iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

By gosh and golly, apparently these haven't seen the light of day. They HAVE gone off as part of a "meadow retrospective" for a magazine but not quite like this....@jordanrivermuse always being herself. #autumn #sunflowers #bnw #mood #pdxphotographer #theshooting

I tell this story a lot because I think it's inspiring. I met Jordan waaaaay back when I was unsure which end of the camera pointed at the people and our first shoots were absolutely terrible on my part. SHE seemed like some kind of witchy royalty and I was more than slightly intimidated until I actually MET her and realized that one of her many cores consisted mainly of goofball humor and a fast smile. She wasn't any more sure of herself than I was and with some persistence we finally started hitting magic every time we went out. This particular shoot was literally a 30-minute meadow romp and everything was a keeper. Amazing. I would take her anywhere as a creative partner, if only just to dig into our conversation. It's been a decade now and I think we can stand on real trust in one another to make something meaningful. But the experiences and emotions that I bring to each image won't be the same thing that another viewer sees when they stop and study the moment. It's always something we bring with us that we see.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It's really hard to get into the project of sync'ing a bunch of old computers when THIS sort of thing is just waiting in the edit queue. @ivoryflamemodel.bsky.social (who doesn't appear to use this much). Some sort of ramble in the alt-text.

I don't know who had the brilliant idea to put Wire Train between Tyler Childers and The Beach Boys on this playlist but it was me. I did it.

If only I could take as much credit for the mood and stylings of this shoot. But no. True to form, I threw a bunch of things into hurried boxes and made some semi-smart decisions about lenses and we were off. Ivory immediately found a mood that I had SENSED but not KNOWN and plucked just enough out of my model-costume-suitcase to come up with our own version of English Romanticism In The New World.

This pretty much holds true for every model I've ever worked with. If I can cart around four or six different ideas we'll find something that resonates and abandon everything else to chase the rabbit of possibility. Sometimes it's just enough to get us laughing and then once we've broken THAT barrier things will begin to flow differently. It's a tenuous compact -- photographer, model, and environment. Throw six different models into the same set and you're likely to get seven different moods. And then all that gets translated through the ineffable calculus of technology as lens and sensor and settings do their thing.

Some years ago I was on a late-night walk in Key West, pondering a giant bird cage with a "free" sign on a sidewalk, when I met the owner. That conversation led to me standing with another guest, similarly armed with her Canon and a comparable lens, taking some shots of parrots the next morning. After a bit we came to a point and swapped cameras to see each others work. Her parrots were light and airy, Disney dancers with a saucy look. Mine were pirates -- dark and foreboding, side-eyeing more-sober viewers warily. Similar cameras and glass, same angle, same light. LOL.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Harkening back to summer and an absolutely wonderful morning (before the birdwatchers were up). #camping #roadtrip #Oregon #pdxphotographer #stylized

For just a moment it felt like "the good old days" and it's important to remember that no matter how bleak we might feel there really WERE those times and there will be again. I'm feeling a bit maudlin, perhaps some post-shoot letdown. This was a beautiful morning with beautiful people. We had already been out at the beach and had a wonderful hour to shoot unmolested and this little pullout had great light and we jumped on it. These moments are a bit of a brigadoon and I certainly cherish them.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Candid thoughts and sober reflection in the alt-text. But can we just ADMIRE the sheer awesomeness that is English legend Ivory Flame? #redhead #artmodel #pose #emotional #firstcontact #lighting #nudeart #beautiful

I am, proudly, a hobbyist photographer. That was driven home when I tried to take a picture of something normal mere minutes after this image....and really just couldn't do it. Defeated by an object. I will never be a PRODUCT photographer and I'm OK with that.

I've been very open about my photography origin story (breakup! revenge! lol) if only to strike a blow for every GWC who is really trying to create something meaningful in their own lives and maybe making art as part of their progress. I know mailmen and bureaucrats and call center workers who enthusiastically (and I should add, RESPECTFULLY) support touring models and have found it a great way to break out of daily life and do something artistic and fulfilling. I love the process of meeting a new person and going on this intimate deep-dive into a process with them. I have to say that Ivory was an amazing creative partner. Much like Lucy.Artmodel, Ivory has a determination to get a better shot and the knowledge and experience to back it up. Ivory's persona and niche has always struck me as a sort of British Romantic Realism and the setting I chose meshed well with it while also allowing each of us to play to our strengths.

As a hobbyist, I am free to indulge in running to a type and this certainly fit into it. My first True Love, a very long time ago, was a tiny redhead spitfire who remains (and time bore this out) one of the smartest cookies in the bin. My first marriage was to a curly-haired Irish ginger who wouldn't be out of place in any of my work. My last crush (or two) surfaced repeatedly during this shoot -- Ivory would reach into a mood or attitude and I would experience a shiver of deja vu and SEE hints of someone else peeking out of her English propriety. Amazing. I was instantly enamored of her -- she is just wonderful to work with.

Particularly in the early learning curve of the photographic landscape, I connected the dots between models and photographers to understand the ecosystem. A favorite model introduced me to new photographers and I saw who THEY worked with and the circle widened. It was quickly obvious that certain photographers run to certain looks in their model. Some like high-glamour, some want big curves. Although I joke about marrying a lot of redheads, I have a fairly varied partner history from short to tall, curvy to thin. The common denominator has been that they've all been unique and striking women, none could be described as shy. When my tall Hungarian former-model girlfriend deconstructed our relationship, she informed me that the art world would be HER purview because SHE was an artist and I was not. LOL. That happened to coincide with a moment of inspiration on my part, watching patterns of light wrap around aerial dancers, that shoved me toward buying a camera. A few months later a friend saw what I was doing and offered me a coffee shop show and I sold my first pieces (to a lesbian bookstore, no less) which put me first in the "I sold art" competition. Which is stupid and my little revenge trip dropped away quickly as I fell in love with the community and the engagement.

My point here is simply that, like a lot of GWC's, I am simply shooting what resonates with me. I do suspect that I have perhaps-more life experience (a decade at Burning Man, a decade of travel, a decade fronting a post-punk band....business owner, multiple marriages, a lot of adventures) than your typical 9-5'er who dabbles in nude art twice a year. I am FULLY capable of falling in love with exceptional women but also fully capable of being a human being throughout. It can be STAGGERING to have the attention of a beautiful woman turned on you, even if they don't mean it. Experience helps temper that. And I think that the affection and respect show through.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Preconceptions vs the moment. This might be a deep nuance but I'm ridiculously happy when I can produce an image that does not mesh with someone's general persona. More in the alt-text since I'm about to run out of characters here..... #shadows #gorgeous #pdxphotographer #redhead #figure #form

To start with, yes, of course, I'm aware that models simply don't publish work that doesn't fit their chosen image yet likely are handed interesting images all the time. I get it. Ivory Flame is (to me) something of a legend -- a model I've seen out and about in the world since I began this schtick and who has this amazing British Romantic Realism vibe that is uniquely her own. I was STOKED to hear she was heading toward Oregon because it's not every day I get to work with LEGENDS and this shoot was all that AND a bag of chips. First off, she is simply wonderful. A great vibe and one of those striking models who are bigger on-camera. I have things to chew on for the foreseeable future as she moved through the shoot with a determination to create the best shot we could. Have I used the word "amazing" TOO much yet? Not possible.

