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Indeed, there is probably no one in the studio's portfolio who more closely resembles the body type required for Charles' latest artistic endeavor:  a tribute to the Finnish artist Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland.  With a world-wide following, he was a 20th century artist celebrated for his black-and-white drawings depicting highly sexualized, hypermasculine men.

It may be hard for some under the age of 50 to appreciate how popular and influential Tom's art was in the gay world of the late 20th century. In the days before screens, his art appeared in magazines, books, bars, posters, comic books and advertising worldwide.  From the 1950s through the 1980s, his aggressively butch fantasies of policemen, sailors, bikers, construction workers and gay daddies were iconic.  His overtly homoerotic work was so closely identified with the gay community that it had a palpable effect on wardrobe.  Pre-AIDS gay bars across the world were filled with "clones," young men cruising in the flannel and leather, caps and aviator sunglasses popularized by Tom of Finland.  

lisakuva2_tomoffinland_banner2 While obviously controversial, Laaksonen, who died in 1991, nonetheless has been hailed as one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century. After his death, a successful Tom of Finland line of clothing was established in the 90s; later the Museum of Modern Art in New York started acquiring his work.  

Perhaps the most impressive tribute to the enduring popularity of Laaksonen's art came from his home state of Finland.  In 2014, the nation issued a collection of commemorative stamps featuring his very gay drawings.  In doing so, they recognized the obvious: Tom of Finland was one of the most influential Finnish artists of all time.  His outsized impact on world culture was demonstrated when it became the best-selling stamp set ever issued by the postal service, with orders coming in from 178 countries nearly a quarter century after his death.

When the Emmy Award-winning makeup artist announced that he wanted to pay tribute to Laaksonen by bringing a Tom of Finland character to life, I didn't question his ability but I was all-in with curiosity to see how such a monochromatic pallet would work. I was aware of the fact that Laaksonen had consciously attempted to achieve a photorealistic style, making aspects of his drawings appear photographic.  It was a delightful creative challenge for all involved.  

Ricardo(13)-7 The person for whom there was the least challenge was the model.  Ricardo, fresh from the gym, arrived ready for the part.  Dress (or in this case "paint") him in the right wardrobe and Ricardo could step into any Tom of Finland setting.  (And yes, that's blue painter's tape.  Appropriately.)

I was impressed with Charles' talent at rendering with paint on flesh what Tom rendered with ink on paper.  We leave it to the viewer to judge how well we each succeeded.

Ricardo's newest gallery contains pre- and post-painting images.  Serious body painting has prerequisites.  Not only "gone is the beard," but gone is all body hair as well.  Ah, the sacrifices made in the name of art!

Enter the Tom of Finland gallery here

See The Art of Charles Zambrano here

Find more of our work with Ricardo here

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We'd never met, but we knew him.  It's was though Dillon James Thomas had just stepped off a big screen.  Except for his very Anglo-Saxon sounding name, this native New Yorker seemed to embody just about every stereotype of the street-smart, Italian-American from Brooklyn.  

With a confident swagger, this dude radiates the machismo and bravado that we all recognize in big-screen heartbreakers and alpha men from Saturday Night Fever to The Godfather and The Sopranos. 

Dillon may have been new to modeling, but he was not new to the gym.  He has a toned and trim physique that speaks to hours pumping iron and years paying attention to diet and exercise.  His hard work places him at the forefront of the scores of models and bodybuilders that have stood before our cameras.  And while I will confess to not being a fan of tattoos in general, Dillon has one stunning piece of art on his chest. Dillon(2)-411   Dillon(2)-55 The bold lion's head is among the best ink on any of the studio's 200+ models.

We worked with Dillon twice over the summer, garnering enough content to fill a robust photo essay of images of the model taken in the studio. Giving credit, Tayler Edwards wielded the second camera at Dillon's initial session. Additional images at Dillon's second shoot were captured by Alex Bustamante, the studio's long-time assistant and model. The new photo essay, Dillon, features 44 of our favorite images from the 2 sessions.

While this may be Dillon's first appearance on the blog, such is not the case for Alex (shown here). Alex has been a regular feature on the blog and in the studio for over 10 years, starting with the blog's second entry in 2014.  With this blog entry, we mark an inevitable passage of time.  While this may not mark his last appearance on the blog, we note that Dillon's session was Alex's last as an employee of the studio. After a decade of lending his talents and personality to the studio's photo sessions, life and circumstances have taken Alex out of New York. But Alex isn't going to just silently fade away.  Before his departure we captured one last photo session with the studio's long-time muse. Stay tuned. It will appear before the end of the year.

Click here to Enter Dillon's Online Gallery

Click here to preview DILLON, the photo essay

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The phrase has appeared and reappeared in the lyrics of numerous songs for almost 100 years now.  It aptly describes the studio's portfolio of models.

It never ceases to amaze me, the breadth of characters we have had under the studio's lights.  Indeed, we have much of the cast of Our Town in our portfolio, including among others, the captain of the high school football team, a banker, a baker, an engineer, pharmacist, doctor, lawyer and Marine.  "Indian chief?"  Well, perhaps.  Among three Indian models in the port is one named Raj ("King").  

With Soufiane, we add a pilot.

Soufiane's session came about at the end of Covid.  With his session we've now bookended the pandemic, dividing the studio's work (and our lives) into pre- and post-Covid.  Between his flight schedules and the quickening pace of the studio's activities coming out of Covid, the session took months to pull off.  

It was worth the wait.  Soufiane is a walking definition of tall, dark and handsome.  With his exotic looks we opted for the drama and mystery of a low-key session, deep in the shadows of the studio.

Click here to see Soufiane on a day off.

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We met Cooper through his long-time partner, Strauss, a model the studio has worked with for years.  Earlier this year the Virginia couple made a trip to New York to schedule a formal studio photo session for photos they could use in their engagement announcement.  

After the required shots in suits and vests, the models cracked open a trunk of cosplay costumes. . . gladiators' belts, light sabres, bikini briefs.  We romped through six hours in the studio over the course of a Saturday afternoon.  

Cooper watched quietly, attentively, sitting in the shadows of the studio as his partner, an experienced model, went through the paces in front of the cameras in a variety of outfits.  When it was his turn, he cautiously eased his way onto the paper for his spin under the lights.  The man, a successful attorney who had never seen himself as a model, started discovering the joys of modeling as he slowly started dropping some inhibitions (and loincloths). 

Cooper&Alex(1)-532 Days later, it took a lot of encouragement to get Cooper to view the finished results of the session.  Some models are eager to see their photos.  Some have little or no interest in seeing the final product. Cooper Actively resisted looking at them.  Initially.

