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Friday, March 7, 2025
Gate Keepers:
I have yet to watch much of the new CBS soap Beyond The Gates, but it's nice to see a new soap opera back on daytime. I did see the pilot, and have seen a few clips on-line, enough to start to get a positive feel. If you're like me, you grew up with school vacation and sick days in front of the television. When I was really little, my mom would roll the small one from my parents room, into mine. The daytime schedule was full of soap operas, game shows and the odd sit-com in syndication.
Over time, the sit-coms moved to cable channels, and a hatchet was taken to most of the soap opera line-up. A few game shows remained, but many of those were cancelled as well. The networks claimed viewing habits had changed, and of course that's true. That wasn't the main reason however for the slashing of soaps. It was all about money.
All in the Family
Within a few years, all of those soaps and sit-coms were replaced by a series of insipid talk shows and the expansion of the morning news shows. We get more than enough 'news' we don't need 5 or 6 hours of The Today Show and Good Morning America. Between network and streaming, a soap can survive if money is invested. I know it's early, but in it's first week, Beyond the Gates outperformed The Talk, the show it replaced, by over 70%.
One of the reasons this show is finding an audience, is because it went and looked for one. The creator, (Michelle Val Jean) knew from her years of working in the genre, there was a huge black audience who for the most part, was being ignored. The other soaps have black characters of course, but few of these characters are center stage for any prolonged period of time. Jean also knew the other soaps weren't providing fans with a gay couple. Not a happy gay couple, but one as dysfunctional and dramatic as the straight couples on the show.
Beyond The Gates give us not only a couple, but a family. We have the son from the show's main family, Martin Richardson. Richardson, (Brandon Claybon) is a congressman, one with clear ambition. Martin's husband is Bradley 'Smitty' Smith played by Mike Manning. If you search the blog, I've featured Mike previously, especially some of the hot selfies he's posted on his social media. Smitty was reporter, who I gather left his job to raise the couples two adopted kids.
Those kids however, are now teens and Smitty seems to want to return to work. Martin however, seems to want his hubby to remain at home, being more of a Donna Reed than a actual partner. A great set-up for future drama, and a story so many couples, gay couples included, can relate to. Both Claybon and Manning are incredibly hot, although I'm not sure I'm feeling the chemistry in the few scenes I've seen so far. I think we need a love scene very soon to truly put this hot new couple to the test...
Previously On The White Lotus (continued)
Although there are a lot of hotties running around Taormina resort, one of the hottest has to be Ethan Spiller played by Will Sharpe. I'd never heard of Will before seeing him on the show, but he certainly made an impression... As much as I love me some Aubrey Plaza, I get why Ethan was struggling to be sexually attracted to his wife Harper.
Will seems to prefer self pleasure over sleeping with his wife. If the show didn't change casts each season, I'd love to have seen more of Will and Ethan. Although there wasn't anything really specific dropped, it would have made sense for Ethan to have been gay, given his lack of sexual chemistry with his wife, and his refusal to have sex with Mia while out partying with Cameron. (Theo James)
I think Ethan's shower scenes, although cropped to actually show very little, actually was one of the hottest scenes of the season. We saw just enough, especially of Ethan's pubic hair, to have us longing to see more!
Like co-star Leo Woodall, The White Lotus marked the first official nude scene for actor Adam DiMarco. DiMarco played Albie, the son, and third generation of the Di Grasso family. Initially, we wondered if Albie was going to get lucky, but it wasn't long before he found a sexual partner.
The partner however, didn't turn out to be Portia, the girl he was originally bonded it with. Instead, Albie ended up in bed with Lucia, who Albie wasn't aware was actually a sex worker. Albie ends up paying for his encounters, but he also makes an impression on Lucia, who ends up questioning some of her life choices.
A Nostalgia Nudge: Petarious by Vintage Studio Art
'When posing, I generally pull from my art history background. I constantly reference Michelangelo poses and classical sculpture.'
Most of my favorite images and shoots, give a visual nod to the past. A gentle nudge to those pioneering artists who first captured the nude male form. Whether it be Michelangelo and the renaissance sculptures of the 14th and 15th centuries, or the painters of the late 1800's and early 1900's,. They were followed by photographers like George Platt Lynes and Jim French from early to mid 1900's pioneering visuals of the nude male form in photos and in print.
