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Last Shot

This was towards the end of the 'return to key west' shoot, and we were all sunburned and weary from too much work and even more play. We'd spent the day in the back country--anytime you get on a boat you get so nice and tired after. We drank through it, naturally, and after dinner at 915 we headed upstairs to their cool little lounge called point five. Of course I was shooting pictures the whole time, obeying my urge to somehow bridge the staged scenario with a spontaneous snapshot sensibility. "Never not being watched," observed Ryan, wryly but also good-naturedly. After we were "done" we retreated to the back porch where my assistant Che promptly fell asleep, and Ryan sort of reclined against him. I pulled out my G9 and snapped it. I finally broke through the preconceived image and found something 100% real.

Moving Photographs

About 400 photos in about 4 minutes. For all 'return to key west' posts click here.

Vote Levi

My go-to model Levi Poulter is up for Mate of the Year at DNA Magazine. More reasons from 'return to key west' why he should get your vote below. (NSFW)

Lord Ottenbottom Welcomes The Carte Blanche

Just posted a little something about Thankgsiving in Key West over at my cocktail blog Embury. We took over the toolshed for the second year in a row and turned out some pretty awesome cocktails, I must say.

Full post here.

The Shower Shots

One of my favorite set of photos from return to key west are the ones we did in a friend's outdoor shower--one of the great benefits of life in the sub tropics. I think we hit it when the light was just right, too. More shots here (NSFW).

More below.

Tremor of Forgery

In the final panels of 'return to key west' Ryan's reading the Patricia Highsmith novel 'The Tremor of Forgery'. Why? In addition to a having a vivid orange and black cover that worked well with the yellow and orange striped sheet Ryan's laying on and with the intense hot sunlight of these shots, I'm also just a bit obsessed with the book. The author of 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' and the script for 'Strangers on a Train' tells a morally ambiguous, open ended (even for her) tale in this one. A writer goes to Tunisia to finish a screenplay for a studio and his world-and his world view-gradually, almost imperceptibly begins to fall apart, leaving him-and the reader-in some new unfamiliar place. It's a strange, engrossing book that bears a certain resemblance to 'The Sheltering Sky'. The North African desert seems to be a place where Westerners lose their way. Since discovering a copy at Powell's Books a couple years ago (it's out of print, but they have some in stock) I've purchased several copies and handed them all over to people-Ryan took this one on the flight home. I've been convinced there's a great movie there--so much so that when I saw Gus Van Sant at The Abbey in Los Angeles a few months back I threw back a couple recklessness-inducing cocktails and went over to him and assaulted him with a mini-pitch as to why he should direct it. I was totally convinced from the first time I read it that he would be the perfect director, and any of his regular guys could be the screenwriter--Damon, Casey Affleck.  Actually, now that I think about it, James Franco would be great.

That's the kind of stalker I am--I approach directors with movie ideas they must do. A creative, script-clutching, d-girl kinda stalker.

All 'return to key west' posts here.

A Rake's Gallery

 When I was first casting around for 'return to key west' I sent an e-mail around to a ton of people, an open call to help me find a "hot uncle type". Not quite daddy, but well into his thirties or beyond and still sexy and fit and game. I like working with non pros and wanted this shoot to be more naturalistic, so I wanted to find a "real" guy as opposed to a model. Somebody fun and good to go and  looked it. When a friend shot me an e-mail back asking the universal casting shortcut question: if he were an actor who would he be? My response was immediate: Dennis  Quaid. Fit, vital, even rowdy. These Peggy Sirota shots from GQ capture all that, and are just great photos, nicely straddling that line between portraiture and fashion/lifestyle/posed stuff

I was striking out on my non-pro hot uncle type until I remembered Ryan Findlay. Ryan had been a big model in the nineties, and I'd met him once--in Key West actually, where he was on holiday with a mutual friend. I'd spotted a great late 70s polyester shirt with a line drawing of a sailboat on it-very 'Dazed and Confused'-but didn't think I could pull it off. When Ryan walked into wearing the shirt that first night, he pulled it off. He also clearly had a highly cultivated sense of fun, and seemed to exist in his own perpetual comofort zone. Cool dude, the kind you want to party with and who you can't help but admire for their total ease and confidence.

Years passed-ten, at least, and then I was casting for this shoot. Ryan had gotten out of the modeling game a few years back. When I wrote the words Dennis Quaid Ryan's face popped into my mind. Aside from a more-than-passing resemblance, there was that raffish charm. I contacted him and pitched him on the whole concept, positioning it as a fun, easy shoot with lots of sun, great food and booze-"Purina Model Chow" is how I referred to liquor, I believe-and was very pleasantly surprised when he said yes. His energy and ease informed the tone of the whole production and made it fun, and made it look fun. As another friend wrote: "Ryan is like a modern Pan- your photos of him are a great mix of mischief and mirth". Which sums up the whole weeklong shoot, pretty much. More Ryan in the second half of the post.

More below

return to key west: boys on bikes

People seem to really respond to the shots of the guys on bikes in 'return to key west', making a point to mention those images to me. When I told a friend this he wrote, "I suspect the bike post appeals as something 'real' and 'fun' as opposed to the perfect-abs-boy-staged-photoshopped-picture that dominates gay media today". I quite agree with both that being the reason and the sentiment, and I hope we went for a way more natural feeling with this. Way, way more. I also think there's something universally appealing about riding a bike: the freedom and elation and the relaxation of just gliding around, under your own steam. More bikes below.

'return to key west' goes live!

 

My photo essay on Key West has just gone live here. Look for a lot more outtakes here over the next couple weeks. I want to thank all my models-Ryan, Levi and Scott-who made this shoot really special and, I think, real. Jon Allen at Island House is the guy who really spearheaded the whole project and helped me to tell this story about the Key West I know and love. The Key West Business Guild and The Moroe County Tourist Development Council totally threw their support behind the project. I'm extremely grateful to have been given the chance to reperesent this town that has been a second home to me.

return to key west.....

My most recent big project, an online marketing campaign to re-present Key West to the gay market, launches Monday. I'm hoping that the Key West I know, laid back and groovy and smart and sexy and quite magical, comes across in the photos. Look for more here in the coming weeks.