I have, on more than one occasion, semi-joke that I am skewing my understanding of human beauty but the actual fact is that most of the best models I know could walk past you on the street and you wouldn't look twice. They tend to be nondescript in dress and manner (and, yes, there ARE exceptions, so don't come at me!), yet transform into unique and striking figures in front of the lens.

Were I to meet Ivory in an English tea parlor I might imagine her a school teacher -- her kindness and softness perhaps particularly attractive to elementary children. These are probably qualities that help a great model navigate the world of aging photographers in search of images promoting eternal youth.

As I take a first look through our images I am struck by her chameleon nature and clear sense of DRIVE to make something wonderful. I don't think that I was particularly challenging her but I certainly appreciate the malleability and determination she brought to our work. Wowee, zowee!

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Yes, I edited this on my phone using prosumer tools. I like it. Tomorrow is another day.

I think I’m a little leery of working with new people. Not because of any bad experience but just because. But I had a great vibe about Ivory Flame. She is legend. And of course it just worked like that. Clearly an exceptional human.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

I am never not enamored of this.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I don't think I've ever posted this in the wider world. Long-time muse and amazing creative partner HaileyJ in frame. More in the alt-text. #fadingsummer #meadow #classic #pose #muse #strong #bold #beautiful #environmentalnude #nudeinnature

This year marked a full decade of photography. From an enthusiastic start with saturated colors to the discovery of The Great Outdoors to finally a more considered portrait focus, it's been an amazing journey. Hailey was one of the first people I met and I remain duly impressed with her quietly adventurous spirit and practical eclecticism. More than anyone else, she and I have wandered through conversations that really made me think and brought me to re-evaluate those thoughts. Over the years I've spoken to other photographers whose reaction to my home base of Portland has been to immediate exclaim "That's where Hailey is from! She's WONDERFUL!"

This image is part of a series that remain among my immediate favorites and which I continue to return to in search of some magic edit that will pour the experience of the day over the viewer. I don't know what YOU see in it because to me it comes with a whole day of experiences wrapped around it as well as YEARS of adventure and smiles.

Hailey (and other wonderful local models those first years) illuminated a niche that I didn't even realize existed when I threw myself into it. I began to picture an ecosystem that introduced me to an entire history of photography and the wandering women who inspire and inhabit the flood of imagery that creates the pixels of our world. It's really amazing. I open websites or follow rabbit holes and here are the faces of my friends set central to other visions. And I think it's wonderful. It's so inspiring to see the wide wild weird world of human imagination channeled through and bent, like light around gravity, by their presence.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

There is an argument in my mind regarding figurative art. I am willing to accept the idea that I actually AM the dreaded "male gaze" -- no argument. I think @jordanrivermuse.bsky.social is stunningly beautiful but I'd argue that....oh hell....goddamn text limit...more in the alt-text.

Over the years I've had the thought that Jordan and I are saying the same thing but in different languages. I won't make any apologies for preferring to work with models whom I adore -- it's their presence and conviviality that make the shoots FUN and I am, after all, a freaking hobbyist so FUN is what should be happening. I was INCREDIBLY intimidated by Jordan before our first meeting, now almost a decade ago. She had shot with some photographers I really admired and her tag-line was "the witch is IN" and I was all-too-aware that I had no idea what I was doing when I reached out to her. I wish I could say that the first shoot was all that and a bag of chips but I was, honestly, just awful. There were a number of things that I was attempting that did not lend themselves to success and I had a few basic technical misunderstandings that sabotaged everything I did. And I think that I didn't really offer the set and setting that was going to resonate with Jordan. It's taken a while. But at some point things started to click and my stubbornness paid off and I can anticipate that our meetups will be productive and hilarious and maybe ridiculous in the best of ways.

I "believe" (and I put that in quotes deliberately) that Jordan is working out a puzzle within herself that I'm not privy to but that I can learn to anticipate. She has a particular approach to modeling that lends itself to universal imagery and a particular urge toward ridiculousness. I had expected to meet a terrifying and imposing figure and what I got was a warm and witty collaborator.

Figurative art continues to amaze me with its variations. I'm not much interested in glam or bikini-esque styles. THIS picture could be considered being "about" boobs but there's a mood and emotion that really makes the nudity secondary. Do we NEED nudity? I dunno. I find that I'll come around a corner and see some amazing vista and my SECOND thought is that there should be a nude right over THERE and the pose should probably be uplifting or downcast or from behind or just proud. I can't imagine things without a nude. My bad? I don't think so.

I want to shoot work that is gorgeous and emotional and something that we can look at and imagine stories. I don't think bikini fulfills those criteria, in general. In the various platforms I see a LOT of amazing work that inspires me to do better -- anything by Frances in Frame, for example -- and I'm pretty hard on myself. I can easily get caught up in the sheer erotic beauty of a woman. Truth. Women are just gorgeous. I have always appreciated that. I've seen a lot of cautions to never say such things but I don't think that a truly appreciative "THAT is BEAUTIFUL" is weird or disliked. That IS within a context of professionalism -- I'm not saying it leeringly or sexually. When I turn the camera around and share the image I think my collaborator is going to agree that THAT is beautiful!

Perhaps it's advancing age (dear god, am I old enough to say that?) but I just adore my regular models. At this point I'm tending toward women in their 30's or 40's or 50's. No offense to dewy 18-yr-olds but for the most part they simply don't have the life experience to present themselves as people. LOL. There's another story there but I'm out of space again....

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I'm always so amazed at the innumerable and endless ways that a creative mind can find to present themselves. Hailey and I have had long conversations (which I must admit have deeply informed my thinking) in which I've been able to watch her turn an idea around...more in the alt-text.

Hailey never left an idea unmolested. I see the same trait in many of my model friends -- a tenacious desire to get the shot, to find a new pose, to draw energy and inspiration out of a new location. Over and over again I find myself thinking that providing a setting and maybe a mood is the photographers biggest job when it comes to turning a great model loose to play.

When I began, I'd review a shoot and see certain images that "worked" for me. A few years later I returned to the archives and would find totally different images that suddenly held more meaning and depth. When I open them up now I see the way the model works to the light, maneuvers with or against my movements. I see the determination.

It's also cool to see how different models handle the same set -- I've returned to a handful of ideas over time and even something as simple as a particular rock can evoke so many different moods. This shoot, inspired by murky lighting from the top of the box truck and a free roadside piano, didn't need anything else but the slickness of the coconut oil gave it a weird twist. I ran it twice with two fantastic models and each veered into their own interpretation, each fantastic. You can find more from this in the summer '24 issue of ION-Magazine (which I highly recommend -- a labor of love for figurative art that is well worth checking out!).

