Welcome Nick Giles

Nick Giles at deviant ART.

"Button 1"










"Button 1A"

Above all, Nick Giles loves BW pictures. Of course there are some coloured ones in his sites, but you'll quickly see how much he knows everything about lights and shadows, in an incredible range of wonderful tones.

First time I checked his gallery, I was immediatly very impressed by the two photos above (Button), where I see this little "art-deco" touch I love so much.

I'm waiting (with impatience) for his interview to tell you more about this outstanding composer and talented photographer.

"Erosanne"







Firstly I would like to thank you for visiting my website and hope that you enjoy the contents of its pages.

As can be seen from the banner at the head of each page my name is Nick Giles and I live in Warrington in the North West of England. Where I am employed as a photographer in Warrington's Creative Camera studio. This is a long established studio of 38 years, myself being employed at the studio since 2001. As can be seen from the Home page a large and varied field of photographic work is undertaken.

"Paula 3"

As you view the galleries of the site it will become obvious that I am an Advocate of Black and White photography and traditional methods.

Most of the images have been shot on film and not digital, I have recently acquired a digital camera and as such I am now using both mediums.

"Jen Barley 1"

This picture has won a DD : " Perfect framing, respecting classic composition norms and simultaneously reinventing then, using contrast to make a sharp image smooth, and warn at the same time, texture use is superb, the main subject is the softest spot in the image despite the obvious. This piece's value comes from simplicity and aggression, the mixture makes it a contradicting peaceful mess. Mr Vertigo."

"Jen Barley 3"

François Benveniste, some new works

François Benveniste : his official site.

"Jungle girl"
Art Model Sabrina

"Headless 2"
Art Model Pauline

"Simple nude"
Art Model Sophie

"The Parisian river"
Art Model Stefania

François Benveniste ©

David Charles and Art Model Muse

David Charles and Image of Muse

Member of UdA since 2007

"What dreams are made of..."






"La Chocolat"

David Charles, fine art photographer and sculptor internationally published, is the first one I see so inspired by one and only model, a great of course : Muse, who inspires him such wonderful pictures.

Despite his prolific work and publications everywhere, I don't find many informations about him for this first feature. We'll have to wait for the interview to know more about this gifted photographer.

"Out of the Ashes"












Currently putting together a solo European gallery tour featuring the art nude model Muse whom I've been working with exclusively - for the past 2 years (out of choice obviously !)

I will soon begin booking models for my next art nude book project ("Return of the Goddess") which will commence this Jan 08.

"Still Waters Run Deep"

"Life and Death"

Of course, it's impossible to introduce David Charles without some words about his wonderful muse (what a lucky man, I'm still searching for mine !) :

" Muse : this model is useless. Facially she rather resembles a dogs bottom, not forgetting the evil red eye in the middle of her forehead. Plus there is the fact she's always late and is covered in angry boils.

Yes, OK, I'm lying : I just want her all to myself ! There is only one word to describe this model and that word is : Muse. "

"Lazy Summer Mornings"

My name is Muse, I am a nude model with a difference ; I consider myself a creative catalyst for my own imagination - not just the 'photographers model', but an artist in my own right.

My body and face are the tools that breath life into my visions ; the photographer is the eye through which my imagination is revealed to the world.

"I dream of you"









My interest in modelling stems from acting as I feel the two merge together seamlessly.

'Photography as art' is what I'm passionate about. My heart predominantly lies with art nude, I adore this type of work ; the freedom of movement it gives, the simple natural beauty, the wonderful curves of the body reflecting light and shadow.

The human body is awe inspiring and I believe the figure of woman in every shape and size is Mother Nature's ultimate masterpiece. To hide it is an insult to the creation of beauty. I am purely driven by the art and the creativity of modelling.

"Nature's Canvas"

F.W. Scharpf

 
F.W. Scharpf at deviantART, Foto Talk.

"Kat L15"
Art Model and Photographer Kat Love

F.W. Scharpf, from Germany, loves above all B&W photography... But as you'll see it, he's also a great master of color.

