I used to sort photographers by category, the techies and the artists.  techies will talk your ear off about their gear.  artists will talk your ear off about an outlandish idea or who they fuct the night before.  its rare to find the two merge inside the body of one person.  I am selflessly using my being to experiment with just this sort of blasphemy.  I now know what I’m talking about when the subject of photography comes up.  I have bothered to learn “terms” and well … more terms.  I sorta understood all of this in theory, I just didn’t know how to communicate what was in my head through my mouth hole.

I’ve been using Lightroom.  It feels like I’m admitting to steroid use or something.  This program makes me stare at dumb images of motorcycle gears in absolute jaw dropping wonderment.  Did I mention that f 1.7 rocks my world?

ok, so this photo is pretty huge in the world of … well … me. i finally bit the bullet and bought a dslr (i was using a fixed lens before). i own a real camera! hurray for me! truth is, i’ve had this camera for a couple months. piece by piece i assembled a fairly enviable collection of camera gear. not to mention light gear. i collected so much stuff that i became a little intimated by it all. in a way, this was by design. im a miser, and if i find myself investing thousands into new gear, like it or not, i’ll be forced to use it.

julene and i have been talking about shooting for months. maybe even half a year. she and i have become good friends. which is odd for several reasons. ive never had a girl as a friend. i don’t really make friends with people i work with. sure, im friendly with lots of folks, but theres only a few souls i would call up and confide in. so it made things interesting because ive never shot a friend before either, at least not nude. i told her all about the new gear and how paralyzed i felt by it and she was nice enough to get my ass out of my head and get me shooting.

if you dig my work, please tell your friends about it! :)

-kelly

this post started out as a tweet. 140 characters seems so meek when i’m confined to explain how gloriously ordinary and beautiful my day was today. although a saturday, its not unusual for me to sleep in. point of fact, i awake naturally every day at whatever time my body sees fit to get up. i grabbed the fiancee’s behind once or twice, tucked her in good and tight and kissed her goodbye as i made my way to the kitchen. there i chose a fat free yogurt to munch on. i selected a brand new reusable plastic cup recently purchased from our local warehouse shopping center with the intent of ridding my life of disposable plastic water bottles. fifty bucks gets me 6 filters, purifying my water from 99.999% of all contaminants that we’re aware of.

each saturday i play hockey in hollywood. an informal game with lovely gentleman i’ve had the pleasure of physically running into and occasionally shooting outdoor roller hockey balls at their … well … balls. i hop in my convertible. the top is already down as if the car were my beloved mutt, panting and whimpering for me to throw her stick, she awaits, ready for me to turn her on. the sky is clear, the weather a sunny bit warm with chance of blissfully cool night forecasted by yours truly.  i drive a steadfast 55 MPH towards my destination. i’m rarely late, but i never use that as an excuse to rush. life passes you by if you don’t savor those moments in between.

i arrive and over the course of 3 games and 2 hours, my team manages to lose 2 games. or win 1 game, depending on how obnoxiously optimistic you care to be. it wasn’t in the cards for today, but we all walked away with the same percentage of skin on our bodies, and no dislocated body parts, as was the case just two weeks prior. i found a way to pull something in my general lower back region. eh … and so it goes.

as is customary, i share lunch with a few of my teammates and friends at the local eatery.  banana peppers adorned my sandwich, a recent discovery of mine added new delight to my otherwise unwavering selection of the usual fare.  we talk about life.  the pain and pleasure of it all.  as talib kewli would say, the beautiful struggle.

i arrive home and quickly undress, anticipating the feel of wearing clean skin a shower affords me.   giving the same importance as religious ritual, i accumulate my necessary burden of comfort items.  my laptop with 17″ of visual wonderment, a new laptop stand appropriated without permission from my fiancee now hovers over my bed as if by magic, my cell phone, chap stick and water bottle populate my night stand.  i’m very much a “place for everything and everything in its’ place” type of guy and thusly, my new bedroom layout is my greatest accomplishment of the week.  i open the window, a gentle breeze polishes my body as i lay in bed, every need within reach.  i become increasingly self aware as i bend and contort, feeling each and every limb.  stretching to feel the pain of my new injury, arriving at pleasure as i release.  each action equally important as i discover the richness of my own mortality.

helen stops in and it is all too clear that this experience of perfection is missing her presence.  she strips and lays by my side as i push and pull looking for the womb like position that will bring me home and whole in spirit.  it isn’t long before sex enters the door and we share in the stoic state of post climax surrender.

helen gets up to make us a healthy portion of spaghetti with meat sauce and a tasty salad.  my hunger now satisfied, i climb back into bed to tell you of my experience this exceptionally ordinary day.

it occurs to me lately that a lot of my peers put such importance on the race to lead a life less ordinary.  i stand not in judgement, as i too sought to fill the hole with disproportionate pleasure at any cost, but as a curious driver, one eye on the future and one eye on my rear view mirror.  searching for beauty in the mundane rituals of life.  that comfort in contentment.  i use that to define my happiness.

Photography has been a journey for me. I started without a clue. I had a vision, but no idea how to bring that to life. As I pushed through, finding my way in the darkness, there were moments when I was offered a glimpse into my future. A photograph would appear on my LCD that clearly defined the work I would soon create. This was one of those photographs. I’ve had several since, as I keep pushing forward, more reveal themselves. But at this moment, I knew it was possible to create in the physical world what had only been in my mind thus far. Linda Tran was one of the first women I photographed with my idealized body type. She tended towards softcore work, in fact, I believe all of her work was pretty tame. But for whatever reason she took this pose and created a formula for my future work. I wanted drama, vivid color, daring exhibitionism, heavy shadows, and the suggestion of something intensely erotic. The moment when thoughts of sex intuitively become action. This was shot with a 5 megapixel fixed lens Sony camera and a set of construction lights (hence the double shadows so close together). Its not my best image, nor the best I will ever create, but it is special because it answered a question I had been asking with a thousand photographs before it.

