Fall is Coming, Can You Feel it?

Hello Lovelies~

I hope you are all well out there. Things here are super busy as always, and there are some exciting things coming down the pike! To start, I have an opening for my Godfather Returns series this Friday 5-8 at Motorland Vintage American gallery and classic car showroom in Biddeford, Maine! (For those of you new to the blog, I was given the opportunity to shoot 2 of the cars used in the Godfather movies last year and these are the pieces being shown. I recreated a sort of gangland look with a little bit of violence and a lot of class.) Come out and join me if you're local!

I will be shooting a fun project this weekend that I can't wait to share! Inspired by a vintage ad, I am going to put my own spin on it (of course). It will be sort of a companion piece to my Meat-B-Gone work. A pair of prints that attempt to turn the somewhat misogynistic 50's on their ear. Here's a little hint to get you ready for it. Standby for that!

And last piece of business, I still need one more 8-9 year old boy for my upcoming Halloween shoot! If you or someone you know has a boy in this age range who can focus and take instruction in the midst of distraction, send him my way! I need to get these kids fitted and ready to go. Pass it on if you know anyone. These shots will make them look amazing!

I have found some amazing things that I wanted to share with you Kids. The first one comes courtesy of one of my favorite blogs: Monster Brains. Apparently, back in the day, companies made sheets of monster stickers that were ama-zing and featured a ton of really top-knotch art in sticker form. That's right, you could put these anywhere (and I imagine people did). Here are just a few of the sheets you'll see if you click on that link up there. I'll take one of each, please.

Then I found this totally random barber shop quartet site for the Poughkeepsie Newyorkers Chorus that had some high quality vintage choral costumes that I just had to share. I genuinely likes the tuxes and all the different colors there at the beginning, but then when you get down to those rainbow gangster outfits and the Fred from Scooby Doo disco outfits, it takes a turn for the worse. Coming from a show choir background myself, I know costumes can get really hideous, really fast. Still, these sort of made my day...

And speaking of making your day, I'm going to end this post with an amazing Halloween shot I found recently. Everything about this is perfect: the dark eyes staring out of that mask, the cat's expression like "WTF?!" and of course, the wolf mask being worn by a little girl in a dress. Perfection. I love it.

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Meat-B-Gone...

Hello Lovelies!

I hope you are all doing well out there. Things are busy as usual over here. To start, my latest work is finally done and posted! Meat-B-Gone is a funny modern reversal of the misogynistic advertising of the 50's. Instead of husbands spanking their wives over stale coffee or chastising them for burning dinner, here is a product marketed towards housewives to take care of that pesky philandering issue. Funny stuff. This piece is available as a fine art print in the shop or in many other archival formats over at Society6! (I actually offer quite a few prints over at Society6 to give my customers additional format options, peep it out.)


What else? Oh, more items have been listed over at STAG my Pretties! Including some neat vintage nautical signs like the one below made out of brass (these are the real deal), a ton of great book lots by topic, including this lot of vintage scouting guides. But the neatest thing listed this week is this old Eastman Colorator from the 20's. It can be placed on the lens of a 16mm projector and lenses can be pushed down to add color tints to the B&W film! It's definitely a rare piece and something that a collector of vintage film items might appreciate. Things are selling like crazy over there, which is great! I'm always adding new, quality items, so stop by often.

I have a ton of fun shoots coming up, but one that I'm particularly excited about it a luchador related one that I hope to shoot in the fall. Thanks to a helpful and very sweet blog reader, I have added 3 more masks to my collection and I will be using all of them for this shoot which should be... hilarious. If you're local and interested, shoot me an email or comment below. I would ideally like 2 males and 2 females. Pass this image along... I think it says it all. Ha!

Enough about me, I have some great things I've found that I want to share with you faithful readers. First off, I am absolutely in love with the Men's Fall Prada line and I don't even really follow or like designer labels. Why do I love it? Let me count the ways. First, I think placing Willem Dafoe and Gary Oldman beside two younger models was a stroke of genius. It gives the line gravity and a unique spin. Secondly, the man in the white vest absolutely has the face of a late 19th Century man of the world. And, lastly the clothes. Those reds, those purples, the cut, the tailoring. Le sigh. I wish modern society wasn't so lazy some days.

Oh! And check out this breathtaking dark circus wedding shoot, you guys. This wasn't a real wedding, it was merely a show of what this group of artisans can do if you decide to hire them... and it's amazing. (And to think I sometimes meet with resistance here in Maine when I suggest to my clients that their engagement shoots should be styled at all!) California is a totally different (and wonderful) world, I guess.

