Steemit Portrait Challenge #001

Good afternoon, again! I’m ambling through my daily workload and before I dig in to the photo editing, I wanted to make sure I submitted a few entries to the Steemit Portrait Contest hosted by @jasonrussell and sponsored by @sykochica! Much of my career has been as a portrait photographer, so this contest is a good fit. It’s contests and events that keeps the art community thriving. Here are three entries for the inaugural Steemit Portrait Contest!

Kaio Wilker is still to this day one of my closest friends. I met him in 2009 on ModelMayhem when I was shooting and visiting friends in Boston. I’d send out travel notices and Kaio wrote me back wanting to book a shoot. He’s a gorgeous Brazilian and an absolute sweetheart, which is why we’ve remained friends. His likeness to James Dean eventually lead to a collaboration where we recreated James and Marilyn paintings. This was shot with a Nikon D300s and 50mm lens.

Micheline Pitt is one of my favorite models to shoot with. As you climb the ladder in portrait and editorial photography, you’ll eventually meet someone you have a tremendous amount of creative chemistry with. Micheline has an intensity that transcends the camera. She’s a world class make-up artist, and industry professional fashion designer, SP/FX MUA, illustrator and entrepreneur. She can do it all.

Doris Mayday is the model I first shot in Los Angeles and our earliest collaborations are responsible for me getting my start as a photographer on the west coast. She had a wide following in the pinup community. She was featured on “My Crazy Obsession” for her love of vintage lifestyle. My approach to portrait and fashion photography has always been available/diegetic lighting, which conveniently created images that looked like they were out of a classic Hollywood film. It was the overdue refresh the pinup community has needed for decades. Right place, right time. This was taken at Castle Green in Pasadena, CA.

Thanks for reading, considering and voting. Thanks @jasonrussel and @syckochica for putting this contest together. Happy to be a part of it! Follow me @kommienezuspadt for more photography, art and illustration.