With justified pressure coming from his partner, Cooper eventually relented and started looking at the photos from the shoot.  The man who had never imagined himself as a physique model apparently liked what he saw.  With validation coming from Strauss and his photographers, he agreed to a second session, one focused exclusively on him as a fitness model. 

Cooper, with new seriousness of purpose, doubled down at the gym to perfect a well-honed torso. Months later, in early summer, the models returned to New York for a session in one of our favorite haunts, a loft on Madison Avenue.  Each model was shot individually.  Cooper had his first go at a session that featured just him.  The studio's 2 lead photographers, Wes Triplett and Alex Bustamante, took alternating turns working with each model.

Cooper&Alex(2)-73 And the results are in for all to see.

We've opened 2 initial galleries to hold our work with Cooper.  The first gallery features solo studio shots of Cooper taken at the "engagement announcement" session [blue jackets].  The second gallery [last photo] features work from his first solo session in the loft.  

We expect to see more of Cooper in the coming months. Next month will bring the corresponding work with his partner (and soon to be husband), Strauss.  

In the meantime, you can use the link below to check out our previous work with Strauss, one of the studio's favorite models since. . .   oh, let's not go there.  

COOPER'S GALLERIES

STRAUSS' GALLERIES

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A collision with a rainbow might best characterize our work with James, a blond fashion and runway model from New England with a huge following in Japan.

James(2)-104 Smoke and mirrors.  Fantasy and fashion.  

It was one of the most ambitious and unusual projects the studio took on.  Charles Zambrano served as the stylist and makeup artist for the session (he went on to earn an Emmy for his makeup on the TV series Pose) and the work ranged from glamour and fashion to fantasy.  Unfortunately, in the end, the mashup of colors and light yielded striking images that just didn't seem to have a place in the studio's portfolio, otherwise focused on torso and skin.  They have languished, unseen, ever since.

Until now.  Until this week when I went searching through the archives for a suitable posting for pride month.

Given that we had all of the colors of the rainbow flag in the lights, costumes and backdrops, June seems like an ideal month to feature this work.

James' torso is slight but toned and his legs are long; the time-honored physique of a runway model.  No doubt, his classic, blond good looks has propelled his popularity in Asia.  

Over 2 days we worked with him in a variety of settings and setups.  Covering all bases, we even had James in (and out of) a Santa outfit along the way.  You can find samples of all the work in James' 2 galleries, now finally open for visitors.

Happy Pride month.  Click on the link to have an encounter with James and the rainbow.

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With Logan, it's his red hair.  He embraces it as his identity.  It's his handle on Instagram (@loganwiththeredhair).  It frames his face and sparks his personality.

Fair skinned models can be a challenge to photograph.  Red hair often comes with freckles and uneven pigmentation.  Not in Logan's case.  The hair is definitely red, but his complexion was more aligned with strawberry blond.  In any event, the delight of working with him in the studio continued into post-process, as his complexion required little or no special attention.

Originally from Utah, Logan has literally been kicking up his heels in New York for most of his adult life.  A dancer and true Broadway Gypsy, he has appeared in musicals on and off Broadway and in national touring companies. 

The facial hair and bulked-up body are determined efforts on Logan's part to get past the Twink in the Chorus Line roles that he says have characterized much of his career.  At the same time, he is realistic enough to recognize that a dancer's life is heartlessly brief and he has just finished coding classes in preparation for the day he steps off the stage for the last time.  In the meantime, he's kicking up his heels for the camera.

I found some of the behind-the-scenes shots from this session to be amusing and am sharing them on this page. 

Studio protocols about "no touching" were not breeched.  Because of the lens on the camera, Alex and the model appear to be much closer together than they actually were.  The photos are a bit more risqué than reality. 

Whatever, enjoy!

Enter Logan's gallery here.

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Given the magazine's mission statement, "to celebrate the hottest men in the world and the great and talented photographers who bring them to light," we are thrilled to hear that our models have been included in a list of the world's hottest men.  We quite agree and we are delighted to share the spotllight with such buff models. We know how hard these guys work to get the results that we so casually take for granted when viewing their images.  We give our praise and thanks to the models at the heart of our work.

Below, you can find links to our work with each model as well as a link to purchase a digital copy of MM Magazine's April 2023 issue ($3.99) which includes an interview with Wes Triplett, the studio's lead photographer. 

MM MAGAZINE on INSTAGRAM

PURCHASE MM MAGAZINE ONLINE

It's been a long time since we've worked in a large, dark space with high ceilings.  We were able to create pools of light in a sea of darkness but it was not until I had downloaded the day's images onto the computer that I noticed how monochromatic most of the session was.  In a sea of black were pools of golds, honeys and ebony.  In the midst of this gold-toned splendor we were showcasing an equistely-chiseled piece of bronze art, encassed in amber.

Zachariah has matured nicely since our first session with him in Early Covid. His boyish charm remains, but with hours in the gym each week, his torso is more deeply chiseled as his physique fills out with muscle.

For those interested in comparing the sessions, a year and a half apart, we have uploaded a second folder to Zachariah's gallery.  The Amber Session can be found alongside the Balcony Session, taken 20 months earlier.  

You can take the comparisons even further.  We have crafted photo essays from both sessions.  Collectively, they contain 7 dozen of our favorite images of the model published in hard copy magazines and as instantly-downloadable PDFs.  

For the record, it can be noted that through a sloppy error in booking, Zach's Amber Session has edged out an earlier session with Luis to capture the title of the studio's "most expensive shoot ever."  The venue rental jumped when, the day of the shoot, the landlord reclassified us as a "commercial shoot."  It was an argument in which the studio came out on the losing end, to the tune of more than $1200!  

Ultimately, Zach was worth it.  We hope you'll agree.

Zachariah's Galleries

PHOTO ESSAYS:

Zachariah

Zachariah Amber

FIND OTHER MODELS HERE

This gentle and professional model has many looks. Bomani can go from smoldering hot to the baddest James Bond villain with a twist of the lip.  With the tilt of the head, a regal bearing can quickly morph into serious dude with 'tude.

Bomani is represented by the Heights Agency in Atlanta.  We seized the opportunity to work with him on a recent trip to New York from Ohio.  This lithe Midwestern model clocks in at just under six foot.  With nary an ounce of body fat on him, his well-proportioned and toned body was an ideal subject for our cameras, a perfect fit for our portfolio. 

We've opened a gallery for Bomani and will be adding to it over time.  We hope to get him back before the studio's cameras on his next trip east.  Stay tuned if you're a fan.

