'We kept playing around and discovering new opportunities.'
Given my passion for male focused imagery, I consider the male form a work of art. Over the years, I've featured male models in poses replicating famous art pieces, and posing with art pieces. For this shoot, photographer Stephan Tobias surrounded his subject with art, paintings, sculptures and an array of colors and textures, contrasting with his smooth skin and muscular body.
Although at first glance, it may appear the beautiful Michael is posing in a museum, the setting is actually an opulent apartment in Berlin. The apartment belongs to a friend of Stephan's who generally opened up his space for the shoot. Although he lives in Washington DC, Michael was visiting Berlin last year, and a short window of opportunity opened for a shoot with Stephan.
FH readers are aware of Stephan's work as both a model and a photographer. I've always been impressed with Stephan's eye for beauty and especially his knack for pushing boundaries in his work, especially with spaces.. Stephan has an acute feel for connecting, both physically and emotionally, with the spaces he work in. Stephan beautifully carried on this theme in this series with Michael.
'As a photographer and as a model, passionate for the male nude, I am always eager to find interesting shooting opportunities. When I see one, I am happy if I can just go for it. I love to discover and to be spontaneous. A moment of inspiration may never come back.'
'Michael has a really nicely proportioned and well trained body, but also expressions which speak of struggles and vulnerability. It was a pleasure for me to explore that a bit and to put it in context with that beautiful apartment space around him. Don't we always need that space around us to define ourselves and to find out who we really are?'
'This apartment offered numerous decorative props too, like the pallette which had belonged to my friend's grandfather, who was a well known painter. Such items can easily be used for pictures which have what I call "obscure symbolism". A pallette resembles a fig leave, but also can stand for the color which has been bestowed on us and which keeps influencing us, throughout our lives.'
'A glass table and framed pictures in the right light and angle can offer beautiful reflections. Capturing those may raise other visual questions, like what we really are and what we could become if seen from a different angle. Obscure symbolism can be found in many ways and often it becomes part of my photographic explorations subconsciously. The disappearing daylight forced us to terminate our creative collaboration after a short, but productive, 90 minutes.'
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