Captivating Compilation: Tyler by New Manhattan Studios

'Creativity is a compilation of things we've seen.'

Brian Wong

Whether or not we intend to, so much of our appreciation of art, so often stems from comparison. It's not necessarily deliberate, when we're drawn to an artist's work, a model's look or any visual that grabs our attention, our brain instinctively begins reacting, often by connecting it to something we've seen in the past.

For me, so much of the art I love today stems back to images that had an impact on me as a child. When I was growing up in the eighties, my introduction to the male form came initially through images of actors and celebrities in TV and movie magazines. These promotional shots were often glamour based, images created to from a picture in the viewers eye of how they wanted the celebrity to be seen.

We us e many descriptive words to describe men, many, including: strong, tall, studly powerful, sexy, athletic, I use frequently on FH to describe a model that I'm featuring. There are also descriptive phrases, one's that are used to paint a picture, or to hark back to a person or look that have become almost reference points, for describing men.

Some of these include describing a man as having having Classic good looks, being clean cut, looking like the boy next door or the rebel or bad boy. We compare them to warriors or cowboys, or iconic actors like Cary Grant, James Dean or Marlon Brando. Each of the phrase immediately immediately causes the brain to flick to a visual memory, leading a instantaneous comparison, sometimes occurring quickly and often unconsciously.

One of the reasons I love the work of New Manhattan Studios is how for me, it's reminiscent of so many of those images from movie magazines I saw while growing up.  The colors, the lighting, classic poses and elements of fantasy and Hollywood glamour and leaving the viewer with a desire to see more.  When Wes sent on his work with Tyler last month, I certainly wanted to see more.  My mind also immediately attempted to make connections.  The connections weren't seamless however, as Tyler's look doesn't easily fit any of the usual descriptive phrases so often used.

Yes, Tyler is handsome, yes he is hot, sexy and incredibly photogenic, but the more time I spent his images, it was difficult to describe his look with one of the often used phrases.  For me, Tyler's a captivating compilation of  many of the looks that the phrases describe..  Part boy next door for sure, but there's also hint of James Dean, especially with Tyler's facial features, lips and eyes.  In some images, Tyler convey's almost a naive and innocent look, but in others... just the opposite.

Wes usually chooses one of his strongest models and shoots to being his site's posts each year, and this year, he chose to begin with Tyler.  Wes shares that Tyler's brand new to modeling and that he hadn’t done a professional photo session until they connected on Instagram last fall.  I can clearly see why Wes was drawn to shoot the New York based model.  In fact.... Wes was reminded of another model he's worked extensively with in the past.

'Tyler's unabashed enthusiasm for the work reminds us of another model who holds both the distinction of the first model posted in 2014 and also the first model posted in the blog.'

NMS

The model Wes is referencing is Bond of course, a model Wes enjoys working with not only due to his look, but the energy and enthusiasm he brings to each and every shoot. Wes felt this same energy during his work with Tyler and although they have only shot once,  Wes is hoping that shoot was just the beginning of many future creative collaborations. 

Check out more of Wes's work with Tyler on Tyler's portfolio page on NMS Website HERE:

New Manhattan Studios