'Each person had his own story to share with me while I was take their pictures.'
It was a single image that first drew me to the work of Thailand based photographer mickeyarny. Beyond the beautiful men in Mickey's images however, I've equally enjoyed diving into the stories behind them. Many of you may remember meeting Jay, the model in the first series of Mickey's work that I featured this past February. (Pandemically Inclined)
Jay had it all, beautiful face and eyes, a winning smile, great body and hair and a natural in front of the camera. Given how professional Mickey's images were, I was surprised when Mickey shared that Jay was the first male model that he had shot. As an artist and filmmaker Mickey was experienced behind the camera, but until the pandemic, it was a video camera. With productions shut down in Thailand, Mickey decided it was time to pursue another of his artist passions.
After posting an ad looking for models, he met Jay, the hot backpacker traveling through Asian on the hunt for odd jobs to allow him to continue his travels and adventures. Jay was the perfect first model for Mickey to work with and was totally on board with posing while Micky experiment, work and hone his new artistic endeavour.
Mickey's second model was also traveling through Asia. Over the years of working on FH, I've learned that many models begin their careers in Asia, and Paul was in South East Asia to gamble at taking a shot at modeling and acting. Paul had actually heard great stories about Mickey from Jay. The two wanderers had actually crossed paths while staying at the same hostel. It was during this period of time when the pandemic began. Jay soon hit the road to continue his travels, but Paul decided to stay put, and see what work might be found.
Paul was impressed with the images Mickey created with Jay and contacted him about doing a nudes to add to his portfolio. After a quick glance at his resume, Mickey knew Paul had modeled extensively before, and was impressed with the headshots included in his portfolio. Given he'd just started shooting, Mickey was both thrilled, and a little nervous, that a professional model wanted to participate in what was Mickey's exciting, but still new hobby.
Mickey asked Paul why he choose him, and made sure to let him know how new and inexperienced he was with shooting models. Paul simply responded that he valued Jay's opinion and that if Jay valued and trusted Mickey, that was good enough for him.
'Paul gave me a feeling that I was watching a play on stage which I had to be quick on my feet to snap his pictures before he changed the pose. Paul knew how to work with his cloth and objects in front of him..
Paul's face grins and could not stop smiling at me. His innocent face was contradicted with his muscular body. "Maybe, you should stop smiling." I said. Paul's face went straight from a baby smile to a serious face within a second. He then asked if he should pull his foreskin back. I didn't really know what to say except 'No, we're not doing porn!'
Although new to shooting nudes, Paul was a seasoned model and Mickey found it challenging. Paul knew exactly what to do, and how to do it and Mickey still found himself in the role of student, learning how to properly use his camera. Like Jay before him, Paul enjoyed shooting with Micky and images that resulted from the shoot. They later met up with Paul's girlfriend at a local restaurant. Although Paul was serious and professional throughout their shoot, Mickey noticed a young and playful side that came out when interacting with his girlfriend. It was a side not captured during their first shoot, so Micky suggested a second shoot with the goal of capturing this facet of Paul's personality.
Almost a year after Thailand first shut down, and Mickey began his new adventure, he's still meeting and shooting male models. He took a break for awhile, focused on taking photography classes and getting back to the gym. Mickey has also returned to his full time work as a videographer as much of Thailand began to open up again this past January. Mickey still shoots male models when he can, and continues to run into new models who both knew Jay, and heard good things about his work with Mickey. You can see much more of Mickey's work on his new Patreon page, Lock Down With Mickey HERE:
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