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

While THAT house party was an awesome collection of old people in t-shirts trumpeting their allegiance to bands of the 90's, I also went out with an ace band to do a couple backyard parties for overly-wealthy boomers....more in the alt-text.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I haven't been posting a lot because it's SUMMER and I've been out having a ball. Our summer concert series at Topaz Farm sold out almost all the shows and every band has been wonderful. I did two very different house parties this past week...more in the alt-text.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

It's summer and I'm not around the internet as much (because....summer!) HOWEVER I had some wine last night and got snacky and the only thing I could find were some mushroom chocolates and SURELY this little nibble wouldn't DO anything.....lol. I woke up at 4am high AF.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

The eternal dichotomy. I'm a working stiff so summer has become where the work is and I'd rather be playing. Boo. Hiss. Now, on the bright side, work is OK -- I'll be mixing Horse Feathers as they do a "chamber Americana" performance in the meadow next week. Not bad. More in the alt-text.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Hoooooboy. Have to take apart my favorite camera/lens combo and figure out wtf happened on the last shoot. I've had a stuck focal point before, and KNEW it had happened earlier in the day, but thought I had managed to get it unstuck. Not the case. Fuuuuuuuck. #goddamnit #makeitartsy

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

The internet is almost like the Old Days in that people simple move on and disappear. More in the alt-text.... #mask #pierced #captured #photoshoot #pdxphotographer #snowday

I think I met Nicholas in Portland's Galleria, a shopping center built around an elevator. He was a gaunt goth-y kid whose musical tastes ran all the way from Gary Numan to Bauhaus. For about 45 days we tried to form a band in the basement of a bike messenger house riddled with fleas and runaway teenagers. I don't think I lived there longer than two months before I fled for somewhere with a reliable shower and without a large hornet nest in the oven. We didn't have personal phones in those days and nobody could afford a landline. I probably didn't tell anybody where I was going and I never saw Nicholas again. There had been a curvy redhead gal who worked at the local pizza joint and brought end-of-night leftovers so that she could sit on the stairs and watch us struggle with our instruments. Never saw her again, either.

Likewise, I've met some really amazing people via photography. I've never pushed for a lot of persona information and sometimes they just vanish into the internet, never to be seen again. This image features "A", a model I contacted on ModelMayhem and who went the extra mile to make it to a remote location through a snowstorm. I was suitably impressed and a year later she contacted me to do some maternity pictures for her, which I think came out really well. I heard from her again when she was moving to Portland but since then all of her contact points have bounced back and I don't know how her story goes . It's too bad -- we talked about doing some baby pictures and I really enjoy working with people through the passage of time. Looking back at this afternoon in a remote cabin makes me think about what the next shoot might have been like....

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

One rambling cabin in the dark woods on a dark day. One bright light in the middle of the room. What ghosts emerge?

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

We were in one of the more remote parts of the Death Valley complex and the phrase of the week was "extraordinary rendition". Just another year of America doing stupid things in its supposed "defense". #desert #cactus #deathvalley #improbable #pdxphotographer #roadtrip #redwine

We had stopped at this particular juncture because we were lost. Well...not LOST but we assuredly were confused by the map we were following and why it was no longer tracking with our surroundings. Our GOAL was a semi-mythical spring and we had come up over the pass, snow lining the road at the top, and carefully picked our way back down into summer. Everything perfectly on the map. And then nothing was on the map and the map didn't bear any resemblance to where we were and things kept getting less and less traveled (even by backcountry DV standards) and then it all just petered out and we were alone in a cactus-adorned valley. Seemed like a good place to take some pictures and have some lunch and eye our rapidly-dwindling supply of red wine. We were in agreement that the actions of our government were immoral and illegal and thought this little vignette illustrated something pertinent to it. I still really like it.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

@katerimodel.bsky.social , apparently gaining a set of fairy wings in the process. #roadtrip #adventure #artmodel #pdxphotographer More in the alt-text.

It just doesn't seem possible to say enough good things about my art model friends. I know how hard it is to run a day-to-day business, PARTICULARLY one that keeps you in motion. When I'm traveling I always have unrealistic expectations that I'm going to have time to check email and respond or go through messages. It never happens. That experience underpins my admiration for the organizational skill to keep on top of appointments amid travel.

We made a big loop up the Columbia Gorge and along the southern edge of Mount Adams, did a little emergency car repair, and still had time to jump into lava fields, a collapsed lava tube, a gorgeous mountain lake and then my favorite "secret" waterfall. I love meeting new people and I love showing off this beautiful place we live so it was just a delightful day, despite the high cost of recreational driving these days.

Did I already rave about my new lens? It's an old Nikkor macro -- a 200mm tube that offers amazing compression at the far end of its focus range. I had a good idea how to best employ it on this outing and it performed exactly as expected. It definitely takes a serious amount of distance and I almost feel like we need radios to talk to one another when we get that far apart in a waterfall environment. LOL.

In this shot, we get some random branches that suggest the outline of a gossamer wing and a bit of white fabric outlines her nicely. What fun. What a gorgeous start to summer!

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

"Fairies wear boots, you gotta believe me. I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes." More in the alt-text. The absolutely wonderful Kate Ri (I have to find her handle here) in frame. #roadtrip #adventure #whoops #lesschwabtires #faires #forestgoddess #travelingmodel #pdxphotographer

Kate popped out of her hotel onto the sidewalk, backlit by an early morning sun pouring up Glisan Street, and I knew it had to be her by the particular red of her hair. I had a good idea where we were headed but hadn't found time for a particular scouting trip which turned out to be a great thing because the road I planned to take was closed so when my right front tire blew we were only a few miles into the mountains from Hood River and still in cell service to get our friendly Les Schwab tire guy out of the shop and up for a new tire. Lucky lucky lucky. Had we taken the road I wanted we would have been out of service and when we drove it later we saw absolutely ZERO other vehicles on the road.

We spent the time waiting for a new tire planning a backup idea (I'm sure I would have eventually figured out that I was using the wrong end of the tool to try to release my under-car spare) and telling stories of European castles and American battlefields. Kate was ready to bushwhack downhill to the river to keep us on target but luckily we were fixed up and back on the road slightly faster than that.

Kate visited at a time that I was really wondering about my role in photography and whether model photography was even what I wanted and I think she put my questions to rest. I've been privileged to know a lot of amazing women in my life, the last decade of art models definitely among them, and their portrayal seems like something that I can't even imagine walking away from. Kate's amazing, my models friends are inspiring and wonderful, I think women in general are just wonderful. I still have a lot of questions but maybe there are a lot of different answers?

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

It has been the better part of a decade and yet I still return, over and over, to re-edit this first shoot with @lucyartmodel.bsky.social. More in the alt-text. #photoshoot #wonderful #classic #grecian #amazing

The lingering education of a good shoot is one of the things that has kept me addicted to this amazing tribe of traveling art models. We have, I think, conflicting desires at times -- they want to move to the best light and find the ingredients for the shot while I want to confuse my camera sensor and see how much I can fuck it up while still recovering an image later. It's a bit of a maelstrom.

But long after they have moved on I can pore over the results and learn new lessons. TBH, I don't learn DURING the shoot -- I'm just gobsmacked at the pose and the perfection and how goddamn amazing everything is. I cannot quite imagine being so jaded as to wave someone off...."Nein! Nein! Hip LEFT, hands RIGHT!" as if my vision were somehow sacrosanct!!?!! LOL. As if...

The act of grappling with the archive is itself a learning curve. Maybe it comes out in work I'll do next week or the year after but mainly it helps me understand where I've been. Technically, this deep forest shot of Lucy suffers from too much contrast and the blinding glare of skin in a patch of light. Yet I find myself drawn to it over and over. What can I do with this? How do I edit it? If it were perfect from the first moment, what would I learn?

