At the time of this shoot, I had realized that I hadn’t done nearly as many shoots that I wanted to do. It’s been a tough year and the pressure of it all had been bearing down on me. Creatively, I was frustrated with myself and that lead to a bad burn out. I was thinking of taking a break from the camera and art when Blu J found me on Myspace. This rarely happens for me (mostly because I hate Myspace). So I wasn’t expecting a shoot like this to bring me out of my funk.

But it did. =]

While still new to modeling, he took direction very well and was willing to try out some really odd ideas I had. Most people would look at me oddly or perform a double take when I ask them to hold a chainsaw and take off their clothes (you have no idea how many). Thankfully, he didn’t, and it turned out great. It also lead to what I think is some of the best work I’ve done all year.

The first shot is titled Lucid Manifestation. At the time, I had a different idea for how this shot should have ended up looking. In the midst of retouching it I decided to go into an entirely different direction. Before I knew it, I had an image that reflected my state of mind so perfectly it scared me a bit.

It’s rare when that happens.