Three Years and Counting

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Check out Melissa on Univers d' Artistes

The interview for Melissa has been up on Univers d'Artistes for a few days now. This girl has been working constantly, but I am sure you can still get on her calendar if you contact her. You should go over to check it out. (Speaking of calendar, you can get her's here.) I think it went well. In fact, let me ask you to take a second to help her become the face of E.L.F. Cosmetics by voting for her on this link right here. You can vote every day in fact, so bookmark it and comeback as often as you can to give her your vote. I did it just now and it took me 4 seconds, so help out a model, why don't cha!

What you see here are the images we used for that post taken recently in the Vegas deserts. I've been out to that location twice since we shot looking for a specific geographic feature and have come up nil on both occasions. There is supposed to be a body of water out there up in the mountains and I see now way how one can reach it in 30 minutes from the location Melissa and I did our shot. I spent hours scrambling up rocks on the first attempt in one direction and got not even half way. Oddly enough I decided to come back down for two reasons. One it was getting dark, and two I had began to feel light-headed. I had forgotten to eat pretty much that whole day. I had forgotten to wear a hat as I usually do and I even forgot my watch. Things started getting black like tunnel vision so I sat down for a while, but as I got up, I was still dizzy. So I just passed out on a big flat rock for a spell and woke up to the sun almost down over the mountain. I guess losing a job can have that sudden effect of temporary stupidness.

The second trip, I took a different route. No trail this time. I just went straight up a canyon valley, scrambling over rocks. This time I think I was half way up before I decided to come back down. I tell you the distance is much farther than you think when you are looking up at it from below. The scrambling this time was a little tougher and once again, its about 5pm and it dawns on me that I hadn't eaten a thing all day. Fortunately, I never felt faint on this hike, even though it was more strenuous. I think I'd like to do it again if for no other reason then just the exhilaration of the climb, only without my backpack. Twice I lost footing because it threw me off balance and there were several spots where there were just inches of foot space along a ledge with a sheer drop-off. Going up was much easier than coming down, although coming down was faster. I was high enough to switch my phone over from 3G to the Edge network to still get a signal out. So I called Felix to let him know a reasonable proximity of where I was and that if he didn't hear back from me in 3 hours or so, to send somebody looking for me. I figured it might be wise to do so, since I was alone in a remote place. Sometimes, my knee can just give out without warning (from an accident while in the military).

I seldom discuss politics or religeon on this blog. However speaking of the military, I was reminded of an article I read today that just burns me on both ends. I recall seeing in the news a while back about an organization that stood outside the funerals of fallen soldiers and protested while the grieving parents and family tried to say good-bye to their son and pay their last respects.

"NASHVILLE, April 11, 2006 — As dozens of mourners streamed solemnly into church to bury Cpl. David A. Bass, a fresh-faced 20-year-old marine who was killed in Iraq on April 2, a small clutch of protesters stood across the street on Tuesday, celebrating his violent death.

"Thank God for Dead Soldiers," read one of their placards. "Thank God for I.E.D.'s," read another, a reference to the bombs used to kill service members in the war. [One even read, "God hates your tears".] To drive home their point — that God is killing soldiers to punish America for condoning homosexuality — members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., a tiny fundamentalist splinter group, kicked around an American flag and shouted, if someone approached, that the dead soldiers were rotting in hell." - New York Times

As a veteran myself, you have to understand, this pissed me off to no end. I am still amazed at the depravity of humanity. Just as it seems I can't be surprised anymore of how low mankind can get, another invention of hatred and evil is released upon society; and in the name of God, no less. I felt fairly confident that this was such a clear-cut case that it would not only be stopped but that the perpetrators would be penalized and the victims redeemed. Well, I was wrong:

Court Says GI Funeral Protests Legal, September 25, 2009, Baltimore Sun
"RICHMOND, Va. -- A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that a fundamentalist Kansas church's protest outside the funeral of a Westminster Marine killed in Iraq is protected speech and did not violate the privacy of the service member's family, reversing a lower court's $5 million award."