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Sometimes the stories and the pictures do NOT go together. More in the alt-text, should you care to think about our attraction to excitement and roller-coasters and situationships. The one and only @lucyartmodel.bsky.social in recline (because art models and rocks?). #roadtrip #pdxphotographer

This image seemed appropriate because the jumble of giant boulders, the human form made smaller when one thinks of the massive forces that tossed these things here. I've never been a roller coaster or slasher flick fan -- I think I simply feel them too much and I don't want to internalize that kind of terror and fear. On the other hand, I've always had an insistent ability to walk into a party and see someone across the room and go "oh, that one. That'll leave scars."

In a moment worthy of Feris Bueller, my parents had left town when Randy arrived at the party I was throwing in their absence. All summer, Randy had talked about this girl in a summer theater program. "Kelly, Kelly, Kelly....you'll love Kelly." I can clearly remember meeting them at the door and only half-hearing his introduction trailing off. We stood there like idiots for a couple of minutes with our hands together, just sort of nodding. I don't think it was more than fifteen minutes later when I abandoned my own going-away party to walk up to the elementary school playground and sit on the tire mountain with this incredible young woman and trade our deepest secrets and lose ourselves in making out. Kisses that lasted forever under a warm Seattle sky.

Another girlfriend arrived as the new roommate of a friend and we saw something in one another that was so mutually undeniable that all we could do for the next three months was sneak away to the nearest coat closet for a quickie. Another girlfriend and I got thrown out of a Thanksgiving dinner because our friends got tired of the energy -- we had been dating for a couple months and sitting on opposite sides of the table was apparently creating an awful lot of tension.

After one mid-air breakup, something like an airliner being hit by anti-aircraft fire, I retreated to Bend, OR to join a younger friend in his Passover observances. SHE walked into the room and I swear that the ceiling lifted and a ray of light illuminated her and only her. It took a little bit to work around to introducing myself but when I did she smiled and said, "I know...I asked already." And there I was, fifteen minutes later, still standing in front of the fireplace holding her hands when I dug around inside myself and said, "y'know, this...THIS...feels amazing but I just got out of something and I'm going to go ahead and go now instead of wherever we were about to go." And letting go her hand, walked out the door and ran like a scalded dog the four or five miles back to my friends place to get in my car and drive out into the desert and spend a night alone under chilly Spring stars.

What IS this? I'm a huge believer in romantic love but have perhaps skewed my perception of it by associating it with this "Chosen One" feeling? If I'm being honest, half my major relationships have LACKED that feeling so I think I can differentiate between an available lust and an overwhelming need. But when that sensation hits, when someone stays in color while the rest of the room goes to black and white....wowzah. And it's always been both ways. The connection doesn't seem to really kick in unless it IS. With Kelly, as a teenager, I was sure it was "twoo wuv" (with a nod to Princess Bride) but is it simply a byproduct of meeting a certain number of people?

Years ago I knew an enterprising young man who would make it a point to simply undress everyone he was speaking with (he WAS rather indiscriminate). I asked him how that worked and he said, "well, about one in ten will let me get them naked and about half of those will want to take it further. I get slapped a lot, too."

Is it all just in the odds? Meet a hundred people and one will have that resonance that gives you a spiritual roller coaster ride? Or is it just putting out the Sir Psycho Sexy vibe that causes reciprocation?

Was it more accessible when I was younger or did I just get out more and meet more people to find the vibe? You'd think there'd be more research into these connections between people. They're clearly chemical and pheromonal, but also transcendent and primal. The wild ungrounded energy of two people who really really can't stand that it's been an hour since they last fucked is as obvious as a house on fire.

My first ex, Katie, and I had that wild ungrounded energy and I can still FEEL the sensation we had during our first night together -- a bright blue spark, like an electrical cable hitting the ground or a lightning bolt. It surprised us both and we stopped and looked at one another and said, "did we? did that? are we?" and sure enough....we were pregnant. And we knew it the second it happened.

I've had a few of these undeniable meetups that didn't turn into anything -- a girl in Ballard who had slipped out of a party to go play pool down the hill and looked up at my own arrival and said, "took you long enough" before whisking me off to her apartment where she kept me for the next few days until I eventually had to take the train back to Portland, long after my band had left Seattle.

I'm in awe of those moments. That mutualness to the energy between two people. And it's inexplicability (or maybe not, maybe someone has explained it and I've missed that bit of hippie lore?). Where does it come from and where does it go and how do we sustain it or should we even try? It's a lot for a Sunday morning before coffee.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Across so many different forms I can see things that I want, that make sense, but also find barriers, gulfs in-between worlds. More in the alt-text. #achievement #failure #photography #music #life @jordanrivermuse.bsky.social in frame.

I heard Sonic Youth on the UW radio station, late at night. Maybe the same radio show that mentioned The Metropolis, an all-age music club on the 2nd Ave extension just up from the Kingdome. The bands there were all SO different. I remember a little clique of older kids (they might have been 18 or 20) who read Schopenhauer and played a weird Euro-wave Tubeway Army-style sound. They were vaguely Nazi youth but maybe more on the fashion end? I dunno -- there were no minorities around to persecute so they felt a little drifty. And there were bands who sounded like Credence Clearwater Revival but as done by The Cramps or who obviously smoked dope to The Doors but also wanted to be Zeppelin but didn't have the chops so they were just punk. You never knew what to expect and I was 15 and drinking it all in. I was never cool enough to be in the crowd that understood Swans. I can't identify the barrier but I do have a soft spot for a melody.

When I started playing in a band I wanted to be The Replacements but I was never talented enough to be that sloppy. It took me months to perfect the most basic chord change and the naturalness of music as a living breathing disaster always escaped me. I could SEE it, just out of reach, never attainable.

Like a band, photography is a sort of team sport as I've built it. SOMEBODY has to be in front of the camera and it's not going to be me. But they DO get to be me because I'm going to filter them, edit them, and try to capture something of myself by portraying them. Wild. What a stupid idea but yet here we are, ten years in, and I actually think it's working. I try to see a little bit of myself in the picture and then amplify it and I fail every time, falling into the gulf between here and there. But then I jump again.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Lessons learned cheap are the best lessons. More in the alt-text. @earthyeva.bsky.social in frame in the new issue of UnTamed with a signature clearly not my own. LOL. #publishing #blackandwhite #retro #playful #pdxphotographer

While I learned photography in my own way, mostly back-ass-wards, I did one good thing in quickly moving to shoot RAW for the archive. Maybe two -- I started being better about backups after having a hard drive die on me very early in the process. One of these winters I'm going to go through all of it and create a concise archive with key words. LOL.

The first couple years revolved around the idea of how far I could push the sensor itself and the resulting mess of pixels didn't seem to NEED much editing so I didn't. The Pandemic gave me some time to dive into Lightroom and it was needed because I had just moved outdoors and was relearning gain structure and wresting with how to keep an identifiable style when dealing with the world of reality. It's hard to make the pixels lie but I found that shooting through modifiers was often a starting point. I was also hitting the point of my therapy where women weren't simply monsters in darkness but had become whole people with a story I wanted to convey to the viewer. Very different! Edits became a thing.

Ten years in this year and I'm becoming more comfortable being aggressive with editing. And the ideas change over time. In the initial moment after a shoot, I might pull things that jump out at me and give them a little gloss. Come back to something months later and the moods look different. Revisiting after a couple years and I might pull photos apart to crop deeply and see how contrasty we can get, what does maximum grain look like?

