grantham & Mike Tossy

Lance by Mark Grantham


It is always interesting to see how a subject is captured through the eye of different artists. We all see things slightly different and it is fascinating to see the slight, and not so slight, differences in how two or more artists choose to capture it. In my third outing of Perspective, artist's Mark Grantham and Mike Tossy focus their lens on a on a model who is stepping in front of a professional for the very first time.



Mark was the first photographer to work with Lance, Mike was the second. As of now, Mark and Mike are still the only two photographers to shoot with Lance, although now that he's joined Model Mayhem, photographers are lining up to work with him. Lance is a friend of Tyler (who I just featured) and also JPhoenix (who I featured in January of last year.



'He's another friend from here in Santa Cruz. Just 20. Great guy. Works 2 jobs. He's in school, with big dreams/plans. He's a rock climber. He's a runner. He doesn't sit still.'
Mark Grantham


Mark Grantham Official Site:
Mark Grantham on ModelMayhem:




I love how Mark brings out the athlete side of Lance whereas Mike uses color and pose to bring out the artistic. Both photographers bring out the fun, and the sexy and with Lance it all begins with his incredible face. I think my favorite images are the last shot of Mark's above, and the first shot from Mike below. Both make use of Lance's fantastic body, face and incredibly expressive eyes.

Lance by Mike Tossy


'Life is far too short to live the same day twice.'
Lance


Mike Tossy Official Site:
Mike Tossy on ModelMayhem:






Lance on ModelMayhem

The Case Of The Vanishing Rear Window

I abhor remakes. Generally, they only exist to squeeze the last bit of money out of a concept or idea. They also usually only serve to diminish the reputation of the original and in some cases go on to actually ruin it. Filmmakers argue that great works, usually referring to Shakespeare, were told over and over with different actors and interpretations. Problem is Shakespeare's work should never be used in the creation of a rule. His works work were never meant to be filmed, it was written for the stage. Above: Janet Leigh & John Gavin in Psycho (1960) If you love a great piece of stage writing it can be fascinating to see what different actors and directors bring to words. With a great film however, the results are usually act to negatively alter perception. It is akin to to reaching inside your brain, taking the great memory you have of your seventh birthday party and replacing your family and friends with unknown bodies and faces and moving the setting from your familiar dining room to an unfamiliar space you have no connection with. Unnerving and disturbing. Above: Anne Heche & Viggo Mortensen in Psycho (1998) Last week, when completing my piece about Julianne Moore I was once again reminded of Gus Van Sant' 1998 remake of Psycho. I like most of Van Sant's work, To Die For being my favorite of his films. Sometimes his editing, although I know for effect, drives me to turn off his work. My Own Private Idaho for example was both a brilliant, yet frustrating piece of cinema for me. After featuring the shots of Viggo from the 1998 version I re-watched my DVD of the 1960 version, then ordered the directors cut from Amazon and re-watched that. Sadly, it was the 1998 version I actually saw first, on a date in my early twenties. I quickly found the original and is a masterpiece compared to Van Sant's remake. I will give the director credit. In listening carefully to the commentary on the recently watched directors cut, Van Sant seems to have at least a creative vision for redoing the classic Hitchcock film and painstakingly researched and filmed almost every scene verbatim. Although I applaud a creative vision over a financial one, the question remains, why bother? Van Sant does his best to explain (justify) his actions on the commentary but never really gives a answer that makes total sense. The film's lackluster response from both the audience and most critics should have been a clue, but he seems to blame it on other factors. I think central to it's being a bad idea was at it's core Psycho was a mystery and before Van Sant shot his first second of film, the mystery had already been solved. Viggo in The Road One mystery I am hoping a blog reader might be able to help me with is the editing out of Viggo's butt scene. Viggo, who take son John Gavin's Sam Loomis role comes off better than most of the actors in the film. Viggo, and Anne Heche's Marion, open the film in their motel room moments after having sex. In the director's cut, Viggo's incredible posterior is edited just at the top of his lower back. Obviously from the caps at the end of the piece (and the video clip) at some point Van Sant filmed a wee bit lower. Viggo in Indian Runner I am fairly confident the request did not come from Viggo. On the films commentary, both Heche and Van Sant comment on the nude scene and that Viggo was excited about the role reversal in the scene, having his character completely naked while Heche, like Leigh, remains in her bra and slip. During the commentary for the scene, Vince Vaughan seems more obsessed than I am about Viggo's nakedness, quizzing Heche about when in the scene Viggo was letting it all hang out. Eastern Promisies Viggo has shown in ass in many films including The Road and A History Of Violence, both recently filmed. He also gave an extended full frontal in Indian Runner and showed pretty much every inch of his body in Eastern Promises. It makes little to no sense he would request, or even get an edit of his brief butt scene. The decision to edit the scene (current director's cut above, and older clip and caps below) was most likely done by Van Sant himself. My question however is why? There are tons of nude scenes, mostly by actors that suddenly disappear when movies move from the original release on VHS to DVD or Blu-Ray. It is most likely the butt scenes below appeared on an early VHS release, but would love to if anyone knows for sure. The fact the scene is capped so infrequently, and so unclear indicates it never made it to any DVD release. Van Sant has never been shy about a bit of skin, so curious as to why he made this decision. If anyone know's where the original scene appeared, or why the edit might have been made, please shoot me a line. I at first thought it was simple change that happened with a wide screen viewing, but it was obviously more purposeful than that. One of the things I did like about the Van Sant version was the acting, and comparing scenes with the original, The butt scene was a small but clear way to create a difference and very curious on why he might have changed his mind about it and like poor Marion, buried it forever.
Viggo - Psycho by trevorbriggs Psycho clip via Scenes of Male Skin, your best source of clips on the net!