I don't always agree with the some of the reasons why we go to battle. As a soldier, I pledged to follow orders and defend this country and its interests and allies against enemies both foreign and domestic. We are a military with a civilian politician as Commander-in-Chief. It is not always a cut and dry decision when we deploy and the public may not always agree. I can understand that. Iraq is not popular. I can understand that. Soldiers on foreign ground done always solve a problem. I understand that. But to disgrace and disrespect the men and women, and their families, who are the ultimate servants of our country, who volunteer their lives to provide the freedoms all of you enjoy... I just don't understand why everyone in America is not coming to the defense of our fallen. Too many cases. Too many situations arise where our fallen are disrespected in order to get a story, express a radical opinion, or otherwise get attention and not enough is being done about it.

Damn. That went on more than I wanted. I'm done ranting.

Stacey Scott Interview

"I want people to understand the fact that I may be deaf, but that won't stop me from fulfilling my dreams. I'm deaf, but I can do anything (except hear !)." - Stacey Scott

I recently got to pay homage to a model I hadn't worked with in a long time. Stacey Scott was the first model I hired for my Las Vegas Art Models Group. I did an interview of her for Univers d'Artistes last week that I believe turned out well. Stacey is in New York now and is still kicking ass. I've been so impressed with her. She's deaf and has never let that be a barrier or obstacle her her ambitions for modeling or being a success at whatever she wants to do. So JUMP on over and check out what Stacey has to say.




Since I've been working a real job now, I haven't been out shooting much. I've had to focus on job transitions, new events in my personal life, and planning for upcoming events. Jeff is also back in the hospital. Its all been a thrill ride in some senses of the word. In others, its been downright nerve-wracking. But as one friend recently told me, there's a sense of freedom that comes with it all and now the future is wide open. That's exactly the way I feel right now. Life isn't fair or unfair. Its just life and you can either make the best of it or not. Despite all my shortcommings, trails, and tribulations... I gotta say I've been truly blessed in my life.


I've still been going back through my old stuff and editing material that I didn't complete as well as getting rid of stuff that I know ain't going to be used. You'll be seeing new graphics on both my website and my blog. I think I want to change things up every year or so. I've registered a new domain name so you might be seeing everything change to PhotoAnthems.com in the near future. I'll be looking into a new logo design for it and will eventually change my web site and blog domains to reflect the new name and logo. (And to think I just got an order of about 1500 business cards last month.)


And finally, I've recently bought in with a travel company and now have my own web site where you can book travel. So far, I've had several people tell me they've found my travel fares either cheaper or equal to comparable sites. So if you need to book travel, hotels or vacation packages take a look at my Rovia site by clicking www.TerrellNeasley.Rovia.com/. Its the only way I'm traveling now. Even if its just for kicks, comparison shop and let me know what you find out. I'd be really interested to know how much of a savings my customers are averaging.

The Trunk Monkey Chronicles

" Find your niche and what you like, be professional, sometimes be patient and appreciate every memorable experience and great opportunity that comes at you." - Lorelei

I don't know if you realize it or not, but you already know you can read me here on this blog, but did you know I am ALSO a co-editor for Chris' Univers d' Artistes blog? Didn't know that did you? Okay, I may have already said it a couple of times here, but I'll be helping out over there from time to time. Chris St. James is posting EVERYDAY and I know its got to be wearing out Unbearable Lightness trying to keep up. Chris is a freak-n machine. So, by request, I just did a post on Lorelei.

It turned out great as I did a 10 question interviewed with her. I loved her answers and not cuz she hyped me, but because you could tell she was speaking from her heart and that she really took the time to give me some good feedback. I'm not doing any copy-pasting or reprints over here, but you can click on the jump link over there and check it out. Actually, I will copy over one request she made:

"...visit MAXIM.com and VOTE for your homegirl ! I'll be in week 6 of voting April 27 through May 4th until noon, much love if you can vote for me everyday til then, just takes a few clicks and no typing. Thanks!"