Have to give a shout-out to Eva, who has become a huge part of that journey and a great friend as she moves through her own. It's wonderful to have a group of amazing models here in Portland whose enthusiasm has continued to inspire and push my own impulses. Hailey, Floofie, Jordan and Joey come to mind as pillars of wisdom -- the archive continues to teach new lessons long after the shoot is past.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

I ordered a filter for an upcoming shoot (wheeee!) and the company included a maze of extras to show me what a great deal I was getting....happy ending in the alt-text. @lucyartmodel.bsky.social enjoying a summer day, re-edited. #artmodel #waterfall #oregon #roadtrip #pdxphotographer

Nerdstuff for photogs. I ordered a "golden haze" lens from Retrotropia and they piled my online cart full of extras to show me what great folks they are. Got the shipping notice and a notice that their presets were available for download. Now, I've never used presets as a regular thing and I have a bit of skepticism about them. When I started out a decade ago I was pushing the sensor so hard in such stupid ways that post-processing seemed like overkill. When I moved out of the studio a few years in I discovered I had taught myself things backward and had to relearn the gain structure.

As we hit the Pandemic I found myself with some unexpected free time on my hands and in an effort to avoid panicking I started learning Lightroom. And post-processing became less of a dirty word. I find that the denser GUI of Lightroom Classic and Photoshop don't really make sense to me as a casual user but that the updated GUI of Creative Cloud did. It was a good time to jump in and I feel pretty proficient on the Lightroom side now (if still sheepish that I am so instantly confused by the older version). But presets have still been scorned as the sort of thing that influencers tout.

But I figured since I was HERE, I'd look at Retropia's presets and see what they were about. But the download link led to a revolving door of "enter your account information" and "something went wrong". I decided to write them and let them know and a nice AI on their support team (I assume "Bradley" is a bot by his promptness and thoroughness) got back to me with a direct link and an apology. Honestly, bots might be an improvement in general customer service.

Shit, I'm gonna need another picture to continue this.....

The direct link was easy, I downloaded my first batch of presets and spent 45 minutes figuring out a few basics. I know LR well enough now to realize HOW they're doing most of it. And then realizing that maybe one way to use them is to take an edited set, export, bring it back in (thus setting MY edits in stone) and then batch process with a preset at whatever level. Honestly, I kinda like what they sent. Certainly entertaining! I went nuts just to see what I could do to push an image and then went back and found fault with the unnaturalness of some of the looks and hauled it way back. I kinda liked what I got when adding a couple of them to these two images and it honestly looks more like my memory of the real thing than the photographs originally managed.

So there I am, accepting a new tool.

I'm still way more excited about the "golden glow" filter that's on the way. There's another waterfall and sunny day in my near future and we'll see what we can get out of physical reality with that.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

I have rarely been so amazed and awed as I am by this shot of @jordanrivermuse.bsky.social who remains expressive even from this angle. #muse #artmodel #pdxphotographer #roadtrip #oregon #hallway #schoolhouse

Ugh. Isn't that what the kids say now? I love the honesty in this. It's gorgeous and sexy without being any of the tropes. Jordan has such strength and emotion in her and it comes through no matter HOW I shoot her. Oh, I'll admit that I love a good "sexy" moment and I'll just chalk that up to my guy-ness but THIS? Fucking sublime. Thanks, Jordan.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

Some of my favorite images are just out and out smears of light. More in the alt-text. Lumi in frame on the cover of a fancy French magazine. #pdxphotographer #rivercanyon #environmentalnude #roadtrip

Sometimes I drive myself crazy that I didn't manage to handhold a sharper image. Then I haul a 30lb tripod into some remote river and completely fail to use it because I just want to chase the moment from different angles that can't be done with a damned tripod. And then this evening I was hunting around my probably-not-so-secret back-end portal and seeing an incredible collection of images deep in grain and blur and honestly wonderful as long as I don't pixel peep. What is the truth of the thing? Is there a value in sharpness or imagination in blur? I look at the collection of work HERE and mostly all I can think is that I'm bummed at the number of images I love that have some kind of NIPPLE attached to them which make them unpalatable to my digital overlords. The work here is decently representative, it just seems stupid to cut out a breast to satisfy some prurient interest. But there you go. Same handle at Bluesky without the cenorship. But I'm still puzzled as to whether I can deal with grain and noise. Does it matter? I'd say not but then I'll fuss over it. Jeeeeezus.

In recent years I've been more drawn to environmental nudes -- finding fun getaways that give inspiration to myself and the model with our surroundings. Light might be tricky but I have gotten better at Lightroom and handier with editing. I am still sometimes envious of the seemingly casual grainy throwaways that I see by others. And sometimes I try my hand at that but it doesn't always feel right. Hmmmmm. Win some, lose some.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

The face is the sexiest thing. Oh, there's fun to be had with silhouettes or angles but I will maintain that the emotions playing across a face are the human connection with which we all find attachment. More in the alt-text. #portland #artmodel #oiled #messy #bold #moment #photoshoot

Hailey was my first call when I saw swung the door up and saw the piano glowing in the murky light of the stained translucent roof of the truck we had just bought. On the way home I saw a piano with a free sign at the side of the road and, y'know, we had a TRUCK with a ramp so we pushed the thing up and headed back to the shop.

Hailey was pretty much always my first call. Totally unafraid, always quirky, and just a fantastic creative powerhouse. There are literally entire BOOKS of the work we did over the course of about four really obsessive years. What a blessing it is to have under-employed friends!

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

When I met Hannah she was a hostess at a Red Robin and I was immediately struck by her damned-near-angelic demeanor. #amateur #amazing #gorgeous #hotelroom #glam #pdxphotographer. More in the alt-text.

Her genuine enthusiasm for everything around her was contagious. She put her arched eyebrow to good use, too, noting that an office worker across the street from the 5th floor hotel room we were in seemed to be VERY interested in our playtime. I suggested we change gears and she said, "oh, no - let's give him a show! I think he's calling his wife to tell her he has to work late!" and proceeded to quite-innocently giggle her way through a gorgeous strip-tease with the draperies and a fur coat.

I've met a couple of people who really stand out for just being extraordinary people. The amazing Lucy Artmodel from Australia is one and Hannah's temperment seemed very similar -- I just could not imagine a cross word coming from her. Which isn't to say that either is a Pollyanna. Just that their basic nature seems to find good things to focus on and so pulls good things from the people around them.

Sadly, Hannah and I only shot a few times before losing her to what I assume were the confines of a "jealous boyfriend". Oh, it doesn't have to be awful but the moment passed and last I saw of them was living in a trailer somewhere outside Barstow. I hope her ability to see wonder and joy hasn't dimmed any.

The guy in the window across the street was pretty clearly at the end of his workday when we began and Hannah chortled at his phone call. Lots of expansive gestures...."totally unexpected....have to get 'er done, babe....." and then he settled in to enjoy the show. She seemed to like it and insisted on staying in the window. As we lost light I'm guessing that the glare of cars and streetlights eventually made us less observable and he finally gave up and we moved on to other parts of the suite. Earlier in the day I had happened past a box of reel-to-reel tape sitting atop a dumpster and we put it to good use.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

I've always really enjoyed environments that dare the camera sensor to keep up with the human eye. #overload #hotspring #bathhouse #wet #nude #beautiful

Shooting in the old bathhouse was a challenge of water, steam and light. Slanting sunlight set up areas of high contrast with the pale skin of my model exploding while the smallest of turns dropped her into total darkness. There was definitely a lot of failure.

