'Don't want nobody next to me
I just want a ticket outta town
A look around
And a safe touch down'
Erykah Badu
With everything going on in the world, my motivation to work for FH often wanes. Some days it's hard to feel motivated about a something, that in the scheme of things, is rather trivial. Other days however, it's a wonderful escape. No matter what's going on in our lives, we all need daily escapes, now more than ever.
Some FH readers may remember my writing that FH actually began as an escape. I'd moved to a new job, left my friends, family and a long term relationship in the city, to move to a small rural town surrounded by fields filled with crops and cows. Feeling isolated, and without many outlets for a creative, and newly out twenty something, the seeds of FH were planted. It began first, with a yahoo group, a place to store images of the male form that I loved and wanted to save. A couple of years later, it morphed into the blog that you're reading today.
I always wanted FH to be a bit of a virtual vacation. Although I had traveled quite a bit when I was younger, since moving and committing to a full time career, the opportunities to take off and leave on a jet plane didn't come around as often I wanted and dreamed they would. So much of my enjoyment of working on FH surprisingly began to move beyond just the male form. My interest expanded beyond the man and body in focus to their surrounding locations.
I was soon loving and enjoying visiting the unique visions many artists had of the locations and environments in which they were shooting. It was fascinating to see how individual artists captured their own unique visions of locations, some I was familiar with, some I only knew from books and media, and some I'd never heard of before.
One of my favorite places to virtually visit has been the The Algarve in Portugal. I was introduced to the island and seaside southern region by photographers Mark Leighton and Mark Montovio back in 2009, and have headed visually back to the area, and the visuals, multiple times since.
Like so many parts of the world, Algarve is currently under a partial lock down, but Mark Leighton reports that on the whole, the people in his community seem to be sensible and are complying with the restrictions. They've certainly being paid attention to what's been going on around them, especially with their close neighbours in Spain.
Given it's magnificent beauty and beaches, tourism is an important industry for The Algarve, and presently, there aren't many people flying back and forth. Fortunately, the beautiful Bartek made the journey to Portugal late last summer for his work with Mark Leighton. New to modeling, Bartek's first visit and shoot was focused on new experiences, and with Mark's vast experience and skills, the results are seen in this incredible set of images.
This past winter, one of Mark's many projects was to change and update his website. Mark says he is pleased with the results, and with Zenfolio now hosting his site, it's now much easier for viewers to enjoy his many model galleries and to order prints. If you want to enjoy more of Mark's work with Bartek, check out his gallery on Mark's site HERE:, and even more of Bartek on Mark's OnlyFans HERE:
1 comment:
Looks like he had a nice photographer! ^.^
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