Art photographer from Portland, Oregon. I shoot Polaroids, other film and digital images. All images here are mine. Some are NSFW.
missh0rror asked:
As a photographer, any tips for modelling? I used to shoots with friends when I was around 16 or so and even as a child it was something I wanted to do. I'm 17 (almost 18) now and pretty sure it's something I would definitely love to do.
I answered:

I think in terms of shooting the biggest thing is to be relaxed and comfortable, to have fun. Awkward tends to read really clearly on camera. Practice posing, even by yourself with a mirror or Photobooth, and try to get started shooting. The more you do it the more confident you’ll hopefully get.

Paying a good photographer can be helpful for someone starting out. Make sure they really do good work and that you can afford it though. There are plenty of bad photographers that will gladly take someone’s money. But a good photographer will know how to help you feel relaxed and they’ll make you look good.

There’s a site called newmodels.com that has a lot of good info, although I think it’s more about fashion modeling. I tend to work more with art models than fashion models. Some models do both.

“His work is the work of an artist who is always on the move, searching, he is continually inquiring into reality and calling it into question. In Richter’s work the disquiet and insincerity that marks an Alexandrine, late culture, as well as skepticism and doubt, and the artist’s ironically tinged melancholy and moment of subdued happiness, have been turned to creative ends.
Section on Gerhard Richter in Taschen’s Art of the 20th Century

In the last few years I’ve photographed over 100 women, and met at least another 200 models and photographers. You can never please everyone, and even if I got along with 90 percent of those people I met that would still leave another 30 that I didn’t like.

One thing that puzzles me is when people I really like are friends with people I really dislike. It sometimes makes me scratch my head. But every interaction between two people is individual. There are lots of reasons you might not click with someone: styles, values, senses of humor. I know that my experience with someone is my experience with them, and that other people may not share it at all.

That’s one of the main reasons I don’t usually talk shit about the people that I dislike or have bad experiences with. I know that my interactions with them are just one data point, and I wouldn’t want other people to draw conclusions from that.

I’ve had people tell me that I’m arrogant, greedy, and other less nice things. I think the vast majority of people who know me would disagree, but that doesn’t mean the people with negative views are entirely wrong either. People are complex. I have low self esteem but I will also stand up for myself if I feel I’ve been slighted. I don’t normally think much about how to make money off of my work, but it’s become a concern for me in the last year because my photography drove me deep into debt. People can look at things I do or say and interpret them in many ways I wouldn’t agree with. That’s inevitable I suppose.

I told myself that You Can’t Please Everyone is going to be my mantra for this year. It does help me to remember that.

“What beauty means can never be said. Beauty is an experience and can only be justified by the heart.
Karl Lagerfeld, foreward to Mario Testino Private View
crustykitty asked:
You spark so much creativity for me Rich, your work is breath taking, simple at times, but sweet and thoughtful in all sorts of ways. Being an aspiring model where I'm located is proving to be difficult, not only to find photographers open enough to play with nudity, but finding folks who simply want to make all sorts of art. So I hope one day i have the gift of working with not only you, but the many talented people around the world.
I answered:

Hey thank you :)

If you have any interest in photography, consider doing self portraits. Some of my favorite models do them, even ones that also work with photographers. It can give someone the chance to build up some images that show them off well, and sometimes self shot images feel a lot more intimate than the ones done with a photographer.

Not everyone who wants to model wants to be a photographer of course. I wouldn’t suggest it if you’re not really into the idea. But if photography does interest you it could be fun. Also models that are good photographers end up having access to other models to shoot a bit easier than the average newbie photographer. They end up meeting other models and the fact that they’re women (assuming you are) is less threatening for some models.

A few months ago I participated in a project called 600 On A 600. The idea was that people passed around Polaroids 600 cameras in the mail and each person shot one pack of film with the camera. Everyone sent in all of the images from that pack. I was hoping to shoot with a model but the person I had lined up had to cancel. It was going to be a week before I could line up another shoot and I didn’t want to hold onto the camera that long when other people were waiting for it, so I decided to take some pictures in my neighborhood instead. I actually used to walk around in NE Portland and shoot Polaroids pretty often, back before I started working with models. The results weren’t ideal. The light was pretty crap the day I could shoot, and I’m not used to showing people all of the images I shoot. There are some of them that wouldn’t have seen the light of day if that wasn’t the nature of the project. But I liked a few of the shots and it was fun to do. If you’d like to see all 8 shots I took, head over to the Snap It See It blog. I shot the images on The Impossible Project’s PX 680 Color Protection film.

A few months ago I participated in a project called 600 On A 600. The idea was that people passed around Polaroids 600 cameras in the mail and each person shot one pack of film with the camera. Everyone sent in all of the images from that pack.

I was hoping to shoot with a model but the person I had lined up had to cancel. It was going to be a week before I could line up another shoot and I didn’t want to hold onto the camera that long when other people were waiting for it, so I decided to take some pictures in my neighborhood instead. I actually used to walk around in NE Portland and shoot Polaroids pretty often, back before I started working with models.

The results weren’t ideal. The light was pretty crap the day I could shoot, and I’m not used to showing people all of the images I shoot. There are some of them that wouldn’t have seen the light of day if that wasn’t the nature of the project. But I liked a few of the shots and it was fun to do.

If you’d like to see all 8 shots I took, head over to the Snap It See It blog. I shot the images on The Impossible Project’s PX 680 Color Protection film.