Working with strenght and creativity on the human figure relating to a natural environment, his pictures give us the best of his deep and neverendless inspiration.

His elegant models' poses, his tremendous compositions, his beautiful tonalities are quite amazing. His mastered way to shoot great nudes in wonderful landscapes reminds me Steve Johns, one of my favorite greatest australian photographer, in this touch of "wide space" I love so much.

"KatL 9"
Art Model Kat Love













Photography has been my life-long passion alongside a career in research and teaching in the social sciences.

And all my "serious" photography was in black and white, medium format, striving to follow the masters, Edward Weston and Adams, and Albert Renger-Patsch or Karl Blossfeldt.

But my main profession left me less and less time to work in the darkroom, and so my photography was reduced to snapshots or color slides, with no control over the images beyond the exposure. Not very satisfying.

Photography became interesting again with the arrival of digital technology. Without having to set up a darkroom, I could now work on images at the same computer desk where I was doing my professional work. And for the first time, I was also able to exercise some influence over the colors of my images - which was like learning a new language.

"KatL 18"
Art Model Kat Love

Of course I realized that some images work better in black and white. But in general, grayscale conversions were simply not up to the quality that I had obtained in the darkroom with carefully chosen films, developers, printing papers and burning and dodging.

I realize that at the present state of available technology, these are limitations of my own learning, and I am working to overcome them. Sometimes I succeed, and when I do, the magic of black and white strikes me as even more fascinating than the beauty of a well-done color image.

"KatL 17"
Art Model Kat Love

" Kat Love is of course a most beautiful, talented and experienced model with whom (as somebody told me here) "any hack could make good photos". But it helped a lot that I could take her to locations that I had explored before, and with whose "mood" at different times of the day and in different weather conditions I was familiar. And it also helped that we were not pressed for time and that I could become somewhat familiar with her "philosophy" and how it translates itself into characteristic poses in response to a given setting."

"In the Ferns"
Art Model Ruby Jules










"Cavorting"
Art Model Katy T

"Candace"

I have done landscapes and nature photography all my life (and had four exhibitions and quite a few sales during the last two years).

I began to do studio nudes about two years ago (which I found not so interesting), and then decided of join the Community Zoe meeting at Flagstaff, Arizona, in the fall of 2005. Great models, great outdoors settings and a great beginning. Beginner's luck ! But moving foward from there has been slow and hard going.

Finding an interesting natural setting, not too crowded, is difficult in most places, and certainly here in the overpopulated Rhineland. And if you find it, the light is likely to be dull or overly contrasty, or its is beginning to rain. You name it...










"Natalia on the Rocks"



But if everything else is right for once, then all depends on the model - on her ability to relate to her environment, on her ability to express herself through poses that communicate with the viewer - and on the photographer's ability to frame her and the setting in a way that brings out the relationship among both.

Art Model Ruby Jules





F.W. Scharpf ©

Welcome Mopas

Mopas at Photo Forum, deviantART.

"Carol 2 14"

Mopas seemed surprised by my strong desire to interview him... Like me when someone tells me how much he/she loves one of my text. This modesty honours him. Because Mopas, from Warsaw, Poland, is a really creative photographer and a very nice guy who promotes in his journal all his friends and lovely models, in kind and happy words.

I've been in a big trouble when choosing the pictures to illustrate his first feature, there are so many wonderful shots in his portfolio.

In BW or colors, you'll be as amazed than me by their quality : his strong compositions, the elegant poses, his perfect master of studio and natural lights, his so expressive models, make his work tremendous and deeply emotional. Everything to keep me impatient to write his interview in order to show you more.

"Agnieszka 3180"
Art Model Agnieszka










"Agnieszka 0500"
Art Model Agnieszka

"Zula 2429"














A point of view I'm sharing, when it's no more art but unsane pictures made by sick and false "photographers" :

" I'm on vacations. Somewhere in the forests of central Poland. Just on the bank of a beautiful, wild and clear river, called Wkra.