It is also, I can imagine, difficult to conceptualize what I'm seeing on the part of the model. I usually share back-of-camera looks a lot but that was a little harder as I was trying to keep my Nikon dryish and keep Ashley in some kind of flow. I try to imagine it all from her point of view: floating in water, moving in and out of sparkling light, occasional yelps and cheers from the nut job photographer who talked you into this....lol. But the best shoots have TONS of failure. A crappy shoot might have a lot of OK results. I really love this image. It's not OK. Maybe it's terrible. But it's compelling, to me. The way the light catches steam rising off her. The mystery of her shadowed face gives an anonymity that rises above being "pretty". Is it threatening. Is it accepting? It's probably up to each of us.

There's always a desire to make something PRETTY when I meet a new person. Something they can feel good about and share with their friends. But I love it when we make it past pretty and move into powerful. It seems to me like the kind of thing you might frame and take solace from every once in a while. "I was that person" or "I can be that person again".

This was the first time I met Ashley and we chatted a little after as I did a few edit series on the shoot. A year later I drove out to her home town to shoot a really gorgeous pregnancy shoot for her and a year later she had pulled out of the internet, left her home town and pretty much disappeared. I hope her world is good wherever she is.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Just taking a break from rage-scrolling and creating a social media record that will get me picked up by the Internal Police in a few years. More in the alt-text. #photography #noai #manualphotos #pdxphotographer #modelphotography #blurry

I am REALLY loving this concept. And I love, mostly, that it's an analog real-world process. Oh, it certainly results in a LOT of failure but the resulting chaos is wonderful fun during the winter months when I get to try to pick meaning out of the box.

I think I've tried this five times and each time has yielded drastically different results, each episode dear to me for different reasons. And the editing process helps teach me SOMETHING about how to approach it...although those lessons are difficult to remember and implement in the next moment.

Illyria has her trademark wisp-of-hair in full force for most of these and I found that it became the thing I was able to focus on and pull through each picture. It lends both a touchstone to recognize and an intimacy that I really like.

Of late, I've spent a lot of time looking at other photographers and questioning my own approach to nude art. What do I want for my images? I saw someone I respect discussing a similar moment and his thinking was that he wanted to focus in on a style, to make his work more recognizable. I'm not sure about that idea. A few people have mentioned to me that they can see a common approach across my work and after a decade I'm beginning to think that as well. It's not whether it's color or monochrome, blurs or crisp....it's something less definable in the FEEL and I think I like that. I've seen photographers who shoot the exact same thing over and over and over and over and while they may have an exceptional thing going on it seems like a constricting box to place yourself into.

I've spent a lot of time looking up my favorite models, too, and I'll try to choose my words carefully. Every photographer deserves the lessons brought by a fantastic model who is attempting to discern and carry out the vision of the moment. And as a viewer I can certainly appreciate a great "nude in nature" or even just a bit of T&A. No lie. I like it. As the guy behind the camera, however, I would really like to NOT add to the flood of sameness. Most particularly, I guess, I would want my mother or my daughters to be able to step into my work and not have it be gross. I appreciate women as erotic or sexual beings PERSONALLY but that's not where I want my headspace to be "professionally". And I guess I should be honest with myself and note that I'm aware that I've missed that as much as I've hit it. It's an aspirational goal and it's become more achievable as I've grown.

Does that sound snobby or all high and mighty? Literally, the thing I love about these shots is that I could do this with my Mom. Not literally...she's dead. And she wouldn't have done it anyway. But you get the idea. My personal vision of nude art is to transcend the nudity and give the viewer something interesting to puzzle over. Look at it long enough and a story comes into focus. It won't always play out that way but those are the ones that I really get excited about.

Maybe the other driving force here is a compulsion toward a feeling of intimacy. NOT to imply that I (the photographer) am being sexually intimate with them (the model), which is a theme I think we all see from time to time among photographers. But an intimacy that the viewer, that mythical person standing in front of an object on the wall, can FEEL connected with as they take it in.

I think a lot of this comes from a lifetime of really amazing connections with women. Lots of connection also implies a good number of disastrous endings but the thing I've taken away from each is how amazing it has been to know them and to be involved with a number of really strong and unique women. High-powered legal eagle, political activist, lingerie enthusiast, industrial fashion linchpin, artist, engineer....they've all been very different intellectually as well as physically. Tall, short, brunette, redheaded, Welsh, German, Hungarian or Hawaiian. Some of it has been terribly painful but it's all been amazing and it's pictures like this one that convey all of those feelings from me to you. This last decade I've used photography as a relationship-substitute and I think it's been pretty healthy for me.

So I keep looking for ways to....kind of..anonymize my models. I love a good face and portrait but when elevating out of "oh, pretty" to "what the fuck is going on" I think it's helpful to keep it from being an overly-specific person. Let the viewer fill in with their imagination and their own story to provide clarity.

To some degree, I realize that my favorite models aren't the best for where I want to wind up with this work. They have too much personality and it becomes (OH so arduously) a document of who THEY are in the moment and THEIR story. I don't mind it a bit. But their strength of personality provides a stumbling block to that tabula rasa that would let the story move ahead without interference.

For all her recognizable beauty, Illyria does an excellent job of becoming transparent to the moment. The past few years have seen her become one of the more recognizable art models in the upper tier but it SEEMS as though she maintains an anonymity, a remove from the moment, that lets her better fulfill that next step of becoming universal. That's a big load to put on anyone but it seems that way to me.

The best part of this whole pastime is that the chase can go on forever. There's always a new way to tell the story because we are, in essence, creating a storyboard for the viewer to detail. I don't know what the story will be when you stand in front of it. Amazing.

I'm reminded of an early song by Husker Du that my teenage-self loved and obsessed over. It was written by a gay man and I eventually found out that it was for another man and about the insecurities of a young male-male relationship. It was ambiguous enough that a testosterone-addled 15-year-old could sing along and think about the girl who sat two seats ahead in Geography. It was a great song and the impetus behind it didn't matter. I still sing it and now it makes me think about the common experiences of infatuation between people. That's a great song.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Whew. Regal. Amazing. Bunny Luna mid-stream during a shoot in the Columbia River Gorge. #roadtrip #oregon #environmentalnude #naturalhabitat More in the alt-text.

I've always thought of nude art as a valid form of art therapy -- perhaps as much for my models as for me. And there remain things that I've held onto as so intimate and meaningful that I cannot figure out how to share them with the world without feeling like I'm giving up something that should be private. I've had this discussion with friends in other fields, too. Music can be so personal that sharing it becomes too much. And god forbid it become popular and you find yourself having to perform that emotional purge nightly. Yet we all DID it with the idea that we NEEDED to share these things. LOL.