Life is good. I'm working. Dave's coming next month. My uncle is here for the weak. I'm happy. Yeah I still got a few issues to solve and things to work out, but that'll be the deal til I'm dead. What I want are NEW problems. "Gee, where am I going to invest all this money and what charities should I contribute to this week?". "Goodness, how am I going to find the time to shoot ALL these models I keep getting requests for?". "Should I go with the lace-up Berlutis or the buckle-down Lobbs as I accept my Ig Nobel Prize for Art tonight?". See what I mean...NEW PROBLEMS. Everybody should be working towards new problems rather than the elimination of problems in their lives all together.

I've been working on more of my non-nude images lately. I've taken several, but they sat on the proverbial shelf since I just couldn't bring myself to do the edits. I had too many nude works to edit. Its cool going back over old work and trying to get back into the mindset you had when you released the shutter. I worked on a series of compositions I did while on my way back from Phoenix last year during my road trip with Felix and Summer. Remember that? This couple is a shot (above) I took while visiting the Phoenix Art Museum. They seemed like an interesting couple that I knew I wanted to photograph, but I didn't want to harrass them. As it happened, they were leaving the same time we were and I got them in the parking lot. They were cool about it and flattered. Unfortunately, I was out of cards that day and can't find their contact info. Damn it.

The other shots were of a stop we made on the way back by way of Vidal, California. Some of it was just junk. Actually, all of it was junk or stuff on abandoned properties. I still got a few good shots, but even then, it would have been nice to have somebody naked there.

I don't know how long it has been out, but I just discovered Trunk Monkey. Oh, I LMAO!

If you can't see the video, -->click here<--

Cool Melissa

If you are not passionately devoted to an idea, you can make very pleasant pictures but they won't make you cry. - Ruth Bernhard

I took a break from photo work, and some other studying that I am doing to go see the movie "Knowing" with Nicholas Cage. All I could say was, "Damn..." after the credits began to roll. It started out fast, by impressing you with a plane crash, but then slowed down a bunch and made you try to figure out where things were going. It has few interesting twists, but in the end, left you wondering with a feeling of "NOW WHAT?" Interestingly enough, there is a question of faith that Cage has to deal with and when he comes to his conclusion, there is a reference to biblical prophesy. The thing is, nothing that transpires in the movie has anything to do with a prophet or how the Bible says events will unfold.


But onto photography...



As I write this blog, I am being interviewed via email by a young girl, or woman, I should say, who is the daughter of one of my models. She's a teenager doing an interview on people and their careers. She chose me since I am a friend of the family and she relates to me because I am an artist like she is. And this girl is good. She's got a talent and a potential, that properly cultivated and supported, could blossom into something great. Hold on... another email question... Okay, I'm back. She's asking some very good questions. At first I was wondering if her mom was helping, but she's come back with some fairly spontaneous remarks that would suggest otherwise. This is her own work. So for now, we are going over what its like to be a photographer and some of my background. Its cool.



I was recently featured by Unbearable Lightness, who's been helping Chris St. James run Univers d'Artistes. In her post, "The New Neasley", she made me sound like I was some high profile photog who went into a mysterious hiatus leaving everyone to guess and speculate what I was in the midst of creating. It was a good article that centered on my initial intent to suspend my nude work and the challenges I had in the attempt. Nine images of Brittani, Melissa, Trixie, Erica, and Gabriella were selected for the feature. This was a March 18th post but you can go directly to the link =>clicking here<=. You may notice that for this feature, Unbearable Lightness uses one of her recent photos as sort of a tribute the the Vegas theme for her image ID. Nice touch, Sweetness.