Bomani's Gallery

Bad Santa.  In March?

Better late than never.  

Jon's session was captured in December of 2021.  It wasn't planned, but Christmas music was probably playing when I stumbled across the red PJs and Santa hat in the prop box.  What the heck, the PJs had been sitting untouched in the prop box since we tried to get Norm, a small-sized dude, into the sizes-bigger underwear several years ago.  It seemed like a use it or loose it moment.

The Christmas-themed images were taken too close to Christmas to make it onto the website that year.  Other than a few shots posted to social media in 2021, I decided to hold back and open Jon's gallery just prior to the next holiday season.  Alas, the 2022 holiday season came and went before I remembered that Jon was patiently waiting.

Here it is, March, hardly time to debut "Bad Santa," but I don't want to let Jon's work languish unseen any longer.  This new-to-the-scene fitness model deserves attention. 

Fresh out of his Midwestern hometown, at just under six feet, he radiated a disarming, mid-American charm.  His personality is as boyish as his looks and he fell right into playing with guns and a Santa hat.  Evil Santa was probably beyond Jon's reach, but Bad-ass Santa was a fun persona to twist in front of the camera.

The assistant and second camera was Tay (@tay_lerious on Instagram), who has long been affiliated with the studio.  As a rule, we do not credit individual photos or photographers in our postings and publications, but I would like to single out her work for her distinctive look.  She is building her own reputation as a headshot and boudoir photographer and New Manhattan Studios is proud to have her as a contributing photographer.  She is one of a half dozen photographers that shoot or have shot under the studio's banner.  

Most of the Santa series in Jon's gallery were taken by Taylor, as are the two images here, allowing for my Alfred Hitchock moment.

There's a tattoo on Jon's chest.  It's inspiring, but ironically, it sounds like something a bad Santa might tell a kid,

It is the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee

JON'S GALLERY

Searching for something to do, I started looking through the folders stored on the laptop that I carry when travelling.  When shooting out of town, it is here that images are first downloaded at the close of a shooting day.  Everything is eventually transferred to my home system at the end of trips, but occasionally I leave folders on the laptop, just in case I find time to do some random editing while traveling.  Suddenly, carrying folders of old files around on my laptop had been justified.  

Of a dozen folders archived on the laptop, the oldest was almost 9 years old.  Casually browsing through that folder, I came across an image that was unfamiliar.  It had been almost a decade since I'd taken these shots in the hills above Santa Cruz; I was pleased at being able to review the images with such fresh eyes.

Then I came across another unfamiliar image.  And another.  These were images of Willi, a published model from years back; I was very familiar with our entire body of work.  Or so I though.  

As I scanned the folder I realized that I had just uncovered an entire cache of images that had never been imported into the model's lightroom catalog.  Feverishly, I started looking for new images to edit.

We had initially released our work with Willi in 2015 and published a compendium of
of our work with him under the title Willi-The Private Portfolio.  It was a less "complete" collection than I had realized.  When I finally transferred the files to the home system, I discovered that there were 806 new, never-before-seen images of Willi to add to our body of work.

Editing photos of sun-drenched bodies around California swimming pools is a great way to spend winter days.  As I worked on updating Willi-The Private Portfolio, I recalled the several days we had spent working with the Bay Area grad student.   First, in New York, on a trip the model had made back east.  A year later we scheduled additional sessions with him on one of the studio's first trips to California.

Willi's first session in New York marked the first time that Alex Bustamante worked as an assistant at a shoot.  At 23 (and a few years younger than the model), his confidence level was fairly weak. . .at least compared to a year later when we worked with Willi in California.  The model took note and took markedly more interest in the assistant than he had a year before.  By the second day of shooting in Santa Cruz, the models had bonded. 

I remember their laughing over Willi's tale of biking home up San Francisco's Market Street one summer day when he decided to complete the bike ride in the nude.  He turned a number of heads but raised few eyebrows in jaded San Francisco.  Willi's session ended but we continued shooting as they played together in the pool and hot tub.  

At the time, we had little use of for the photos of the two models together (to this day, such work is not generally part of our portfolio) but we have decided to upload a series of photos of Willi and Alex to a new public gallery.  The photos are delightful studio mementos of a summer day in 2014.  I suspect they might evoke more poignant responses from the models; blissful memories of an intense, fleeting episode when their paths briefly crossed.  I hope the viewers enjoy them as much.

Longtime fans of Willi will be happy to hear that there is a new, expanded edition of Willi's Private Portfolio.  The original version was 56 pages long.  The 2023 version has 80 images of this exotic, part Filipino, part Mexican, part German (and all-American) stud.

WILLI'S GALLERIES

WILLI'S PRIVATE PORTFOLIO (2023)

Looking over our recent roster of models and knowing who we expect to shoot again in 2023, our last model of the year seemed to be a perfect fit for the honor.

We have been friends with the 20-year-old dance and drama student from Norther California for many months now.  Luciano worked as an assistant at a studio session last summer.  After proving his skills as a reflector holder and go-for, we handed him a second camera and were delighted with his photographic eye and sense of composition.  He definitely nailed it as an assistant on the set and we plan to continue calling on him in that capacity in the future. 

Possibly from observing how much fun the models were having, Lucci eventually concluded that he wanted to try working on the other side of the camera as well.  Our subsequent initial session with him in December was short and tightly squeezed into our respective, cramped holiday schedules.  It concluded with an agreement to shoot again in January. 

We were as delighted with Lucci's work in front of the camera as behind it.  He earns the New Year's slot not only by virtue of the promising work to come, but in keeping with the broader cultural themes surrounding New Years celebrations, at 20 years old, he's a baby by studio standards. 

He's our lead model for 2023, but let's not call him the New Year's Baby. It's certainly not fitting and besides, the demands of our cultural iconography would condemn him to walking with a cane and looking 99 by December 31st.  With luck, we may have a December 2023 session to attest to his continuing youthful looks.

So, with the promise of more to follow, we are opening the first gallery of the year, debuting our work with our newest model. 

LUCIANO'S GALLERY

[GALLERIES ASSOCIATED WITH THIS POST HAVE BEEN REMOVED]

Bryce is now delivered.  This is a public Christmas present to the fan of his who has been diligently reminding me of my promise (since last year) to publish this collection of our work with the California model and actor.

We awarded Bryce an honorary Oscar for outstanding performance by a nude model on a balcony overlooking the Hollywood Freeway.  Fearlessly, boldly, he stared down the traffic zipping by some 300 feet below.  The balcony was partially obscured by trees, minimizing the risk that his toned torso, twisting in the sun, was a dangerous distraction for motorists. You can catch the entire performance in the new 32-page photo essay.