The weather is perfect, the birds are singing and the butterflies are flying around me. I can't be closer to Paradise. I have a lot of nature pictures done, mostly insects and so on (as you can see in my gallery).

I was thinking a lot about the photography and the way the photographer sees and shows the world. Photography is an art - an art of shapes and colors but also emotions, moods and feelings.

It can be - and it is often - a perfect tool of documentation too. And it can easily manipulate our minds into areas that we wouldn't like to visit.

"Aga 937"
Art Model Aga

I'm shocked by the amount of fetish, macabre, horror and such pictures in the photo forums all over the world (and I don't mention porn).

Even if I did a session that could be called fetish or bondage, I don't like it. I think we did a good job (from a technical point of view) but I don't like the mood of this pictures. It's a promotion of pain and tortures, and the evil (if exists) is certainly happy when seeing it. When you are two weeks in the pure nature where everything goes so easily and peacefully, you'ld notice it too.

OK, so holidays are nearly over. Three more days and I'm back to the mill. Warsaw, traffics, office, customers, the fight for the existence. Real life again.

"Caroline 2 8"

"... Caroline again. I think these two women, both Carolines - the one that I called Carol and this one - changed my way of thinking about artistic nude photography. Both are extremly beautiful in body and in mind, both are wonderful, experimented models, very feminine and brave at the same time. I hope you'll like these pictures as much as I do."









"Aga 1 6"
Art Model Aga

"High heels"

Mopas ©

Their eyes !, by Jeffrey McAlister

 Jeffrey McAlister

Member since 2008

Photographer multi-awarded

I find this text of Jeffrey McAlister very well written and interesting. So I can't resist to the pleasure to publish it. Thanks for your agreement dear Jeffrey.

"Her eyes"

"The Erogenous Zone between the ears and where you can see it."

By Jeffrey McAlister

"Valentine"





" Recently I've been seeing possibilities for making the art that I make open up. I had the great pleasure of attending a meet and greet event close to home here where many photographers and models convened to eat, drink and converse and make images. It really was a revelation. I'm not sure quite why (perhaps because it's just so nice when the unknown not only becomes known but the knowing turns out to be so pleasant) but the people I had a chance to talk with and shoot with really inspired me.

" Unlike a typical shoot I would book for myself, I was blown on the wind, shooting who appeared for me. I had contacted one lovely model I'd been in contact with before, and we got to spend time making calm simple head shots. Another model I shot with is an erotic nude/fetish fashion model I'd been aware of for some time. I certainly had no idea that opportunity would arise. Frankly I shoot very little what I would call glamour, so shooting with her was a joy.

The last woman I took pictures of that day is a local art model I'd also had on my radar for sometime but had never been able to reach consensus with over what kind of work we would both like to do together. I had a really affirming moment when she recognized my name. Her face lit up and she launched into the certainty that she had hoped I would be there and we were gonna shoot right ?!

I had this wonderful moment of just feeling like what I do reaches people somehow, and in a world that would usually step over you if you were dying on the sidewalk, this angel wanted my eye and my artful focus on her. I can hardly describe what an emotional boost that was for about a hundred parts and pieces of my heart.

"V"

As I tend to do, I find myself trying to define honestly what was so fun and moving in all this. Part of it is having a chance to be in community where what I make is accepted and valued... not a secret world. It didn't hurt to be in a whirlwind of really fun kind people, many tattood and pierced, fetishy, or flouncy, and photographers like me, hunting for that instant in light that captivates. The naked women getting body paint and loving being eye magnets for the whole gathering certainly didn't bother the mood of the event either !

What I realize this morning as I write this... as I try to put a period on it, can be defined in this way.

I shot three beautiful women who couldn't be more different. One was lithe and tall and elegantly shy. She was beautifully clothed and quietly curious about what making nudes with me might be like down the road. The second was audaciously sexual, happy I suspect, to go down most any path, voluptuous and oozing erotic intent. The third, a woman of eastern European lineage, thin, angular, bones and a proud jaw line... This was a person who radiates intelligence from every pore. Her body is a canvas of really unusual ink. Her tattoos were surprisingly (for me at least) at home, not jarring or detracting but really completing her pretty frame.