Favorite Pic of the Day for April 29th

Above:
Will by Gordon Nebeker
-See More Below-

Happy Birthday today April 29th

Happy Birthday to Nick Ayler

If you haven't check out the latest Andrew Christian video, Lockeroom Payback, you can check it out, including Nick's cameo as the coach, HERE:

Check out more of Nick and fellow birthday boys, including Jack Mackenroth HERE: & HERE:

The Deep End: Will by Gordon Nebeker:

'Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?'

In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland the mock turtle sings and dances the Lobster Quadrille. The song is all about his former life under the sea living alongside lobsters, seals and porpoises. For some reason, as I was going through the images photographer Gordon Nebeker sent on of Will, that story came to mind. Hokey I know, but the underwater shots of Will are more than just a man in water, like whales and dolphins and other the creatures of the sea, In Gordon's images, Will looks like he belongs there.

Gordon Nebeker is one of my favorite people to profile. Yes, I love his work and the erotic elegance laced throughout so many of his images, but as importantly, Gordon always tells me the story. I try to make FH as much about story as it is about images and Gordon takes the time, often in great detail, to give me the story behind his images.

The story Gordon tells is not just his own but that of his models and their experience with the process. Usually I take what an artist sends me and use the information to create a presentation to do justice to their images. In this case, what Gordon sent on about his work with Will required no help or editing. With Will's support, here is Gordon's story behind the images Will.

Will

By Gordon Nebeker

I first found him on MM in the Fall of 2010. He had just put up a new profile. There were only a few photos in his portfolio but I liked his fresh look and contacted him to see if he would be interested in doing a shoot with me. He messaged me back saying, "Yes, I would be interested in working with you. I know more about your work than you realize as a friend of mine has modeled for you before and had good things to say about you and I've seen your work with him." The "friend" he referred to turned out to be a guy he was dating who I had done several shoots with previously (Danny) and he came along to Will's first shoot for moral support.

Will is very photogenic and his first shoot went well and part of the shoot involved implied nudity which he was a bit nervous about in the beginning but he warmed to it quickly. In fact, I usually do some clothed shots first just to allow a first time subject to relax and get used to the photographic process. But when they walked into the house (it was mid afternoon) the sun was casting some interesting shadows in my living room and I explained that I wanted to start with some implied nudes as the light was perfect for natural light shots. So we started with the nudes and ended up with the clothing shots! Effectively, I threw Will in the deep end first and he learned how to swim quickly! But implied nudity was as far as he felt comfortable going at that point and I ALWAYS respect my model's wishes in that regard.

After seeing the photos from that shoot, they both wanted to do a duo shoot and get some sun as well, so our next shoot was at my place in Florida in January of 2011 when they came for a long weekend visit. That was an eventful weekend! Not only did we get some wonderful photographs but one night Will and Danny went for a walk on the beach near my place and they came back engaged! Will had given me a heads up on his plans and I had the Champagne bottle chilled for their return. They loved the photographs we got that weekend (almost all of them were shots of them together), and they asked to come back for another round two months later in April which they did. By June, however, their relationship had hit some bumps in the road and soon after they became un-engaged and geographically separated, though they remained in touch.

Flash forward to January, 2012. Will's birthday was coming up in early February and he wanted to do something special to celebrate so he came for a visit to Florida. I suggested we do a shoot with him while he was here because the previous two shoots had been with Danny and, aside from his first shoot with me, I didn't have many photographs of just Will. He was enthusiastic about doing that so a plan was struck. It was an eventful week!

In addition to four days of pretty much non stop photography, Will jumped out of a perfectly good airplane to skydive 13,000 feet (I have the photos to prove he did it) and acquired a Bengal kitten from a breeder I know here in Florida to take back with him to Pennsylvania. To top things off, Danny joined us on the last couple of days from a nearby state where he was living which broke some ice and, while they are not presently in a committed relationship, their friendship has strengthened and deepened.

Most of the photographs of Will shown here are from the shoots earlier this year. Will has grown and developed as a model and has become completely comfortable with his own body and look. There is now some full nudity but it is discreet and not "in your face" which suits Will's style. Modeling is definitely a part-time interest for Will. He is a department supervisor with a major, high-end, fashion retail store and that keeps him plenty busy. He has been an absolute pleasure to work with and we all remain good friends which makes it even nicer.

Will on ModelMayhem

Gordon Nebeker on ModelMayhem