'I connected with Steven through an add he placed on Craigslist.'
With my recent explorations into model motivations, it's the perfect time to feature Steven. As much as I love profiling professional models, I equally love featuring non-models, everyday men whose motivations are often more complex. With professional models, the motivations are usually more straightforward, given it's their job, it's naturally connected more to cash and their career. With other models, men posing nude for other reasons, the stories tend to be far more interesting, and far more personal.
Over the years working on FH, I've heard hundreds of different stories from men about why they chose to take it all off, usually posing in front of a total stranger. For some it's part of a goal, the cherry on the top of a fitness journey. For some, it's about their sense of self, using the shoot process as an empowering experience of self love, and self-acceptance. Others have mentioned wanting the images not obtain work, but to use as visual bait for future sexual encounters. This was part of Steven's story.
Although George from Random Exposures has shot professional models, his focus is usually men and women looking for more than just additional shots for their modeling portfolio. That was certainly the case with Steven. George actually found Steven through a glitch in his plans for an upcoming trip to Venice Beach. The trip was supposed to be a vacation for he and his wife, but fate intervened with a totally different plan.
'My wife and I were actually going to Venice Beach together. Shortly before the trip however, she began having severe tooth pain. She had to get a root canal. It was too late to cancel the reservation so instead of loosing our deposit, she encouraged me to still go, and assured me she'd be fine with a friend taking care of her. So....I ended up on the trip alone. I seized the opportunity and reached out to several models in the area, both male and female, through Model Mayhem.'
In addition to several female models, George managed to schedule time with three male models, Ivan, Kim and Joel, all who came to the place that George was staying in for their shoots. A forth model answered as well, but Steven was insistent that he wanted George to come to his pace in Santa Monica to shoot.
Although George generally shoots in his own home studio, when traveling, locations are often more fluid, and it wasn't uncommon for him to got to a models home for a shoot. For may, it's their comfort zone, especially if their modeling nude for the first time. Sometimes, artists use shooting in a models home as an accelerated method of really getting to know more intimate sides of the subjects, as nothing reveals who a person truly is, like their most personal space.
As soon as George arrived, he and Steven conducted the usual introductory pleasantries. Steven showed George around the house, and then introduced him to the current love of his life, his adorable dog. George loves dogs, but he was more interested in the house and it's rooms, looking for the best locations to shoot.
Steven soon shared that his Craigslist ad to model nude, wasn't really so much about modeling, as it was about acquiring hookup partners. Steven seemed a little perplexed when George began setting up his camera equipment. He shared with George that he wasn't actually used to 'real' photographers answering his ad. Usually, it was answered by men wanting other things. Sometimes they pulled out their phone and took a photog or two for their personal use, but none, as George just did, had handed him a model release before.
Steven seemed a little disappointed that George wasn't there to hook up, but to just take photos. Since he was already there though, Steven decided he might as well take advantage of the opportunity, and thought he might get some great photos to post for future potential hookups. I thought when I went through George's portfolio, and spotted his work with Steven, there might be a story there. I thank George for sharing both!
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