I was tempted to Photoshop on a festive elf hat.  The "sun was shining and the grass was green"; this collection did not seem appropriate for a Christmas-themed post.  However, it is precisely such a Hollywood setting that is evoked in the opening lines of White Christmas; just toss in some orange and palm trees swaying. 

We saw no undulating trees, but from the balcony you could see, in the distance, the studio lot where the classic Christmas movie was shot.

And that is more than enough to inspire a sincere Happy Holidays to all!

Bryce's Gallery

Bryce-Hollywood Hills

Matt’s folder has been patiently riding out much of the pandemic.  His was one of the first sessions we shot indoors at the end of the first year of Covid.  Part of a larger project, we've been holding back on opening his galleries.

Matt ties Bond for the title of “most energetic” model.  Both men approach modeling with immense enthusiasm that is manifest in spontaneous bursts of physical activity.  Slowing only to listen for the shutter’s click, they are almost constantly in motion at their photo shoots.

Especially outdoors, Bond is fond of looking for objects to scale; things to stand on or to hang from.  In the studio, he is known to flip cartwheels, walk on his hands, climb atop furniture and press studio props into service in exercise routines.

Bond was the first model that we shot in a treasured studio venue, a loft on Madison Avenue in midtown Manhattan.  The space is unique and reflects the personality and profession of its owner, an interior designer.  It is filled with original art, antiques and a wide range of collectibles acquired over a lifetime of world travels.  Matt is one of the most recent models to enter the space.

Doing a photo shoot in the loft is like working in a museum (a very crowded museum) and the models have intuitively approached it as such.  Maneuvering through any number of objects, it’s impossible to move quickly through the space without fear of toppling priceless artifacts.  The respect that the space commands is so palpable that even Bond was cowered into submissive meekness.  For a couple of hours, he held his “boundless energy” in check as he cautiously posed amid the art. 

Not so with Matt. 

Matt appears to have two speeds:  on and off.  And when he’s “on,” he’s on at full speed; ceaselessly in motion, stretching, twisting, leaping, arching, bouncing. 

With no prompting, he was on top of tables, standing on chairs, draped over couches, up on windowsills and leaning against plate glass windows hundreds of feet above the street.  It was a challenge for Alex to keep a path cleared ahead of the model, to move objets d'art out of harm’s way.  I was repeatedly holding my breath; I feared we had brought a bull into the china shop.

Fortunately, neither model nor art was harmed in the process.   Matt’s torso is as honed and toned as any in the studio’s portfolio.  He was an ideal complement to the art surrounding him; a classically proportioned body that you might find rendered in stone in a museum.

As of this fall, we have now shot 10 models in this photogenic space over the past decade. To celebrate the ten men that have posed among the art and antiques, we are bringing them together under one cover.  Matt will join Bond and 8 other models on the pages of a new studio publication, Madison Avenue Loft, to be released in early 2023.

In the meantime, have a look at Matt’s gallery here.

The house we used as our base was secured for us by one of the models.  He had a personal history with the property and assured us that it was one of the original party houses built in the 1970s.  Its courtyard houses a hot tub surrounded by living spaces and a gallery.  Its indoor shower can hold 12.  On the bay side was a pool and a large deck with multiple levels and a view of Sayville, miles across the bay.  (See photo below.) After a quick survey, we got busy.  With a new assistant in training, Alex worked with one model while I worked with another.  We traded off once before lunch.  And that leopard skin?  It's not a rug, it's the cover for the hot tub.

The housekeeper was at work when we broke to have lunch in the dining room.  By appointment, a scouting crew from the television series American Horror Story came through, discussing the lighting of the stained-glass window on the wall behind us.  They were filming there one month later.  I gave the window little attention as we continued eating only to learn at the end of the meal that said window was created by Marc Chagall, the prolific mid-century European artist.  

Reflecting on the timeline of Chagall's body of work, I realized this house, dating to the 1970s, was built well into the artist's hugely successful career.  His monumental murals had adorned the plaza-facing walls of the Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center for over a decade at that point.  This window, depicting the bay at sunset, was clearly created for this wall, mimicking, as it does, the view behind it.  Whatever it must have cost to have commissioned such a piece of art, it was an extravagant gesture for a resort house. I learned that it is currently valued at one million dollars; perhaps a third or a quarter of the value of the entire property.

On the ferry ride home, I was annoyed that I had not taken a photograph of the window.  It just hadn't entered my mind at the time.  Downloading the files to my PC that night, I was delighted to find the window in the background of a series shots taken of Mitch outside the house.  In the photo above, you are looking through the house.  Mitch is outside, in front of a clear glass dining room window.  The two orange, triangular-shaped discs on the center left are backs of chairs in the dining room.  The stained-glass window is on the far dining room wall.   You can see the basic design, but needless to say, the photo does not do the art justice.

So, what about these properties?  . . .these incredible resort homes that have been built in Fire Island Pines over the past half century? Today, most of Fire Island is a national park.  How did such expensive properties ever come to be?  Who initially owned this (is)land?

The answer is the Town of Sayville, a couple of miles across the bay, on the south shore of Long Island (again, see photo at left).  In the early part of the 20th century the town, like others in the area, sold off lots on the barrier reef directly south of the town.  The area known as Fire Island Pines was purchased by four different local families in the 20s and 30s.  Over the years they developed and subdivided their properties into hundreds of lots and capitalized on the post war boom in the 1950s and 60s. Governed by the Town of Sayville, building codes for the barrier island stipulate that all structures must be built of wood.  The housing stock varies from mid-century-modest to over-the-top architectural statements. Almost all are summer homes (not "winterized"), rented for no more than 4 or 5 months out of the year, mostly as group rentals. Many of the private homes, such as this one, are architectural showcases.
 
Homes here must withstand two of the elemental forces of nature, water and fire.  House fires are common among these wooden structures and hurricanes have reshaped the island and its houses many times.  Current National Park regulations stipulate that any house destroyed by nature must be rebuilt within 2 years or the property reverts to the national seashore.  Despite all odds, gut renovations and new homes continue to be built on this precarious spit of land.

And here is the kicker.  Since Hurricane Sandy in 2012 (10 years to the day of writing this) the Federal Government no longer subsidizes insurance for rebuilding homes in hurricane-prone areas.  What private insurance is available is prohibitively expensive.  Most homes on Fire Island are no longer insured.

That million-dollar window, a treasure of mid-20th century art by a world renown artist, is housed in a wood frame structure on a small barrier island in the path of hurricanes.  Uninsured.

