What’s up, Hive? I am pained with where I’m at in my life at this time and that has been most of this year. @tarotbyfergus’s reading for me 10 months ago said I was entering my Hermit journey and it’s been brutal and relentless. At times, totally defeating. There’s a lot I’ve left out of Hive posts for the sake of time and lacking the energy for deep, thoughtful, often uncomfortable free writes but a few weeks ago, @guthrie and I were in a car accident. We’re okay but the Tesla is totaled. Most recently, I’m feeling the weight of the Palestinian conflict. I can’t recall that last time I felt at peace in my heart.
One thing I’m grateful is that I landed a well paying art job working on an NFT project with @swarddraws. That’s added some stability to my life financially which gave me some breathing room to catch up on photography I owed from earlier this year. This first shot is with my longtime friend Stephany. We’ve shot together three times and this was our first collaboration on the west coast. She flew up to Los Angeles and met me at the Clark Gable estate. She’s such a chameleon with her presence and this shoot brought out a timeless Hollywood starlet. My favorite images of our three sessions together.
Manku Geal is one of my closes friends in the pinup world. She’s a goth Latina pinup with a Domme persona and a horror aesthetic. She’s straight out of a 70’s vampire film or Frazetta painting. We’d shot together in 2020 in the middle of COVID and quarantine, and honestly, it wasn’t my best work. This was a chance to make up for that session and we certainly did. I shot throughout the mansion and captured some of the strongest images in the garden around the estate. I love the color and composition of this shot. It looks like it could be a horror film poster.
Lastly, this photo is of my longtime friend and fellow Leo, @dressedtokillyou. She flew in from London and met me at the Gable estate […obviously that residence is a big part of my portfolio in Los Angeles]. We made use of the entire home and patio but this shot came in the guest bedroom. The owner of the mansion has such a flare for interior design and the Victorian decor and low light is the perfect compliment to my diegetic light approach to dark pinup photography. This shot was a really stand out from the entire session together.