I mentioned before that you should be expecting images of a recent shoot with Model Melissa. This was our 3rd collaboration. It was right after editing the first work that I had the idea to do her with a wide-angle lens to exaggerate the perspective of her hips and legs (Canon EF-S 10-22mm). She's got the deceptive build for it. To look at her, she appears thin as can be, but when the clothes come off all that hidden shape and curvature comes to life. I was thankful for the fact that she allowed me to play with that idea. Not many models are willing to allow you to capture imagery that intentionally makes their butts look bigger. Melissa is very comfortable with the way she looks and trusted me enough to just let me play, 'cuz that's what I did. I experimented with angles and positions, while trying to get the desired effect with the camera lens. Many models would be very uncool with how close I had to get to get the exaggerations, but that's necessary when you work wide like that. When I get my Canon 5D Mark II, the 16-35mm L-series is definitely on the list. In fact, I don't think I will get that camera without two lenses...one of them being the 16 to 35.



One of the more interesting thing about this shoot is that its the 3rd time we've shot and its all been in her house in the same area. Normally, I'd have been bored silly by now and yearning to get her outside. She's even got the most interesting backyard, and I have yet to explore it. Part of that has been weather, but also, its been due to my business with the indoor work. The third shoot in particular took some patience because of the lighting challenges. I knew from the last shoot that coming during the time of day I was there would allow some interesting lines from the Venetian blinds in the window. This day however was very cloudy. We'd have the light for just a second or two and then it was gone. We'd wait for it to come back, but limitations on time forced us to move on. But when we'd see the lines return, I'd have her jump back on the couch, assume the same position and try to snap quickly. Some of it was trial and error, thinking I could bring it out in Photoshop with contrast corrections and blending options, but I finally got what I wanted. I love me some Melissa. And here is some of our latest work.

Hi, Charlie!

All About the Fun

Maybe things will be settling back to normal pretty soon. I'm very hopeful, at any rate. My friend and roommate, Jeff is back home from about 11 weeks in the hospital. It'd be inappropriate for me to go into details, but the dude is back at home, trying to recover and gain his strength back. So welcome home, Jeff.

Photo work has been sort of sketchy as of late. I've still been shooting and editing, but I've not been posting much of my work on my online profiles or website. Part of that is cuz of Chris St. James' fault. Because of his mentorship, I've got this thing with titles now. Since I haven't been able to sit down title my shots and post them, they have been sitting on my hard drive waiting to receive a name. This goes way back to maybe a year ago when Chris first discovered me and took an interest in my work. He began to encourage me, mentor me, and be a friend. Well, one of the things he'd knock me on the head for was the lack of titles in my work. Since then, I think I've really grown from his help and I've cherished the relationship we've had over the course of, wait...I think its been closer to two years now.

I haven't even kept up with many of the blogs that I normally follow daily. I still track Univers d'Artistes regularly. Unbearable Lightness has done a wonderful job at helping Chris. These are two people that I've cultivated relationships with, but have yet to actually meet. I consider both to be mentors and will be glad when I am totally back on track following my friends' blogs and back to posting my own at my usual rate of twice a week. I haven't even talked to my good friend, Dave Rudin in a while. I'm really out of touch. I don't know what's been going on with Iris Dassault, who's like the model queen of this country. And I need to get back in touch with the happenings across the waters with my friends at Fluffytek.

I need to go on some interesting outings. I haven't done that in a while. I think that was one of the attractors for a good part of my readership which was to hear about my adventures in the wild. Yeah, I need to get out more. The weather is starting to warm up and ice is melting off the mountains which means water falls and full streams again. This is what I do. I gotta get back out there. Whatever I do, I think I'd like to take some models out with me on a road trip or something. And speaking of which, I want to make sure I encourage you to utilize the services of the models I present on this blog and my website. If you're planning to be in Vegas and feel like shooting, feel free to contact these girl's links or even myself and plan something. Brittani from New Jersey is coming to reside in Vegas permanently next month. (Damn, I've still got to send her a disk! Sorry B.) I'm happy about that. I mentioned her in my last post along with several others. I've still yet to shoot with Marley. She's waiting on a tattoo to heal up a little first. But you've also seen some of my mainstays like Faerie and Trixie who I shoot quite often and of course there are several more. I shoot with Lieara this weekend. Lorelei has taken off like a space shuttle. The Brittany II maintains her role as one of the most prolific models in Vegas. And then there is Sarah Jane...come on! Really, do I need to say more. All these different body types and looks. I've got like the Wal-Mart of models, here. And wait til you see my next posts of Melissa!