Such is Fire Island in 2022.

And in the middle of it all, we captured Mitch.  In front of the window, on the deck, in the pool, in the shower, on the hot tub and in the hot tub, on the beach and in the dunes. . .you get the idea.  See it all here.  (And yes, that's me below left, in one of my rare Hitchcock moments.)

The trip was prompted by the purchaser of a fitness/physique photo session that was donated by the studio to a silent auction for a charity on Fire Island.

A total of three models were engaged and a new studio assistant-in-training joined the day trip to the infamous gay resort community on a barrier island off the coast of Long Island, some 60 miles east of New York City.

Rarely have we spent such a length of time spent shooting. . .and never have we captured over 3,000 images by 3 different photographers of 3 models.

We spent the day shooting in two classic resort homes, in the dunes and on the beach.  Our base house was characterized by an early owner as "one of the first houses built in the Pines specifically for sex parties."  Among other amenities, it boasted a shower that could hold 12, a hot tub, multiple fireplaces and an abundance of private indoor and outdoor spaces.  The week after we shot there, a major California porn studio was renting the space for three days.  While we were having lunch, a film crew came through scoping out the premises for an episode of American Horror Story, that will be shot there next month.

There's more to tell and a lot more to edit.  For now, we'll close out the summer of 2022 with a quick tease of Mitch on Fire Island.  Click here for the next blog entry to see just how different a session this was for New Manhattan Studios.

UPDATE:  Mitch/Fire Island is the first of a series to be published showcasing our most recent work on Fire Island.

Fire Island Sampler

Enter Mitch's Gallery here

MITCH/Fire Island (PDF)

Enter Bruce's Gallery here

Nicholas was enroute to Europe for grad school.  The Midwestern fitness model had just done a photo session in Florida and was able to snag a few days to be captured amid the skyscrapers of New York before departing the country for school abroad.  It was quick scheduling on both ends after we'd been introduced to the model by mutual friends in California, MGStudios. 

We were able to work with Nicholas (@nickwithmuscles on Instagram) twice as he passed through New York.

On Day One, we worked on the banks of the Hudson around the marina at the World Financial Center. It had been a rainy day and we had delayed the session until the late afternoon when the storm had passed.  August-hot streets and sidewalks were still wet, wafts of steam rose from the drying pavement.  It was a break to work along the river.

I'm always impressed with how in stride some models can take posing in public.  (Many can't and won't.)  With hundreds of onlookers on an early evening in August, Nicholas serenely and confidently slipped into his gym shorts and started flexing and posing on, across and around the sidewalks and plazas of the World Financial Center, short blocks away from Wall Street.

As the last of the storm clouds passed over us, the sun broke through the scattering clouds to the west. The light was almost theatrical in hue and constantly changing.  The cool tones of the Blue Hour dominated the skies above and behind us.  As the sun fell to the horizon it flooded the skies over New Jersey and the Hudson River with the warm palette of the Golden Hour.  The uncanny part of the experience was that the color sequence was in reverse.  We started working in the blue light of storm clouds and ended in the Golden Hour. 

On Day Two, we brought the model into the studio for another mix of lighting scenarios:  high key and low key.  Looking for equipment, I stumbled across some feathers that I'd purchased as props.  Once owned, they had seemed too effeminate for physique models and they had languished in the closet.  This day, Alex and the model had seen them and both urged giving the plumes a shot at Instagram infamy. 

As soon as Nicholas turned toward the camera and drew the long peacock feather across his chest, it clicked for me.  It was the ideal prop:  it is the proud male peacock that sports the bright plumage. 

Nicholas' torso hardly needs adornment.  He is very close to perfection.  His bare physique is one of the most chiseled and perfectly proportioned in the studio's portfolio. 

Holding that feather wasn't embellishing or preening.  Holding that symbol of beauty was his right. 

The Peacock is one of 3 galleries featuring our work with Nicholas.  You can enter all 3 from the links below.

Nicholas' Galleries                 Golden Hour on the Hudson      ●      In the Studio      ●      The Peacock

That "once-a-year" time is here.  This is our Fourth of July photo session with the model Will Vorilhon (@willvorilhon on Instagram and Twitter). 

It was our second session with the model, shot last year, just 48 hours before he moved to California.  The flag, in the form of scarves, was the only prop or wardrobe used for most of the session. 

The bunting and props had been in in the wardrobe box for some time... waiting for just the right model to come along.  William certainly radiated the "All-American" look and with the July 4th holiday looming on the calendar, it seemed the right time to crack out the photographic fireworks.

William's new gallery can be viewed here.

The earlier part of our 2-session work with the model was shared last summer.  Both galleries can be accessed from the link below.
 

WILLIAM'S GALLERIES AT NMS

follow the model on Instagram:  @willvorilhon
 

Playing with the light was creative fun at Jacob's last session.  Aiming for low-key and a moody tone, we fixed our key light on the model and used a fill light, often projected through studio props or accessories onto a V-flat or studio wall.  The patterns and dappled reflections are a way to put some texture into otherwise flat studio light.  

It has been nearly 2 years since we first worked with the model/singer/dancer and cabaret performer.  His physique is in excellent form and he is morphing from an attractive boy into a handsome man.  We think Jacob's fans will appreciate this update.

A small number of the studio's models have worked with us multiple times, often stretching over a period of several years.  We publish a series that pulls together multiple sessions with the same model.   The Private Portfolio Series documents an individual model's changing physique and appearance over a period of time. 

We have heard from many physique models that their motivation for modeling is to have a record of how they looked in their youth.  I find their self-awareness to be refreshing; an acknowledgement at a young age that all is fleeting. 

In the moment, working with models a second time typically seems to be little more than an extension of the previous session.  "Hi, How you doing?  It's been a while.  You're looking great."  Nothing appears changed as the model's personality dominates the situation.  Subtle changes in appearance usually start appearing in post-process and become more discernable when mingling new and older images together.  It has often startled me to see how much some models change over the course of just six months.

We are grateful that our models trust us to photograph them in this manner and permit us to share with you these intimate snapshots in time.  In our Private Portfolio Series, these men, captured in their twenties, aren't aging as much as maturing and we get to observe the process.  

Midway between Fire Island and our most recent session, we worked with Jacob on a private commission.  We hope to have another studio session on tap for this summer that would be his fourth.  If the collection meets expectations,  Jacob:  The Private Portfolio should be in the works by fall.  In the meantime, the Jacob's gallery now contains two folders for work taken about 2 years apart.  Enjoy the changes, subtle though they are.

Click here to enter both of Jacob's galleries.