And then there's the idea of nude art as prurient, somewhere on a continuum of sex work whose gradations get more and more blurred until you're tsk-tsk'ing a Pepsi commercial...or is it a bikini commercial with a side of soft drink? I've had a lot of reasons to gravitate into the nude (I seem to be terrible at shooting shoes, for example) but a lot of it simply reflects my own lifelong grapple with women and relationships and perhaps an overly-romantic worldview. I've been gratified NOT to get a lot of "hehehe" chortling from the peanut gallery on any of these sites -- I think I've blocked ONE person in a decade after they made a comment about a model. But I'm still wary of prurience. I'm not terribly comfortable sharing anything of a more-erotic nature simply to not jump in on that end of the genre. I've done a few couples shoots and private sessions that have been incredibly steamy but those are obviously not a public-facing thing. And I love the discrete beauty of a shot like this. In this moment, she is every woman, not tied to a specific time or space.

Floating in the moment.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

The gracious and wonderful Lucy Tyler peering through the pages of UnTamed Magazine. @lucyartmodel.bsky.social #roadtrip #oregon #pdxphotographer #abandoned #wonderful More in the alt-text.

I'm quick to admit that I do not understand the Kavyar/print-on-demand magazine world. It WANTS to be a pay-to-play environment but the hunger for content wins out. As a non-exclusive use, I find it worthwhile as an exercise to cull and consider shoots this way. And I've run across a few magazines that go beyond automated replies, much to their credit.

Kavyar itself seems to want to be ModelMayhem with a publishing arm...but pretty much is Eastern Europe-centric as far as those actually using it.

There are other projects in the works. It's always excited to hold a physical object in hand rather than always seeing this on a glowing screen.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

The desert, a patchwork of unexpected verdancy and vast patches of leaner vistas. It lies in a heat haze beyond the edge of the city. More in the alt-text. #roadtrip #abandoned #stories @zoecwest.bsky.social

Have I raved about Zoe West enough? I don't have to try very hard to find wonderful qualities in ANY of my touring friends. I love their wanderlust and their willingness to grapple with a constant stream of new (or old) ideas. As I see Zoe launching a summer campaign to get some dust in her hair again I had to go back to our last bit of vagabonding and it is even more delightful than I remember it.

Any shoot, no matter how good, is mostly failure. It's tough to gird myself and spend time with them right away. Sometimes I just need to let it sit and when I come back to it, with a cleansed palate as it were, or fresh eyes, it's never as terrible as I first pronounced.

The Pacific NW is on the verge of (over)heating into summer, probably earlier than we expect, again. I'm looking forward to some opportunities to exercise a creative click again, sketching paths that need to be driven and quiet places that we can sit with and draw inspiration from.

I'm ready for the desert.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

I really do love the way masks change the vibe. With the impeccable @jordanrivermuse.bsky.social . More in the alt-text. #artmodel #spooky #vibes #pdxphotographer #mask

I absolutely love working with Jordan. We go back almost to the beginning of my meander on this path and I can imagine it continuing on as we explore the future. I always find myself trying to balance two impulses -- there's the "how do we subvert the obvious" side versus the "I really want it to be pretty" side. They're both valid but figuring out how to integrate them is a constant challenge. I DO like "pretty". I just DO. But I also want to throw ideas into the mix and leave the viewer wondering "WTF?" LOL. I just DO.

Jordan is an ideal creative partner with this. I think she's incredibly naturally beautiful but she's also enthusiastic for things that take risks and undermine the everyday glamour shot. She has been instrumental in turning a lot of terrible ideas into successes and I could fill a book with our best moments together over the last decade.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 13/12/2025

This segment went on for awhile. I thought of it as a "honey, I found your old band recordings" and we drank vodka to give it the right vibe.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

A fantastic day in Topanga. Lumen is on to more ethereal pursuits but is certainly a force in anything she does. #pose #rocks #adventure #roadtrip #topangacanyon #california

This picture sorta sums up WHY I have such admiration and respect for art models. Honestly, the job is daunting and if anyone ever explained it carefully I'm not sure that any sane person would nod and go "well, that sounds GREAT!"

Meet a stranger, probably in an isolated place so that you can get naked without bothering others. Chat with said stranger to get some idea of their vibe and direction. Then try to BE that vibe and energy for the camera while doing something that interests YOU as well as looks good in the resulting images. Rinse/repeat. It's a complicated thicket of relationships, travel, communication, time management and self-care.

Running ANYTHING that involves other people is a challenge. I am always SO impressed with the cheerfulness and focus that my art model friends bring to every new day. And I've listened to enough stories to know that a cooler of healthy snacks and drinks goes a long way toward happiness on location. After having someone I regard as a living legend reach out the other day I'm plotting a whirlwind day trip around the Columbia River Gorge and trying to imagine angles of light, best times of day to shoot each location and then what extras we might need to make each location successful. If we do something with water early, we're going to need fresh towels for a second water location later. Warn the model if there's uneven hiking so that they don't wear flip-flops. I'm trying to think about what else would let the other pressures drop away so that they can be comfortable focusing into the moment at hand.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

I am tuckered but ready to go for the back half of this trip. Aaaand we are OFF! #roadtrip #photography

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Wonderful model-human Joey Darke making the holidays better. Maybe the neatest thing is when we make art that isn't what I expected, or even considered, and it's something that feels different than anything I've done previously. Winning!

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Three very important pictures. #resist #punk #8647 Seriously, is 8647 NOT a tag? C'mon. I've been 86'd from better dives than THIS.....

It's a total surprise to me to find myself supporting former FBI Director James Comey. I could understand it if he had been in the Secret Service -- I sold those guys acid at the 1984 Republican National Convention and in return they took a too-skinny 17-year-old on a bar crawl of Dallas strip clubs. Thanks, guys! As an adult, Comey is a straight-arrow who (arguably) got caught up in media madness and was probably never a bleeding heart liberal. On the other hand, I don't think he's a damned fascist. It's complicated.

I wound up at the '84 convention because I was "a young person interested in politics", or at least that was my line when shoulder-tapping for better credentials. I had arrived in Dallas armed with quart jars of good amphetamines, sheets of LSD and a copy of "Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail", which was MY Hunter S Thompson reference work that year. Also, the Dead Kennedy's were supposed to play at the protest across the street and I wanted to catch that. But I actually WAS into politics so I fell in with a bad crowd of Young Moral Majority and Young Americans for Freedom types (hey, Rick Grinnell -- wtf, remember that whole "Constitutional Conservative" schtick you were high on back then?) and wound up somewhere around the orbit of Mars while watching Reagan's acceptance speech with the Georgia delegation on the convention floor. Whoooboy. And then I headed back to the West Coast with my boss's girlfriend to start school in Eugene, OR....which was ANOTHER total change of pace for a radicalized suburban kid from Seattle!

Four months before heading to Dallas, however, I headed across the bridge into Seattle to see the newly-reformed Black Flag play the Mountaineers Hall. Coming over a rise and looking down the street to the venue I stopped to take it in: block after block of ambulances and police vehicles waiting for the inevitable.

I don't remember much about Nig Heist....I remember the Meat Puppets were absolutely bafflingly awful. I later heard a rumor that they were so stoned they had to be helped onto the stage. I'd believe it. There were a group of older hardcore punks in attendance who seemed deadset on a fight with the band. I've never understood it -- these guys were seldom in attendance but were ALWAYS trouble. They ruined every show they touched. Most of us in Seattle went to EVERY show so that everybody ELSE would come to OUR shows. No one scene had enough mass to sustain itself without common cause. I'd seen one Billy Idol-looking dickbag around before -- he had a bad vibe and began baiting Henry Rollins immediately, calling him a faggot while grabbing at Henry's lightweight gym shorts. Project much? The show got out of hand quickly and I can remember crew guys literally kicking punks in the head as they tried to crawl onstage.