And lastly, I have come across a great illustrator over on Deviantart who I wanted to share. I just adore his line work and I have actually decided to commission a piece from him very similar to the first one below because well, I love Halloween, I love costumes and especially love his execution of the above 2 things. Don't you? I'll share the piece just as soon as it's done!

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Meat - B - Gone, Indeed...

Hello Lovelies!

I hope this weeks finds you doing well out there. I have been busy over here as usual, trying to balance all the different sides of my business so fresh content is always there for you! I shot my latest conceptual project yesterday. I'm still working on it, but here are some teasers. Below is the fake product prop box I designed for the shoot and a candid of the model. (This candid shot reminds me of the soft dreamy cover of Chet Baker's Chet album for some reason. For a two-second shot, I kind of love it.) I will release that work next post!

What else? Oh, since I do so much conceptual/commercial work, I feel a lot of people have the impression that I don't do product or family photography. This is simply not true at all. So, to clarify what I can do, I designed this handy FAQ for your reference! The bottom line is this: If you want the best and you're not sure if I do it, please send me an email and ask. That anniversary headshot below was very different from my usual eccentric fare, but I can do that too (and I enjoy it)!

But back to the odd, I don't usually do casting calls on the blog, but I need 6 8-9 year old kids for an upcoming project, so I thought I'd widen my net. If you are local to Portland, Maine, have a son or daughter who is 8-9 years of age and has the ability to focus and take instruction, and if they're comfortable in front of the camera, email me! I am shooting my annual Halloween card September 30th and it's all about the kids this year. The main criteria is that they have to fit into one of the outfits I'm renting. So, send along a message if you're interested and I'll try to make it work. (I don't want to spoil the concept, but it has to do somewhat with the below image...)

I have found an amazing artist recently who I wanted to share with you: Fernando Vicente. Wow. That's all I can really say. Mixing an expert mastery of human anatomy with a classic painterly approach and then placing his subject matter in clothing and fake magazine covers to give it a 1940's Vogue sense of familiarity, I honestly have never seen anything like it. And those faces (when they aren't dissected) are so expressive. I love this work. Take a look.

And let's wrap up with a movie recommendation, shall we? As you know, have no taste in film by most peoples' standards. No Criterion Collection for this girl. So, it should come as no shock that I love almost everything Pam Grier did during her blacksploitation period. Including, my latest find: Big Doll House. Wowza, this movie has it all; cat fighting, naked women, prison breaks, drug addiction, torture with cobras and of course, Pam Grier's horrible acting and ginormous fro. The bottom line is this: watch it if you have a spare hour or two and tell me what you think, and if you have better things to do, I laud your self-restraint. Ha!

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Diamonds (When on a Handsome Man) Are a Girl's Best Friend...

Hello Lovelies~

I hope you are all doing well out there today! I have a ton to share as usual, mostly Stag related. To start, I just completed all of my packaging and promotional material for Stag! The packaging stamps came in and they look great, take a peek:

And I designed some promo pieces that show some Stag items available in the store, and the kind of look you can get with said items if you're smart enough to pounce on them! Ha. A big thank you to John, my Stag man, for putting on all those hot clothes in my un-air conditioned studio like a trooper. Here are some of the promo pieces, the rest can be seen here.

What else? Oh, I found some great artwork that I wanted to share with you. P-Jay Fidler's work is kinda awesome you guys. The bright colors and panoramic scenes remind me of Camilla Rose Garcia's work and the pop culture references have a definite low brow art feel. I look at his work and it feels familiar and also very bizarre. Take a look:

My actual full-time job is designing greeting cards. (Yeah, it's a strange job but somebody has to do it.) So I got a kick out of these old cards I saw on one of my favorite blogs: And Everything Else Too. I think that cat is just great and the bunny card came with cigarettes is a fun gag. I actually have some of those novelty cigs for a little figurine from the 40's I got from my grandparents many years ago. You light the little tip and it puffs out smoke rings by itself! Fun stuff.

And speaking of blogs, I found a new one this week I wanted to share with all of you folks who love vintage advertising (I'm hoping that's most of you): Retroarama. It's daily vintage eye candy and not a lot of these ads have made the rounds. I know I'm seeing some new ones. It's a great source of inspiration for me, I know that. Enjoy!

I have a really exciting project I'm shooting this coming weekend, so hold your breath anxiously for that to drop and until then, there's this:

...because the family that paints together, stays together. What the?! 

 Until next time: unpleasant dreams...