This is my fiancee, Helen. I shot this while in Switzerland, on top of some place called Titlus. I think I was told its the highest peak in Switzerland. We took multiple revolving 360 cable tram things up to the top. It couldn’t have been a nicer day out. Freezing yes, but super clear, despite how cloudy this particular photo is. I was in Europe shooting for a client and this shot was taken in between shots of the actual model i was hired to shoot. I told Helen to take her top off quickly and snapped a few candids. Prior to this set we were shooting in the inside of a hollowed out glacier. That was pretty trippy, they mounted lights inside that changed along with music they pumped through the speakers. We also ventured through Paris, Frankfurt, Venice, Florence, and Rome. This trip was special as it was my first time in Europe, i proposed to Helen the first night we were in Paris, in this photo she proudly displays her new ring, and we also celebrated her 30th birthday in Venice. She had no idea i was going to propose, and i’m not sure it the idea sunk in until well after we touched back down in the States after close to 3 weeks overseas. I rarely shoot women in a bright, soft manner. I think my trademark is vibrant primary colors, high contrast, and dark shadows. But since meeting her, she’s challenged my view of sexuality. And to honor her i photograph her in both my normal style and in a style that captures her true spirit.

If you dig my work please tell a friend :)

-kelly

Its rare that i use day to day elements of my own sexual aesthetic in my work. I guess they’re just a little too plain. Something about setting up a photo makes me want to include pretty outlandish attire and settings to make the photo really stand out. Its not that i don’t find what i shoot sexy, its just that if you were to take those elements out of the fantasy of the photograph and introduce them into real life, they wouldn’t translate for me. A good example is latex. Frankly, Im not all that engrossed by it. I dig the way it looks in a photograph, and I’ve had my fiancee wear it from time to time where appropriate, but beyond that … eh. The honesty truth is that i find women wearing glasses to be incredibly sexy. I’d imagine for most folks, this would be a simple process, if i dig glasses, just pick up a few pair and have the girls wear them in my shoots. The problem with that scenario is that im far too detail oriented not to notice that the glasses i picked out at some random store, don’t necessarily flatter the women who wears them. It would take me at least a full day of shopping with the woman to determine exactly which frames looked best, then and only then, would they be sexy. My fiancee lucked out and made an astoundingly good choice in frames prior to us meeting. They’re so fucking hot that people comment on them all the time. Give me a girl in perfect frames, a t-shirt worn thin that follows her every curve, a worn pair of 501’s, and maybe some converse all stars or just her bare feet. Thats all i need. In this set, a little of my personal sexuality is seen as Kumi writhes around my living room floor in her personal set of glasses (perfect frames for her face) and a casual top. The stockings give it that tinge of the surreal. Enjoy!

-kelly

I often forget to eat. So heres my breakfast at 2PM. I’ve been getting back into cooking lately. Made my soon to be in-laws dinner a few nights back, broccoli/cheese/potato quiche. We had to tell her dad it was a casserole, cause the word quiche sounds dangerous.

When i first started dating my gf, it wasn’t long before she complained about my mattress. I can be extremely observant concerning some things, and completely oblivious to others. The latter being my mattress and its deflated status. It just stopped being perky and damned if i could tell. I caved and got a nice new mattress, leaving my old one feeling a tad neglected. Yes, that red mattress you see was my old one, all recycled and freshly painted with house paint. Chelsea is always fun to work with. What an incredible rack that girl has, i’ll post photos that better illustrate later. After we shot this she disappeared for awhile, shooting Feast 2.

If you like my work, tell a friend, add me as a contact, join my site maybe even. :)

-kelly

I wish they all could be Jana Cova (sing along to it like a Beach Boys song). Anyhow, shes just perfect. Theres not a damn thing wrong with her, so when i shoot, all i have to think about is how to light her. The most far off idea will work because she looks good from every angle, under any lighting condition. The fake walls behind her were found off craigslist for free, the table she’s elegantly balanced on was found in an alleyway a block or two from my place. I had a 5 gallon bucket of this paint in my shed that i thought was white. It wasn’t until we started spreading it around that it became clear we had ourselves a cream colored room. I painted the table to match as i’ve always wanted to paint an entire room, furniture and all, one color. I think i’ll do more of this actually. This was shot in my backyard, our first set of the day. I went on to shoot a few sets here until the roof caved in a bit and started leaking, making what once was cream, now brownish and rusty. I cleared out my studio completely, fixed the roof, and now i’ve got a clean slate. Lets see what i can come up with!

If you like my work tell a friend, or even join my site.

-kelly

This was my taken during my third shoot. Not too shabby huh? I was at this giant loft in Downtown LA. It was like living in a parking garage, wall to wall concrete with a hand full of windows. Ariel was known as Ariel Carmine back then. I found her on a model networking site. I found out later that she was ready to quit the business, she accredits me to her sticking around and making it a full time career. Which is immensely flattering, and i’d have to say that if i didn’t have her as one of my first models, i may not have progressed or continued to be inspired the way i was. Shes just simply gorgeous and her look was what i had always wanted to capture. You wouldn’t know it by looking at this photograph, but Ariel is like a sex predator. She’s worse than most dudes. Anyhow, i love this shot. The way her skin town matched the sheet of wood behind her. I put this print up at one of my first gallery shows and it sold immediately to a lesbian who i recognized as some actress from the television.

If you like my work, tell a friend!

-kelly