I can't prove it but in this picture I'm the fuzzy, Sean Cassidy-haircut kid maybe one person back from the stage in the center. I held that position most of the show -- it was actually safer than the sides, where punks were using the speaker stacks to pry themselves up onto the stage and wrangling with security. Kira was the calm center of the band, staying a bit back and holding things together. Henry was.....well...he was Henry Rollins and while a lot of purists prefer the less-commercial Flag I think that this period was a pop-punk masterpiece.

Fuck, this was a great show.

I wobbled out of the venue after the show soaked in sweat, not all of it mine. It wasn't the first show that seemed like a religious experience but it was one of the pinnacles EVER.

When I think about great shows I think of almost every night at Metropolis, the headquarters of the underage scene in Seattle at the time. There were really amazing bands in Seattle that were taking new genres and twisting them around and even if they were terrible at least they were ON STAGE and trying. And then there were the out-of-town bands -- the Canadians who came down with proletariat punk, the San Franciscans who had high-brow art-rock....I saw Husker Du there and of course Agent Orange, notable as being the first time anyone tore out the PA system and replaced it with something better. That was the first time I realized that drums were a musical instrument and not simply percussive.

Alien Sex Fiend might have been one of the last Metropolis shows and I was pretty impressed at high-heeled British weirdos with mud and sticks in their shaggy hair.

There were other places and moments. Lydia Lunch at Graven Image. Jody Fosters Army getting the place closed down. Some amazing weird shows behind a grey door and a stairway into a wrecked open space inside the bowels of Seattle.

And then it was summer and I loaded up and drove to Texas and came back to school and never really went back. A few years later I'd be starting a band and doing sound in Portland and seeing The Jackals and Napalm Beach and Wipers and Hell Cows and Dharma Bums and our whole uniquely-weird scene do ITS thing up close. Up the road, Seattle was going pro, in a weird way, while my friends put together bands like Pond, Hazel, Thrillhammer, Bedspins and Sprinkler. Good fucking times.

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ExhibitPhotoPDX @exhibitphotopdx.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

I feel very fortunate to work with such amazing humans on a regular basis. A lot of it isn't visual -- it's just the warm and honest interaction of daily life. But when the camera comes out my friends are simply wonderful. #pdxphotographer #playful #nudeart #environmentalnude

When I met Eva there was a very long moment as I tried to come to terms that she had some uncanny similarities to a recent ex. It took a while for me to get over and I'm glad I did as she has become a wonderful friend and I deeply adore her for the person she is. Major benefit -- she just happens to be one of the most amazing touring art models on the planet. It's a finite tribe -- human beauty is distributed widely but the number of people willing to throw common sense to the wind and embark on a nomadic life in pursuit of interesting locations to be painted, sketched or photographed is far more limited. The tribe is fascinating to me, quite honestly. As a small business owner I recognize the labor that goes into managing their way of life and I've spent enough time on the road to have a massive respect for anyone who can juggle logistics and client relationships while moving between cities. I've tried it and kinda done it but despite our connected world it is incredibly difficult to both work AND work ahead -- particularly if you get off the beaten path and into scenic wilderness. Connectivity slows to a crawl and you find yourself weighing an extra hour of sleep against driving into some nearby town in search of reliable internet in order to tell someone that you really will be there next week. Throw in a new client every day and you deserve an honorary degree in multiple disciplines.

These pictures are all from a retreat to a century-old schoolhouse in rural Oregon. It happened to be the coldest day of the year and we struggled mightily to get the drafty building up to some kind of human temperature. Despite that, the warm fellowship of a wonderful group of women made the getaway a delight. My face hurt from laughing.

Jordan and I have been working together for a decade now and I can look back across an archive that both delights and infuriates me. There are a dozen or so images that remain among my favorites of all time and yet I still feel as though the best picture of Jordan is something I have yet to find.

We both, as it turns out, started our photographic journeys at roughly the same time. I didn't KNOW that, however, and was totally intimidated when I first met her and I was such a newb that our first shoots were simply disasters (completely on my end -- I can look back at that bit of the archive and see myself fuck it up in the face of an absolutely wonderful model). It was obvious that she was wonderful and in a rare moment of brilliance I managed to be stubborn enough not to give up and slink away in defeat. And then there was a moment where things just clicked into place and we began having shoots that were just EASY and delightful and, importantly, successful! The viewer might wonder how I could possibly screw it up in the first place and I don't have a quick answer for that but obviously I got over it.

I look at this particular image and am just enthralled with the shadow line along the breast and up to the shoulder. Jordan has an amazing dancers physique -- there might be a consistent fetish across my favorite models for delicate-yet-muscular shoulders? I don't tend towards overly skinny sorts -- the muscle-popping body-builder look isn't my thing but I definitely appreciate a more subtle strength.

Masks have become a regular thing for my shoots. I have always been "faces obsessed" (as the old Insta hashtag proclaimed) but there is something transcendent about a mask that places us into the realm of myth.

Early in my process I was obsessed with placing women into shadowy circumstances that could turn them into monsters. Masks are a little more concrete but fit well in my milieu. They take us out of the moment and into an epic mythology and I've always liked that -- I try to stay away from things that place us in a particular time or space. Masks suggest times other than our own and Jordan has been brilliant in embodying these moments.

I keep looking for new ways to express these archetypes. THAT process tends to fight with my urge to always try new things. There are a number of things I'd like to come back to revisit and there's also a deep dive as I begin a second decade of working with a particular group of models. Following them over time has yielded an incredible depth of work and I cannot wait to see where we go in a second decade.

Aaaaaaaaand Floofie.

I marvel at having Floofie as part of my local community and I can't say enough good things about her. Supportive and encouraging to everyone in the community, she is simply a rock star. Another major influence on my thinking about model photography, I was fortunate enough to meet Floofie very early in my so-called "career". She was my window into the larger community as I followed her travels and saw the circuit of other photographers -- I was able to pick out those whose worked seemed to hit a similar vibe and aim to become a peer. Following THOSE photographers, I was introduced to the models THEY worked with and I began to understand the overall environment of the art model tribe. I found myself with a mental map of the world dotted with pins -- a guy in Texas who specialized in underwater work, the NYC 'tog who attacked skyscraper rooftops in finest guerrilla-style or those whose work reflected their locale in subtlety or brazenness. Seeing it as a worldwide whole remains fascinating to me. Sometimes I despair because I'm never going to nail a picture down as well as the guy in Austria who shoots the same scene over and over and over and it's brilliant -- he swaps models and keeps everything exactly the same and it's a freaking amazing shot but I think I would cut my own wrists after a couple weeks of such a thing. Or the guy I just found today, perhaps a Belgian?, who has a definite thing for a particular type of model but portrays them so lovingly that they transcend themselves and become archetypes. Incredible.

Floofie is an archetype herself. She is instantly recognizable across time and space and has worked with so many photographers around the world that her image will last a thousand years whether the viewer will know it or not.

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