Sexual Deviant (art)

I think maybe if they put "sexual" before the title it might sum up the website better.
The site has had this massive influx of perverts over the past 3 or 4 years, it was once a place where artists criticised eachothers work and froliced in harmony, those days are gone. Now there is only room on Deviantart for the big hitters who have millions of watchers, people who create fan art for video games and anime, the people who do nude or fetish and, of course, the perverts who probably wank off to it.
I did used to have respect for Deviantart, after all, it was a website that helped me learn and get more into photography but more and more I am seeing amazing artists being out favorited by tits and flange. Take this for example:

By epicfail2008

This image currently ranks about 8-10 pages above this:

By Isis-Gora

How can a website that says it is about art let this happen? Let's consider the two images.
The first is a picture probably not even fit for Facebook of the photographers bad Nintendo tattoos on her tits.
The second is a well composed, well shot, high quality, emotive and well thought out image, so why exactly is it beaten so badly by the previous image?
Well I guess a simple equation might make sense of this situation:

Phone camera + Video game tattoo + tits = succsess.

It's not art anymore, it's smut, and low quality smut at that. The image of the tattooed tit girl out-ranks all of my images that I have previously submitted to Deviantart, and yes, I'm bitter, bitter as fuck. I hate how it works, how there are just so many people who have probably never seen a pair of breasts before, so many 40-odd year old men or thirteen year old boys loving the crap that is pumped out by these people.
I have a dream that one day artists will rise up and show these vendors of low quality smut that we don't care, that we are more appreciated and that we will not tolerate it. Until that day Deviantart, you just keep on letting these "artists" produce their soft core porn on your website.

Black and white fashion

So today I was supposed to be shooting a model who had contacted me through Model Mayhem, but as these things go, she didn't turn up!
Today was also supposed to be the day of the Alice shoot, but due to some unfortunate circumstances we have had to rearrange the shoot.
I really had my heart set on shooting today and wasn't about to let it go that easilly, so I collared Alex (who wasn't in the best of moods!) and made her get dressed up in some clothes I put together and shot her as part of the project.
I'm really happy with the results and can't wait to do more!
Here is the image I will be using for the project:

I love the way this image has come out, it is pretty much exactly what I wanted! The tones in the image are just perfect as to what I had in mind and as usual, Alex was a great model.
At first I was only going to produce one photo from each set, but when I got the images onto the computer I couldn't leave it as just one, so there is a set of six now, here they are (Click for full size):

Photographic Inspiration: Rankin

Rankin has to be one of the most famous working photographers at the moment.
His images are world famous and he has shot everyone from Marilyn Manson to Gordon Brown and even my favorite musician; Thom Yorke.
I have admired his work since I got into photography and it is still a massive influence on what I do
today. He has taken some of the most iconic images of the last decade, and even the person passing in the street who may not know who he is has almost certainly seen his work.
He has helped put photographers back into the spotlight, rather than being just somebody who took the picture and this is also something I think is pretty amazing, since the birth of digital, photographers have been getting less and less recognition and their photographs are more about who is in it rather than who took it.
The way he shoots some of his more well know subjects I find is amazing, the way he sometimes covers their face and takes away that instant association with the person is a strange idea but something that really works, it makes it about the picture again.
Here are a few images from Rankin:

Dave Grohl

 Bjork

Damien Hirst

Vivienne Westwood

The Queen

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

All images are copyright of J. R. Waddell trading as Rankin Photography

Dazed and Identified

The other night while watching Britain's Next Top Model (gay, I know) I was inspired by a set of black and white photographs and I have decided to set about making my own series of black and white fashion portraits.
I'm taking inspiration from the magazines Dazed And Confused and I-D, these are two of my favorite magazines and I love so much of the photography they contain.
It has been a busy project as in around 3 days I have about 10 different models booked in to shoot! Hopefully the first set will be up tomorrow but trying to get a model at such short notice is hard work!