Gabriella is one of the models I've been shooting with who is very up and coming. This girl can be on the cover of any magazine by tomorrow. She's different than the normal style of model I've been shooting because she's very suitable for glamor work that you might find in Maxxim or even Playboy. I've always been doing the girl next door type to produce my artistic style of nudes, but with Gabriella, I've been exploring the more sensual, sexy, and even erotic style of the art nude. She's hella fun to work with and is an instant boost to anybody's port. I think I'm going to start highlighting models I work with on my posts. I don't promote these girls enough and one of my initial objectives to starting my Las Vegas Art Models Group was to support art models. All of these girls are fabulous with great attitudes. For me, attitude is more important than they way they look. Gabriella is super sexy, but she comes with a willingness to work and gives you what you want and then some. You're sure to walk away from her shoot with more than you bargained for. I like the girl. Gonna work with her some more. You will too, so give this artist of her trade a hollar. Isn't she sweet? Tell her I sent 'cha. We'll both get cheese points!

The Newest Muse

“I never refused when he wanted to take a picture,” said Eleanor Callahan, the 91-year-old widow of the photographer Harry Callahan. “I never complained, whatever I was doing. If he said: ‘Come quick, Eleanor — there’s a good light,’ I was right there." - New York Times "The Artist's Wife: A Constant Muse Who Never Said No"

Chris St. James has been gracious enough to feature me on his Universe d'Artistes blog a number of times now. However his latest post on me is a recreation of an interview we did a year ago. He's added to it using some of my own posts as well as dialog/commentary I've made on his own blog. Its truely remarkable to witness this man's imagination and I felt very honored to be worthy of his time, energy, and creativeness that produced his 21 November 08 posting of our interview. In fact, go ahead and click over to it now. I'll wait.....

Welcome back! So what did you think? The man's a genius, is he not?

In other news, I'm still working on wrapping up this year's final projects. I've got just a few more to go, but lots of edits. I was hoping to take advantage of the holiday season with some more freelance work, but I'm not sure if its going to work out as I may have liked. Four or five good projects would have been nice. So now I have goals for next year. For the time being, I stick with my endeavors to shoot more subjects other than nudes, retool my business persona, and manage my workflow and activities better. At the same time, I've desired to try to take some time to relax a bit. You know... SLEEP! I think it was last week or the week before whereby I was averaging 3 hours of sleep a day and for the longest, I hadn't even slept in my own bed. Much of my rest time came with my head down on my keyboard or my neck cracked over sideways as I slouched over in my computer chair. Crazy, I know. Well, I'm trying to make a concerted effort to do much better at prioritizing sleep IN a bed, for more than 5 hours at a time. If I can get at least 5 hours in the bed a day, that'll be sweet and I have been doing better at it. There have even been 2 days this past week where I slept 9 hours...straight!

The images you see here are of my latest muse. I've worked with Lessa, Lissa, and now Melissa. She was referred to me by Faerie and even though it took a while to actually meet, I am so glad we did. I shot her last week sometime and the experience was marvelous. I made reference to her in the last posting about being a homie from Texas. She's the one who we share the experience of both having our first jobs being at Braum's Ice Cream. Grandy's is another place we discussed missing so much. They've got some of the best fried chicken for when momma ain't making it at the time. I tell you this girl is full of energy and imagination. I am sooo glad I got to finally meet her. It was one of those things were we just hit it off right as I stepped into the door. We didn't get to go through all my normal interviews and such. In most cases, I have to insist on at least some of my basic protocols. In this case, we had a mutual trusted friend, so I knew she was cool and she also works as an art model, thereby I know she's already comfortable with being nude. Basically everything else I needed to know we covered via email and we just made it happen. The woman is a great in conversation and so darned intuitive. We'll be doing this again.

