Inaugural Photography Community post and new work from Auckland, New Zealand!

Good evening, Steemians! It’s just about midnight and I’m reflecting on a productive, well balanced day. I slept restlessly, but was able to enjoy a lazy start catching up on the missed sleep from the night before. @vermillionfox ran off to her brother’s and @guthrie was at his half-brothers’ for the morning and afternoon. I was able to edit, clean around the house and spend some time at @caffetto. @vermillionfox and I spent much of the night signing, labeling and packaging 50 signed prints of @ryanashley. All hitting the mail tomorrow. It’s been a good day.

Tonight is somewhat of a milestone as I’ll be making my first blog post in my Steemit Photography community. @roadscape caught me up with the workings of communities, and it’s not like there’s going to be one definitive “Photography Community”. There will be many, if not dozens, maybe hundreds. This just happens to be the one I started and as of now, the title is broad. I’m not sure how it’ll grow and develop, or what kind of photography genre will emerge as dominant, but I was anxious to set this first pillar for the Steemit artist communities.

So, subscribe if you’d like! I’d love to see the usual suspects participate and post. @axeman, @jasonrussel, @fotomindo, @daveks, @angel35mm, @vermillionfox, @lighteye, @caseygrimley, @hienco, @barbarabezina, @deranged, @derangedvisions, @adsactly, @dexter-k! For my own photography, I’ll give a quick summary. I’ve been shooting for 20 years and in that time, I’ve developed my own genre […a subgenera of a genre, really] called dark pinup. A moody and often tragically beautiful interpretation of traditional pinup imagery.

Tonight, I’m sharing new work from my trip to New Zealand and Australia over the summer. I spent a few days in Auckland with my friend and vintage fashion blogger, Miss Victory Violet. Together, we hosted several models for an all day event at Shanghai Lil’s and these photos are with an upcoming model, Brittany. She’d actually found me through my friend @ryanashley, the Inkmaster host, which was somewhat refreshing knowing that I had some client autonomy from the pinup scene. Miss Victory Violet did her hair and make-up. Once she was shoot ready, we began.

The location was especially stunning. Shanghai Lil’s had a gorgeous Asian interior design, almost familiar. When I was chatting with the manager between shoots, he mentioned to me that it’s actually the entire set from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon! Legit! There were photos near the front! Still frames from filming the movie! Brittany was able to capture a serious, deadly move as I directed her to a somber gaze that embodied the femme fatale look we were hoping to achieve. This was her first professional shoot and she absolutely killed it.

I’ll have more of Brittany and the other Auckland girls we shot at Shanghai Lil’s. This weekend, I really had to focus on my @coppercoins IndieGoGo campaign with @ghostfish. In the last few days, we’ve made remarkable gains in contributions, and we’re almost two weeks from the funding deadline. I’m paying for that now as I’m further behind on the editing I owe. Overall, though, life is good. Just back at it tomorrow. Thanks for reading. For more photography, follow me here or subscribe to the Photography community!