Britain's Next Top Model - Tiffany & George Lamb

Now I'm Feeling Zombified #2

I did my second zombie shoot yesterday. It all went well until it started to rain! I'm thinking about only doing two or three more and then doing a big finale with lots of zombies!
Here are a few from the shoot:

Now I'm Feeling Zombiefied

So today, out of a random spurge of wanting to do something, I began my zombie shoot. I got Alex (begrudgingly) to get changed, put on one of my old t shirts and rip it up, I then put some dark eye makeup patchily around her eyes and splattered her with blood.
It's something I've wanted to do for ages, a project I have had in mind but never gotten around to.
I love zombies, they are great and I have never really seen any amazing zombie photographs except the Eastpak campaign they did a few years ago, which wasn't exactly really zombie-ish. I wanted to make something scary and worrying. So anyway, here are the shots from today:

Automated Alice Make Up Designs

So Ezme Thomas (A fantastic London based MUA) has come up for the designs for our upcoming Automated Alice group shoot and I have to say, they look amazing. Can't wait to photograph it!

To the designs: LINK

Cat Make Up Design by Ezme Thomas

Photographic Inspiration: David Lachapelle

I'm gonna go ahead and make an assumption that whoever you are, you know who this man is. If you don't then I guess you should probably take some time out, look at his work, goto one of his exhibitions and become ever so slightly obsessed and jealous of his immense skill.
He makes the most fantastically coloured images and has photographed some of the biggest names in the world. His work is often incredibly sexual, homoerotic and slightly scary, he just kind of makes me want to give away my camera and never attempt photography again.
Anyway, enough mindless drivel, here are some of his images:

 

All images copyright of David Lachapelle

Automated Alice

This is a shoot that we have been planning for a while now and the date is coming up fast!
The inspiration from the shoot is a book called Automated Alice by Jeff Noon. The book is an extension of Lewis Carrols books and was written in 1996, the basic story is Alice chases her aunt's parrot through a grandfather clock and she travels forward in time from 1860 to 1998 Manchester where the world is full of half human half animal "Newmonians". She finds an Automated Alice which is a perfect copy of Alice but mechanical, (so the same model will be used for both Alices). The story of the book is that she is trying to find the parrot and stumbles across the Jigsaw murders, which are a string of murders where the murderer leaves a jigsaw piece behind. I want to pretty much re-create parts of the book. It's not the typical Alice in wonderland theme and this was something I want to avoid as it has been done to death.
I would reccomend reading Automated Alice if you are a fan of the Alice books, it's a great book.

So far we have a pretty much full cast and two fantastic MUAs called Ezme Thomas and Pop T Make Up who are going to be helping us with the make up.
All in all, this should be a great shoot, I'm just hoping that no models cancel or decide they don't want to do it!

Copyright Ezme Thomas.

Stagger Lee

"It was back in '32 when times were hard
He had a Colt .45 and a deck of cards
Stagger Lee"

I am planning a shoot around the song "Stagger Lee" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I love this song, I think it is one of The Bad Seeds best and I have wanted to do a shoot around it for a while. I have already found my soon to be dead barman, my Stagger Lee and all I need now is a floozy, a make up artist who can make four convincing bullet holes in someones head and a wild western style bar!

I want to shoot the pictures similar to how Tarantino shot Pulp Fiction, with really extreme and low angles, very dramatic and quite modern, I don't want this shoot to have a vintage look, I want it to look modern and almost clean but in a dirty western sort of way.

I just wish I could goto America to find an authentic western bar to shoot in. Another slight problem I have is finding a replica Colt 45 Peacemaker, I have found some to buy for around £38 but really, I didn't want to spend much money, except possibly on a bullet belt, which is something I have wanted to own for years anyway.

Colt 45 Peacemaker

So, I guess after reading this you should hear the song, it is lyrical genius!

Stagger Lee - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

First post.

Well, here goes another blog. I'm not gonna go into the whole introduction thing, this blog is just for my photography and things that inspire me, I guess it's a photography diary.

Here are a couple of my newest works from the last week or two:

Model: Lady Whiplash

 

  Model: Little Star Mow

And finally, a self portrait:

Words: Radiohead - Idioteque