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving. Please take it easy, relax with family and friends, and make this a safe holiday. Also enjoy these featured artist links. Both of these are models I have been in dialogs with from deviantArt. The first is ModelDonna. There are some models who simply have that "it", and Donna is definitely one of them. I made a comment that she's someone I could probably photography exclusively. I think I could make a career off this girl alone. And then there is AlexB244. I've just started a series of work on the mature woman. Alex has that grace and beauty that is evidence the art model can go on beyond the limits of time. The supermodel has a shelf life of 5 to 7 years. Not many are able to make it beyond 10. The art model is different. She can go on as long as she desires. I wish it were a truism that the art model is the ideal woman by whom young girls measured themselves against. And when you look at Alex, you know for sure that your real beauty is to the core. Photoshop is only a layer deep.

Happy 1000 To Chris St. James

"Dear artists, I'm wide open to all new ideas, creative and technical help ! Because I'm nothing without you, all together "yes we can" make something better, bigger and never seen before...My wish for this so particular moment is that for a better promotion of your work, and to keep the Art alive, you backlink this site. It would be such a nice gift !"

- Chris St. James, Universe d'Artistes

You can mark November 7th down as a special historic day. Chris St. James, Blogger-in-Chief at Universe d'Artistes, has just posted his ONE THOUSANDTH article! That's a thousand different issues, subjects, and bits of information that he has brought to us in the form of interviews, exhibitions, features, book and web reviews, and general information concerning photography centered around the artistic nude genre. You've seen me comment about him several times on this blog. For a while, he had to take a leave of absence from his charge to us, in order to tend to matters of his own health. His will to survive and then come back to us full-force is just a testament to how much this man lives to give. A lesser person would have resolved to a life of self-pity and depression. Chris chose to overcome and become more. Click on his link and scroll down to the Nov 7th post.

This is my message to him in honor of that celebration:

"What Cal Ripken, Jr. is to baseball.... What Brett Favre is to Football... Chris St. James is to photographic art nudes. I am glad and indeed honored to be able to call him my friend, despite the fact that we have never met.Over the last year, Chris has been invaluable to my growth as a photographer and as a writer. My blog would not be what it is today without his tuteledge and guidance.I am very thankful that he is an overcomer, a super-achiever, a survivor, and most notably a man full of genuine love which he bestows upon us on an almost daily basis.His prolific blog has helped countless photographers emerge from the dark confines of obscurity into the light of exposure and visibility.This is a very dedicated and committed man. I love him for it. One of these days we'll meet, I'm sure. I am looking forward to it. Chris, thanks for being so strong and perservering for us! Your eternal Friend, Terrell"

On another note, this was also a pretty exciting weekend for me as well. As I have mentioned, I've pledged to concentrate on a few other things, rather than just the nude. Again, I am not giving up nude photography...I am just going to do some other things for a bit. In fact, Trixie is coming over this afternoon for some work and I have a few other projects that were already planned that I still need to follow through with. This weekend, I got to try my hand at some NHRA races at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Talk about AWESOME!! This was something new to me. I'd never shot race cars before and I quickly learned there's more to it than shooting the nude. As with any subject, it requires its own perspective. I was instructed by the chief NHRA photographer that I'd have to shoot this pretty much like a portrait. I added a few things to that. I quickly learned that I needed to shoot from a lower perspective. Also an extreme wide-angle lens served very well...two things you don't necessarily do in portraiture work.

So right now, I'll post these images for you to enjoy and will speak more on how this all came about later. I gotta get ready for Trix.

Banned????

Talk about a rough week! Trouble has been stuck to me like a tick on a hound dog over the last week or so. But before I get into all that, let me get in a few points that I've made notes to cover for my next blog posting.