The model came down from Connecticut by train.  It was convenient; the studio is within walking distance of Grand Central Station.

It's unusual for a 25-year-old model to be accompanied to the studio.  To be sure, he wasn't being chaperoned, however, the model arrived with his mother.  After all the Covid lockdowns and restrictions, the chance to spend an afternoon in New York City—while her son was otherwise occupied—was too tempting an opportunity to let pass.  

Mom wasn't staying for the photo session; she appeared to have a good sense of what all it entailed.   After a few pleasantries and directions to neighborhood attractions, she was off.  All attention turned to the model.

Andy has to have one of the most dedicated gym regimens of any model we've shot lately.  He certainly has the body to prove it.  As fit as he seemed to be, he had delayed the session a few weeks to finish his fine-tuning.

While most of our models are well-toned and fit, we don't shoot bodybuilders all that often.  At first I'm often overwhelmed by the wall-to-wall muscles in front of the camera.  Andy made it easy, though.  He certainly knew how to strike the classic muscleman poses and if determination and motivation count for anything, this dude will succeed. 

Andy's enthusiasm in the studio has certainly earned him a call-back.  Expect to see more of this incredibly fit Connecticut Yankee. 

Meanwhile, check out Andy's gallery as we fill it up.  More to come.

ANDY'S GALLERY

It is challenging to pay tribute to the brave citizens of Ukraine who are so valiantly defending their homeland against all odds without appearing to be crassly profiting from the situation to promote the studio's work.  That said, as photographers, we cannot think of a better way to express our solidarity with the Ukrainian cause than by featuring two of the studio's Ukrainian models.

Both Oleks Matvey (above left) and Sergey Sheptun (right) are proud, Ukrainian-born models who made their way to the United States in brighter times.  As with most immigrants, they left a lifetime of memories, friends and family and have a deep emotional connection to the events unfolding in their homeland.  They were 23 and 24 years old when the studio worked with them; both are prime examples of strong, fit, Ukrainian men.  It would be no surprise to learn that either or both have returned to Europe to engage personally in the struggle.  

Sergey has stood in front of the studio's lights on two different occasions, and we have featured his work extensively in the past.  35 full-page images are featured in our photo essay, Sergey.   For his new 2022 gallery we have edited a collection of new images from his first session.  Using Photoshop, we have changed elements of the studio (continuous paper, walls and V-flats) to reflect the colors of the Ukrainian flag.  Sergey is still an active model who is now also an accomplished physique photographer in his own right.  You can follow him on Instagram at @serg_shepard.  The new gallery and examples from our previous work with Sergey can be found here.  

Oleks-The Private Portfolio A New York City runway model, 
Oleks shot with the studio on five different occasions early in his modeling career.  Unlike most models but very much like many Ukrainian men, he is an avid kick-boxing fan and an accomplished boxer in the ring.  We did three studio sessions as well as a session in the ring of his boxing gym on New York's Upper East Side.  He was one of three New York models that we shot in the stables and fields of a working horse farm outside of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Oleks has retired from modeling and given the possibility of his taking up arms in the current battle, we refrain from providing additional links.  You can find his work with the studio here. 

2023 UPDATE:  Since originally we originally uploaded this post, we have made an amusing discovery.  We thought we had 2 Ukrainians and 3 Russians in the studio's portfolio.  While pulling content out of our archive recently, we discovered that Roman Khodorov, who we shot with on his way home from LA to Moscow, is not Russian!  We found a photo of the passport he used as ID in the studio.  It was a Ukrainian passport. The Ukrainians outnumber the Russians 3 to 2 in our portfolio!

Two years into the war, we still side with the people of Ukraine.  We stand with the friends and family of Sergey, Oleksandr and Roman.

Next was his uncanny resemblance to a certain historical religious figure.  Initially, I worried that some might think it sacrilegious to be photographing this model in the nude.  Then I realized that some of the most iconic images of his doppelgänger were precisely that: paintings of a boldly-posed male nude torso.  We proceeded cautiously, resisting any attempts to pose him with outstretched arms.

More challenging, however, were the multiple sources of light in play over the course of his session.  It was a rare late afternoon shoot and we seized the chance to work in the natural light pouring through the studio windows.  However, the mid-winter day was short and within minutes of starting, the light began shifting from the warm hues of the golden hour into the cool tones of the blue hour.  I loved the moodiness of the shifting light, but photos taken just minutes apart appeared to be from different sessions.

As the natural light faded, we supplemented it with incandescent lamps.  The last half of the session was shot entirely under studio lights, using both hot lights and the crisp white light of strobes.  Ultimately we had roughly a half dozen completely different lighting schemas that slowly bled into one another.  For a story-teller, it made it very challenging to complete any one set of images in consistent light.

The model, for his part, looked striking under any light.  His well-honed torso was perfectly proportioned for his 6-foot frame and he was an experienced model with a good sense for posing.  Wtih over 100 models in our portofolio, we have precious few models from Central America and we are happy to open a new gallery with more than 3 dozen images of this Costa Rican model.

• Enter Jathnnao's Gallery Here
• Find Other Models Here

On an early December evening, Stephen, a 26-year-old aspiring (and working) actor, showed up at the studio in the good spirits of the holiday season.  I remember humming, but I can't swear to it.

As is our habit, early-on we asked the model what type of music he wanted to have playing during the session.  A discussion of the actor's broad-ranging musical interests ensued.  Not only did his tastes span a wide swath of musical styles and periods, he also shared that he is an established recording artist himself.  And with that, he pulled out an air guitar and began moving with the music in the room. 

When we expressed an interest in hearing his work, Stephen turned to Alexa and asked her to play one of his songs.  He wasn't sure if it would be in the library of the streaming service then playing, but Alexa didn't hesitate and started playing his music.

Activity in the studio slowed as we listened to a soulful ballad inspired by events in the artist's own life.  The model's musical talents were as impressive and apparent as his striking physique.

It was reminiscent of a session years earlier with a model who had one of the deepest voices I've encountered.  His modeling name was Perseus; his friends nicknamed him "Dragon-boy" because of his booming, deep voice.  At dinner with the staff after his session, I told Perseus that his voice would be perfect for "Old Man River."  He responded by declaring that it was the best song ever written for his vocal range and with no further prompting, burst out singing in a full-throated, basso profondo voice.  He held nothing back.  The mid-Manhattan diner, at 10PM on a Tuesday night, went silent as the diners put down their forks and glasses to listen to a superbly professional voice. 

