background art by myself
Lisa Simmons works a couple of days a week in a salon as a hairdresser (takes on very few new clients, so I am glad I am grandfathered in!), and the rest of the time she is a photographer, specializing in portraiture, fantasy, boudoir, pets, and will even do modeling/glamour shots and wedding shots too on occasion.
Anyway, I realized pretty soon that her main passion is photography.
The first photograph I had seen was a big poster on the wall of the salon showing a woman with one side of her face with eyelash extensions and make up, and the other side without it. "Pretty good," I thought.
From there, our conversations went more and more in the direction of talking about photography and photography programs (Adobe and Corel mainly) and the art world. And then she told me she was doing some fantasy art work. Anyone who follows my art knows that I run a highly creative and successful fantasy art group on Fine Art America (link to the blog here and link to the group here), so this piqued my interest.
I had wanted to do some promotional photographs with my work behind me for ages for brochures, flyers, and the like, to present myself as a fantasy artist to galleries and on-line shopping and the like, and it is always good to have your mug on the cover, and she said she could do it. Little did I know that she would go beyond that and surprise me.
With hairdressing, you build a relationship of trust, where you count on them to make you look your best. And she always has, offering her opinions and taking creative license when I ask her to. So it wasn't hard to take the leap and trust her as a photographer too.
One of the things about Lisa that has made her a successful photographer is that she takes events (even mudding events) and puts her own special touches on the photos, gives them an atmosphere and almost always adds something artistic. She also likes detailed work, and in that way we are compatible (if you know my art work, you know that my paintings and digital artworks are highly detailed).
Here are a few more examples of Lisa's work and my modeling with my art work behind me for many of them (note: I am not wearing any makeup at all for any of the photos):
a black and white one:
No makeup in the one above.
You can tell I am a sucker for Renaissance gowns.
But then she went beyond that.
I really like this one that she made of my cello and me. It reminds me of Pre-Raphaelite art, particularly the great 1800s photographer, Julia Cameron:
I like the following one too. Kind of a glamour photo in an old world kind of way.
If I was a lot younger and wanted to be a fashion model, or if I was a fashion designer and wanted my clothes photographed on a model, I'd hire her in a heartbeat. It helps that she has a fashion design sense from working in a salon - they go together.
Here is one with the flowers (just because):
Next up are some of her fantasy art portraits of me (she is still working on a mermaid design which I'll add when she is ready).
This one was her favorite (and features me in a gown I made for performing Renaissance music in):
Apparently I am not afraid of wolves.
The wolf symbolizes valor and strength, and an ability to see the light, even in one's darkest hours. Cool.
This one has me twirling in a bed full of flowers. I was twirling around and around and around.
This one has me floating in the air at a concert hall. Or could it be Versailles? Or some other palace?
more to come ...
Lovely!
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