What I see now is the thing that so gotten to me. The thing that pulls me in, makes me worship and marvel... the magnet... it was their eyes. Each of them, so different, and so astonishly poignant and powerful. Lust. Eroticism can certainly be expressed in how I feel about a pretty breast or a swollen vagina, but what I know today is the real heart of what I seek... is there to be revealed in her eyes. Every time.

"Wallflower 4"

John Running joins us

John Running at Album of Erotica, his books at Amazon, deviantART.

"Kaylee Tirtan set"

Prolific photographer, John Running makes a creative, original and powerful work where he lovely combines strength and sensuality. I like his great compositions, his marvelous frames, the warmth of his colors, and above all his neverendless imagination.

Inspired by the great landscapes of Arizona and his gorgeous models that he loves to shoot with a deep respect, John Running has developped a style I never found anywhere.

John Running has lived in Flagstaff, Arizona for the past 42 years. He has been making photographs for advertising, design and editorial clients for nearly 40 years.

He specializes in photographing people on location or in the studio. His photographs stand out because they have a style that is personally creative and graphically strong. Give him 1/125th of a second and he will give you so much more.

"Guadalupe Springs Mexico 7"

John Running has been photographing the female nude for all of his 40 years as a professional photographer.

The women he photographs are both sensual and strong. His photographs are collaboration with his models where there is room for each to express their creativity.

His work reminds us that eroticism is yet another culturally laden value that depends on choices made by its consumers to be effective.

Originally from Buffalo, New York, John Running studied Earth Sciences at the New Mexico School of Mines and then spent four years in the United States Marine Corps, where he served in the Mediterranean, Caribbean and West Indies. Afterward he studied for and received a degree in Anthropology at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona. Now he shares his downtown Flagstaff studio with his daughter Raechel Marie.

"Natalia Rope 6"
Art Model Natalia Faina










"Joss 3"
Art Model Joceline

Photo assignments have taken him to Italy, France, Spain, The Netherlands, Scotland, The Galapagos Islands, Jordan, The West Bank, The Gaza Strip, and South America.
" His clients include Eastman Kodak, Polaroid, Nikon, Ilford, Coors Beer, Lee Jeans, U S West, Sterling Commerce and Canyon Records.

He has also published seven books including Honor Dance, Pictures for Solomon, Dancer, Halo of the Sun and Navajo Weaving Way.

Artist statement for the photo Exhibit "Genetic Imprints" held at Flagstaff Photography Center Gallery (august 2007) :

"Genetic Imprints 14"

The image comes first.

In the beginning, before there was language, there was a non-verbal way of comprehending the world. There was the image. Now, except in our dreams, we tend to translate images into words.

Recently I made a series of photographs in my studio of women with animal skulls. Now that I have made these images, as I am trying to find words, it comes to mind that these photos are more about something from our distant past – from all the way back to the time of the ice.

I recently read the idea that, back at the time of our emergence, the female - the woman - was more than a fertility deity. More than a mother, she was also the first practitioner of medicine and magic and that, in fact, she was the Creator. Back in our stone age emergence, God was female and this still imprints our genetic codes.

"Genetic Imprints 13"

"Genetic Imprints 6"

For me, the image comes first. I see it in front of me – a woman holding an animal skull. I believe I suggest to the model that this is about life, not death. She works with some direction at first but soon it seems to me that as she carries and caresses her animal totem she becomes a soul carrier and spirit guide.

I react to this by submitting myself to the model and her intuitions. We become collaborators as we respond to genetic imprints.

The book "Genetic Imprints" is available here.

Genetic Imprints is a mook of a Photographic exhibition held at the Flagstaff Photography Center Gallery. It is a series of 21 photograph of nude models and wild animal skulls.