Ever known a professional mechanic whose own car ran well?
The images on this page (below) are just a handful out of countless thousands, created by me while working with various companies over many years. Most are displayed as "educational samples", meaning that they were never sold (never were for sale) and were created expressly and only to show what's possible with digital composite technology. Some were client orders. Basically, if you can imagine it, it can be done digitally, and my hope is to inspire you to imagine more.
Some of the images below are "digital makeovers" (before and afters). I note that, nowadays, since digital tools have become so easy to use and "automatic", many photographers and artists use these programs to create or enhance all sorts of imagery. I was one of the first, way back in the 1980s. Using today's digital tools feels very much like cheating.
On this page you'll find images that make fat people thin, thin people fat, old people young and also age progression works. None of the people portrayed here as bald were really bald. I like animal composites and head swaps. Every image on this page, with the exception of the "before and after digital makeover" shots and a few others, is a composite, meaning that one (or possibly all) of the heads or faces and/or backgrounds weren't contained in the original photograph.
I especially enjoy making women even more beautiful than they already are. That's my forte' and my fun.
I retired from photography a few years ago and even sold all my equipment, determined to own nothing more than a cheap point and shoot. Right. I'm now back in the photography business, but, honestly, art and business don't mix -- never have and never will. Because of that I want to keep "business" out of this business as much as possible. One way for me to do that is to stop taking jobs or projects I don't enjoy.
For instance, I will no longer take composite jobs except in rare instances in which I happen to like / love / believe-in the project. Don't ask me what that means; I know it when I see it. Feel free to inquire if you have an idea for a composite (head or face swapping....that sort of thing).
I will also seldom (but sometimes) do plain old portrait work, and I will seldom photograph men. Unless you have a "face of the world" like my friend Don, the wrinkled old Northern Exposure actor featured further down this page, I'm just not interested in men.
I've narrowed my workload down to the few things I enjoyed most about photography and digital manipulation, and it includes the occasional portrait photography of women and children, but mostly portrait or full-body work in which the client comes to me with magazine tear-sheets or other images of poses and situations they want to replicate. Or you may browse my collection of tens of thousands of glamorous, sexy, alluring or edgy pose images and chose your favorite. Using photography and digital manipulation we'll recreate those poses or likenesses together.
Here's how it works:
Browse magazines or the web and find images of beautiful people in beautiful poses -- poses you fall in love with. Is that how you want to look? Then let's do it! Bring those images to our session (or meet with me casually and bring your favorites); wear clothing for the shoot which replicates the model's attire as closely as possible, and leave the rest to me. Sessions can take from 30 minutes to half a day.
Cost:
Zero.
Well, sort of.
You'll sign a model release giving me all commercial worldwide rights to all images captured and/or created. This is a standard contract, and if you read the fine print in the contract you sign with almost any photographer today it includes a clause just like that.
What rights do you get? You get all rights to use my images in any way you see fit for personal use, but NOT FOR PROFIT. You can use them for your own personal applications, including the furthering of your career if you're a model or would like to be. The images I produce for free are for YOUR use, for fun, and for MY exclusive use, commercially.
So you come in and we do a shoot. What do you get?
You get to look at your images. And if you want a DVD of all images in low rez .jpg format (suitable for MYSpace or emailing, etc., the price is $25 per DVD. Non-manipulated prints at 8 x 10 inches are $25 each. Enhanced images are extra -- maybe a little, maybe a lot, depending upon what you want done (changing backgrounds is absurdly inexpensive). Prints up to 42 inches wide on fine canvas with archive (pigment) inks are available at significantly higher prices. The licensing agreement on all prints, regardless of size, remains intact unless otherwise negotiated and agreed upon in writing.
If you come in for a session, and view the 100-300 images we produce, and you don't like any of them, we'll shake hands and you're out the door with all the pennies still in your pocket. You only pay for what you like. It really doesn't get any better or stress-free than this. "I" prefer to work stress-free, and I want my clients to be stress-free. That's how it stays fun.
But as I said, I'm selective nowadays. I'm determined not to burn out again. Please contact me and we'll talk about your dreams and ideas. If we're on the same page I'll ask you for a head shot -- any old RECENT snapshot you have lying around. I'll take a look, and if I feel there's any possibility whatsoever that I might be able to use your image commercially, even years down the road, we'll set up an appointment. I absolutely don't care if you don't think you're pretty, or even if you aren't pretty. First, it's my job to make you prettier, and second, contrary to popular belief, not everything in life is about "pretty". One of the most artistically gratifying shoots I ever did was of Don, shown far down in the mix below, and he's the first to admit he ain't pretty. Anyway, no shoot has ever been more inspiring than that. Stunning face. And if you've got that kind of ugly I'll shoot you for free all day long, even if you're a guy.
Will I do weddings? Nein, nos, nyet, jok, oya, aniyo, le, mi, min, Hell no. I'd sooner gouge my eyes out with finger-cactus.
Is there good money in weddings? Of course. Are weddings like Chinese water torture? Of course.
I'm from Seattle; this is still a Seattle business; but I'm in Merced, California at least through the summer of 2012 and that's where you'll find my studio at present.
If you've ever been thumbing through some glamour magazine and thought, "Wow! I wonder if 'I' could ever look like that?!" --Then this is your chance to find out. It's free for God's sake. You have absolutely nothing to lose.
What about all the composite images shown below? Is that "real photography"?
Do I "retouch"? Yes. Every chance I get. In the end, I recommend using any and every tool you can get your hands on to create the vision you imagine and ignore the terminally anal-retentive.
Sessions run afternoons and evenings, usually on Mondays but I'm flexible. You may come alone or with a (one) friend. All sessions are video-captured for general security purposes. Sessions with children are welcome, provided they are calm and polite. Any studio is teeming with very delicate and extremely expensive equipment. I refuse any longer to chase little hoodlums (monsters, demon seeds, future-criminals) aound the studio and it's hard to duct-tape them to the sitting stool. Homey don't do dat no mo'.
Email with any questions whatsoever. Yes, I shoot nude and Boudoir. I get asked more often than one would imagine if I'll shoot porn. I've shot porn but, honestly, my turn-on is the ART and I have a hard time finding art in porn. Tell me your vision and if I can see where art requires porn I'll consider it. But I don't think you can. Shooting porn is just for money and it dessicates the soul. I don't need the money and I value my soul.
I'll always opt for tasteful over vulgar, refined over base, polite over rude, spiritual over material, gentlemanly over boorish, quiet over raucus, mystery over revealing, alluring over brash, logic over chaos, dignity over sleaze....
Tell me your dreams, find examples of them to show me, and let's talk it over and see what we can create. I enjoy discussing projects at long, long lenth probably as much as I enjoy creating the results. Talk to me for a week, a month, a year -- meet and have coffee ten times (you buy ;-), browse my giant collection of samples and examples, poses and styles, and THEN, only when you're ready, only IF you're ever ready, we'll CREATE and it'll be more fun than a halter-top full of ferrets.
Honestly....I prefer to shoot people I've come to know a little, and who to some degree I consider friends. I don't like the meat-grinder or assembly-line approach found in most busy studios. The longer this whole process takes, the more I enjoy it, the more fun it'll be for you, and the happier you'll be with the results.
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