'Youthful, with a perfect physique and an electric smile, Yasu jumped off the screen in every shot!'
'Moment in time' is a phrase often used, including by myself, to describe an image. Pre-digital, and cell phones, photos were more about chronicling and remembering, than constant snapping and sharing. Those of us who remember taking film to the store, (or even mailing it away) to be developed, remember photo opportunities had their limitations. When cost was a factor, and when the film purchased, allowed just 12 or 24 opportunities to capture the moment, it was important to choose your the moments to capture wisely.
The great things about those moments in time, is they froze moments we wanted to remember. The bad things about those moments, was that it can be difficult to move beyond the moment. How often has someone looked at an image of themselves, their family, or a specific time and place, and felt sadness things were no longer as they were, and wished that you could return to that moment in time.
It can be especially difficult for models and celebrities, people whose careers demand the constant capturing of moment after moment. Regardless of how hard they try, moments and appearance don't stand still and somewhere in time, changes inevitably occur.
So many on-line sites, especially those focused on models or celebrities focus only the moment the photo is captured. There is no care, and little thought, of moments in the subject's life that occurred before, or after, the image was taken. There are so many models who work incredibly hard to have a moment captured, only to have others lose interest, once their ability to replicate that moment, is no longer possible.
I always wanted FH to be about a moments, not just one moment. It is the reason I focus on models and actors not just 'of the moment' but of past moments, and sometimes even future moment to come. It's why some of my favorite pieces focus not just on one shoot, one age, one moment in time, but a kaleidoscope of moments over the course of their lives and careers.
FH has given me the opportunity to follow the trajectory of moments over an artist or models career. The progression of skill and creative depth with artists. With models, it subtle changes in their bodies in their looks and their level of vigor and confidence in front of the lens.
Forgive my rambling, all of this is to say how much I enjoy featuring artists that I love again and again, especially with models they've shot repeatedly over time. There are so many models that I've featured numerous times on the site, and these images exhibit not only the changes in the model, but changes in the artists as well.
I first featured PR Photo's work with Yasu in a series of posts, (A Formidable Force / A Boy & His Toy) almost two years ago in the summer of 2017. The Michigan photographer had just returned from a three year hiatus from shooting and Yasu was one of the first models he shot when we started up again. Yasu was a young college student at Michigan State at the time and their first shoot was at the Michigan Capital building in Lansing. PR said he knew immediately that he found someone special
'I immediately knew that I found someone special. Youthful, with a perfect physique and an electric smile, Yasu jumped off the screen in every shot. I shot him again a few months later with even better results.'
After those first shoots back in 2014, a few years passed before PR and Yasu connected again on Facebook. They began talking again and decided to get together again to shoot. PR loved the results and the shoot was published in Dylan Rosser's The Male Form magazine. Another couple of years went by and this past spring, PR finally got his new website (HERE:) up and running.
'I receiving many emails from visitors asking for more shots of Yasu. He proved to be very popular! I went back to Facebook and looked up my good friend and asked if he would be interested in posing once again. He said he was down for anything so we picked a date and shot another nude set of the newly bulked up personal trainer Yasu.'
In addition to indeed bulking up, there are other notable changes between the college student posing naked with his skate board back in 2014, and the personal trainer PR captured in this stunning series captured earlier this year. There is a confidence, a maturity, seen in both Yasu's beautiful face and eyes, but also in the stillness captured by PR. In some of the earlier images, Yasu seemed to be often in motion, but for this shoot, he seems so at ease in the moment. Yasu appears comfortable being naked with an observable trust in the artist he's developed a friendship with over their years of working together. A confidence and beauty even more meaningful through the many moments PR so magnificently captured over time.
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