Afterwards his impromtu performance, Perseus received a polite round of applause from the appreciative diners who resumed their meals with smiles on their faces.  It was a quintessentially "only-in-New York" moment that I could not let pass without complimenting and questioning the model's vocal skills.  He explained that he had no special training but that music was in his DNA; his dad was a cantor in their synagogue in Texas.

When we shared the story with Stephen, he smiled and admitted to having a similar genetic connection to music.  His dad is a member of an internationally-known 20th-century rock band.  We are reluctant to share details of our models' personal lives, but if you follow the model's links on social media, you can fill in some of the blanks and hear his music.

But we had brought Stephen into the studio as a physique model, not as a singer.  He did not disappoint on either front.  With classic good looks and a chiseled torso worthy of DaVinci, he could have been a model for a gladiator on a Roman coin.  His gallery, with over 40 images, is one of the largest we have ever posted for a single session.  Enter below:

STEPHEN'S GALLERY

Follow Stephen on social media here.  

The new gallery we open today for Ricardo contains previously unprocessed and unreleased photos from one of what has come to be known in the studio as the "stormy" sessions.  We did two sessions with the construction worker-model a few months apart.  Both nights were stormy, rainy nights.  We even incorporated a rain theme into the second session and Stormy became the name of a photo essay that draws on works from both nights as well as a feature in Captured Shadows #3.  

There's no rain in the newly-released work.  It's from the night when we were focused on ropes and jeans as props.  We processed about 2 dozen new images from the session.  They had deserved to be shared and now they have been.  

More from Ricardo's Ropes and Jeans series can be found in Ricardo/Stormy, 32 pages, NSFW.   

• Ropes & Jeans
• Ricardo/Stormy
• Dark & Stormy Night (Captured Shadows #3)

• All things Ricardo at New Manhattan Studios

FIND OTHER MODELS HERE

Announcing our New Year's Baby for 2022:  Dylan Cary

(Red diaper by Calvin Klein, optional)

Next month New Manhattan Studios turns ten years old but this month we are looking forward.  As is our tradition, for our first posting for the year we have selected a recent popular model that we look forward to seeing more of in the coming year.  Dylan Cary fits that description perfectly and we are happy to make him the lead model for 2022.

This British-born dancer has been in New York for a few years.  He's an accomplished dance professional who not only performs but teaches dance classes as well.  Beyond his lithe, athletic torso and classic good looks (if you can get beyond his athletic torso and good looks), it is the dancer in him that makes him the ideal model.  

Dylan only recently started modeling but needs little or no direction. Like other dancers with which we have worked, he has a well-honed sense of his body.  He knows intuitively how to pose, twist his torso and hold his limbs with arresting style.  He stands still gracefully.

We had the opportunity to work with Dylan before the holidays and have committed to working with him again in 2022, as soon as conditions permit.  For the record, the city has not shut down but the studio has closed all operations as Omicron crashes through New York.  Once we are back up, Dylan will be one of the first models that we reach out to.

In the meantime, enjoy the gallery of our first work with Dylan.  He is one of 115 models featured on the website.  

Our Vault contains work with our favorite models from the past ten years.  Many of the galleries are fitness and physique sessions done with aspiring models and local body-builders in our early years.  Some galleries have a fashion or erotic focus; sessions are tailored to the models needs and interests.  We have removed work with a handful of models over the years out of respect for their privacy as they have moved on with their lives, assuming new obligations and limitations.  Still, two-thirds of the nearly-200 models that the studio has worked with can be found in the vault.

We are grateful to have had the opportunity to work with so many attractive, buff models over the past decade and plan to celebrate them.  It will be a year-long celebration that kicks off next month.  

Stay tuned.

I was not surprised to find a new hotel a few blocks from the area's transportation hub.  It advertised Skyline Views and I took them at their word, knowing of the building's location and westward facing guestrooms.  

The room had beautiful light and there was a striking balcony but the promoted "skyline view" was pretty much a bust.  Yes, Manhattan could be seen in the distance, but it was behind a very industrial skyline of Long Island City that included one of New York's largest power generating plants.  The view pretty much had to be blown out.

Both models were in from the Midwest.  It was Zachariah's first trip to New York City.  The models were staying in New Jersey, requiring them to traverse Manhattan to get to the studio in Queens.  It must have been frustrating to zip through and not stop in Manhattan on the way to work, but it would be there as a playground when the work was done.  It was all part of the adventure for the 18-year-old from Michigan.

Over the course of several hours we captured Zach in the shower, in the bed chamber and on the balcony.  Work from the session can be seen in his online gallery and in the 36-page photo essay Zachariah, available as a hard copy magazine or instantly-downloadable PDF.

2023 UPDATE:  Click here for a sequel to this session, captured when the model was 20.

Zachariah's Gallery

Zachariah (Photo Essay)

Search for Other Models Here

Like most photographers, my relationship with Instagram is a love-hate affair.  I have long resented how the platform has shaped the content of my online portfolio.  If I were to characterize the studio's physical focus in one word it would be "abs."  It is there that we place most of our attention when lighting, posing and composing a shot.  If I were to characterize the studio's Instagram portfolio in one word, it would have to be "asses."  Over the years I've reluctantly shifted to featuring asses over torsos as a means of growing the studio's online following.  Commerce shaping art.

In this case, it is necessary to give credit where credit is due.  If it were not for this model's enduring popularity on Instagram, I would not have repeatedly returned to his folder looking for new content to share.  In the process, I have come to appreciate a session I have long undervalued.

Nick was a 21-year-old body-builder from upstate New York and we had the opportunity to do 3 sessions with him when he spent a long weekend in the city, staying with his brother in the Bronx.  

At least half of the second session was spent chasing sunbeams across the room and the model's torso. Dappled or mottled light has always been a creative challenge for me and by that measure it was a rewarding endeavor.  This model's defined torso was easy to light, the shadows from wooden blinds added an interesting graphic element.

When I started editing the work, however, the wisdom of pulling a handy Shogi screen into the frame to hide a distracting background became a questionable move.  The combination of the nearby-wooden blinds, the shadows cast by the blinds, and the bold geometric pattern in the screen created a dizzy-making tableau.  The light on the model was great. . .but lost in the jumble of repeating bold lines and geometric patterns.  I processed few of the images of an otherwise hot, buff model.

After repeatedly dipping into this folder for new content for the Instagram feed, I begain to reevaluate the second session.  The shots with the Shogi screen were well-received, or to be more honest, the hot model in front of the screen was well-received.  The background did not seem to be an impediment.  Nick's photographs have consistently scored well on Instagram and he remains one of the studio's most popular models.