All artist created visuals evoke emotions, and so many nudge feelings of nostalgia. Whether it's the photos we capture with our camera, or the images professionals capture for promotion and campaigns, each is meant to evoke an emotional response. This is one of the reasons I feature so many models, actors and artists from the past. My love of photography, and visuals of the male form began when I was young, and almost every post on the site can be connected back to experiences that shaped my creative maturation.
How did you connect with Vintage Studio Art?
Andrew found me on Model Mayhem actually, which I had joined to try to do more photography work at the time. He had moved to the Bay Area at the time from LA and had a hard time finding local models that he wanted to work with, as most photography models who live in California live in LA.
Did you have much discussion prior to the shoot about themes and concepts?
Yes, I could tell from his work that he had a very precise way of working with light, often with a nostalgic flair. Our first shoot together was a George Platt Lynes inspired black & white studio session. He had gathered a bunch of prints on a table for us to pull from and it was all so thoughtful!
What was your favorite part of the experience, and with working with Andrew?
Pretty quickly, we found out that we both worked in the design industry, so we just got along so well, and were both very excited by the shots we got!
What photographers/models do you look to for inspiration?
'When posing, I generally pull from my art history background. I constantly reference Michelangelo poses and classical sculpture.' I am also inspired by photographers and models I see on Instagram and I constantly save posts for reference.
If money was no option, what theme would you love to explore in a shoot?
It would be a dream to do a shoot inspired by Dutch Renaissance paintings, with lush exotic florals surrounding a nude male body with dark moody backgrounds on rich fabrics.
Before modeling, had you done any nude activities, streaking, skinny dipping?
I spent several years going to school and working in Denmark - where my mother's family is from - and where nudity is treated differently than it is in the US, so I did go bathing in the nude there, but it was unremarkable.
When modeling for a group of artists, is there much back and forth chat?
This always depends on the group. Typically, I try to remain more of an object in the room and just listen to the conversations if there are any. Many artists in the Bay Area have the most interesting conversations, ranging from color theory to AI development. I learn a lot from them just from listening.
For sculpture and painting groups I see them weekly for months at a time and some of these groups are exceptionally chatty and appreciate the model participating, some even ask me direct questions. As they've gotten to know me over many sessions they have no problem with me adding to the conversation. Over time, as I've developed relationships with more clients I've even met them for activities outside of modeling, for example at opening exhibitions for museums and galleries.
What would you say is the main difference between posing for an artist or a photographer?
Standard drawing sessions typically begin with short gestures to get artists warmed up. Because these poses are only a minute or two long, I can "push" the poses with my arms outstretched or above my head, flexed muscles, or dramatic twists which would be uncomfortable or even dangerous to hold for too long. I would say digital photographers tend to live more in this fast paced gestural space.
There is a meditative quality that is lost for me as the model when I only work in short gestural poses. However, I get to push the poses more and we can zero in on a pose/mood and work a bunch of variations on it, which feels more collaborative. I have also found that sessions with photographers that utilize old-fashioned techniques like tintypes have a slower pace and feel more akin to art modeling. There's more patience required and there's an ephemeral quality to the results, while digital photography has more of an immediate and iterative result.
Do you have any boundaries when it comes to posing and shooting?
Yes, touching without asking is a big no no, I maintain this industry standard more out of respect for myself and for other models who are in more vulnerable positions than me and don't have the confidence to speak up for themselves in the moment. I haven't ever had to leave a session over that thankfully.
Most artists/photographers I've worked with have been extremely respectful. It is also generally considered disrespectful to make comments about a model's body in a drawing session. Usually artists will remark on being overwhelmed by my musculature, which I don't have a problem with, but when someone says something about my body in an unwanted sexual way during a classical drawing session, I've had to gently remind them not to do that. In that same vein, I generally don't find erotic sessions as creatively fulfilling, but I will do it with photographers/artists that I've worked with at least once before and feel that I can trust.
Vintage Studio Art on ModelMayhem
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