1. I just had another great post of mine that landed on Univers d' Artistes. Chris liked my recent post Jerry Uelsmann and Spencer Tunick so much that he re-posted it on his blog. I might also add that his posting was much better than the original post here on my own blog! The man really knows how to promote. So I know you've already read me on this blog but go check out how Chris has recyled my post into something better.

2. Candy Poses , (also her lastest work) is not Tuesday anymore, but she's definately back in the "mainstream" art nude modeling genre. In a previous post I talked about her in her dealings with Five Naked Models, where she was Tuesday. That was her day of the week to make a video log (vlog) commentary on the subject of modeling as a nude art model. She also used to author the blog Feminism Without Clothes. For reasons of her own, she had a change of heart, killed the blog and altered her priorities a little. However, I've now seen her working with noted photogs (such as David L. Le Beck) and she's got another blog up and running called simply "Candy Poses: Images from a Fine Art Nude Model". So she's back on my list of models I wanted to someday work with. That's how all this got started. I think she's beautiful, fabulous and an excellent model.

3. "What We Saw Today" is the new blog started by collaborators, Unbearable Lightness (model) and Joseph Crachiola (photographer). She was online with Iris Dassault as one of the Women of Avalon, which will hence forward be known as - ) Simply - Nude ( - . If you follow Unbearable Lightness the way I do, be sure to go over and check her out. If you author a blog of your own, do her the well-deserved kindness of adding her link. It goes without saying to make sure you stay tuned in to Iris over there with the exceptional, RJ Berry.

4. Chrome - This is the new web-browser by young behemoth, Google. It has nothing really to do with photoworks, but I've recently switched from using Internet Explorer mainly because there are times when IE gets hung up when Chrome will not. Also, if a tab on Chrome does stall, all the other open tabs keep functioning perfectly. One bad tab doesn't mean you have to close out Chrome. IE can't say that. Ease of use and simplicity round out the main reasons why I like it over IE, Firefox, or the other web browsers. I have no idea how it sacks up against Safari.

5. So speaking about a rough week. I think I previously mentioned some complaints about my blog being too edgy. A few days later, I get contacted from Meet Up.com about a nude image on my home page for my Las Vegas Art Models Group. Apparently someone reported me for having exposed breasts on a public forum. Okay, so I realized I was in violation and made the changes. This past Sunday, a park ranger drove up to my group while on an outting and hammered us for being professional photographers in the park without a permit and purportedly shooting nudes. Well now we are banned for life from said state park (not a year...LIFE!) and were kicked out effectively post-haste. I hardly got a word in edge-wise. I'll not go into details on the matter cuz I just don't need the heat right now, nor do I want to bring any more attention to anyone else.

"Mr. Tunick has been arrested five times in New York, although all the charges have been dropped. Last year, he was arrested while trying to photograph a group in Times Square". - "Court Rules Nude Photos Can be Takeng on the Street" ,John Sullivan, New York Times, 20 May 2000

Still, suffice to say, I could use some input on dealing with situations like this. I don't want to be banned from this place, although there are many other places (non-state owned) to shoot in. If I could afford an attorney, I'd consult one. For now, I'd like to get the insight from people with experience dealing with such predicaments or introduced to an open forum of sorts to get creditable input on said matters. Some of my photo heros and other photogs I watch have dealings with Johhny Law. I've never had a real desire to profit from my work or become famous for my art, but now that I've been banned from somewhere, becoming famous is the only way to make it all worthwhile. So one way of looking at this is ... I am forced to become a celebrity now.

Finally, there's just not enought that can be said about Lorelei. As much as I can use her in my artwork, I will. We worked again recently and had I left with some promising opportunities that I'd like to explore with this young lady. Its so easy to be overly-complimentary about her that I won't even try to indulge you on it any longer. Just understand that you can expect to see more of her involvment in my work. Great attitude, Great model, Great person.

On a final note, I'll leave you another interesting story. Check out this article on an artist who's self-portrait was recently banned because her nipples were too large!