All of which fed into the creation of NICK, the newest of the studio's photo essays.  The collection features 35 of our favorite shots of the model, most of which cannot be shown on Instagram.  Most of the images are new edits and have never been published before.  (New fans of the model might also want to check out Captured Shadows #5, which features additional images of the model released shortly after the session.)

NICK is available as a hard-copy magazine and as an instantly-downloadable PDF.  Read more about Nick's session here.

NICK (photo essay)

Captured Shadows #5

Nick's Online Gallery

The often-heard quip, "if it's black-and-white, it must be art," is more than a wry put-down of artistic pretention.  There is a logic behind it:  removing the color from an image focuses the viewer's attention on the lines, forms and composition within the frame.

Upon arrival, I was immediately disappointed with the shooting venue in Long Island City, directly across the river from mid-town Manhattan.  Having leased studio space in the area for years, I knew the neighborhood well and was familiar with its many skyline views of Manhattan.  I relied on marketing photographs on a website and had booked this space without previewing it first. 

The entire western wall was floor-to-ceiling windows that faced west to Manhattan.  The light was delightful, morning and afternoon.  The view itself, however, was a huge disappointment.  "Manhattan Skyline View" was technically correct, but between us and Manhattan was a good chunk of industrial Long Island City. The towers of Manhattan were visible in the distance, behind blocks and blocks of industrial, residential and commercial buildings.  Instead of the East River in the foreground, the view was defined by smoke stacks, parking lots, old factories and one of the city's largest power-generating plants.  It was in many respects a quintessential New York view, but it could have been Industrial Anywhere.  

The structural elements of the windows and  exterior balcony, however, came to the rescue. Their bold, black lines provided striking geometric forms to frame the model; the industrial-strength background could be blown out.  I rarely work in black and white but the model got his wishes.  Processing this nearly monochromatic subject matter with such a treatment was a creative way to salvage the cost of reserving the space for 2 days.

The model was overbooked and had shorter work window than we'd agreed to.  He arranged to come back the next morning, giving us the opportunity to shoot in both the morning and afternoon light. One of our regular second cameras, Taylor Edwards, was free to assist at Brenden's second session and a good portion of the images in his galleries were captured by her. 

It all was enough to whet my appetite for more and we have agreed to schedule another session with this well-toned, ex-Marine from the Midwest.  Keep watching.
 

It is always a delight to work with the newest models.  Simon's gentle, macho bravado reflected his South American heritage, but he displayed none of the attitude nor sense of entitlement so common among New York models.

We spent nearly 3 hours in the studio with this lithe, 23-year-old.  His hours in the gym have paid off.  Close to zero body fat, he possesses one of the most toned torsos in the studio's portfolio.

We hope to get Simon back into the studio in the near future, but as we ramp back up the studio's operations, we have a number of other models that have been waiting in the wings long enough for their 15 minutes of fame.

OCTOBER 2023

We eventually did get Simon back for a second session, but it took almost two years.   Now 25, he boasts a more impressive physique.  Judge for yourself.  You can enter both galleries through the link below.

CLICK HERE for Simon's Galleries

Camilo is one of 10 models that the studio has shot on Fire Island.  If not convenient or easily accessible, the dunes and beaches of the famous gay resort community have offered a beckoning venue for socially-distanced shooting during pandemic days.  

Historically, its inaccessibility played an important role in defining Fire Island as a major LGBT resort.  Here, the neighboring communities of The Pines and Cherry Grove sit on pristine beaches-ranked among the finest in the world.  Less than 100 miles from Manhattan, on a narrow, barrier reef off the coast of Long Island, the car-free destination is not easy to reach. It was in that very isolation that the emerging gay and lesbian communities nurtured a safe haven in the hostile years after World War II.  Here, far from the prying eyes of the larger society, everyone could relax and be "out" in a welcoming community, if just for a few summer days.  And boy, did the area gain a reputation for "relaxing!"

There is no vehicular access to The Pines or Cherry Grove and most summertime residents take buses or trains out from the city to the south shore of Long Island, where they embark on a half-hour ferry trip, carting with them most of the food, liquor and supplies needed for their stay.  (For those with sufficient resources, helicopters from New York City land on small landing pads in the dunes.  Look for the wooden platform with white painted stripes in Camilo's shots.)  

The 30-mile-long reef is less than 1500 feet wide and while The Pines and The Grove are a couple of miles long, each is just 2 or 3 blocks wide. They are isolated from neighboring communities by miles of empty dunes and beaches.  Streets are boardwalks and there are few stores, services, bars, restaurants or clubs in the small commercial centers.  Most structures are not winterized so when the weather cools there is insufficient population to keep these businesses operating past Labor Day weekend when the crowds head home. 

Less than 300 residents call Fire Island home year-round but each summer they host tens of thousands of second-homeowners, renters and day-trippers between Memorial Day and Labor Day.  The hedonism that characterized the Island in the post-Stonewall years has abated. With so few clubs, lavish pool parties in infamous beach-front homes have long characterized and defined Fire Island's social scene. 

The HIV epidemic that decimated the gay community in the 80s and 90s took a disproportionate toll on Fire Island, with many of the most glamorous ocean-front properties changing hands. Though it remains a predominantly gay community today, the mix of humanity seen on the boardwalks of The Pines now has parents pushing strollers past buffed and polished bodies clad in the skimpiest of bikinis.  As ever, the action, the scene, remains behind private doors and garden walls.

Camilo's trip to The Pines began with car service picking him up before 7AM and a 90-minute drive to the ferry dock in Sayville, Long Island.  We reached the island by 10:30, in time for shooting on the beach prior to a lunch break.  

The afternoon was spent in The Meat Rack, the stretch of dunes between the two LGBT communities of The Pines and The Grove.  Although nominally protected by laws restricting access to the dunes, the wild area has long been known as a trysting place.  Anything goes along the trails and dunes, dense with scruffy trees and overgrowth. Noon or midnight, the area is a magnet for casual encounters and alfresco sex.

We finished shooting in the dunes in time for an afternoon session (with very different light) on the beach and in the surf.  By late afternoon we were nourishing Margaritas on the patio of a bar, overlooking the small harbor that is the center of The Pines.  By 9PM, Camilo was home.  Alluring as it may be for photoshoots, it's a long day and a long way to go to capture bodies at the beach.

We were happy to invite Camilo into the studio months later as early pandemic restrictions were lifted, permitting indoor gatherings and work.  Our second session with him yielded a set of images distinctly different from those captured under the summer sun. Fortunately, restrictions on gyms were lifted as well, and the model was in excellent physical condition. As he had on the island, Alex assisted at the session with his fellow Colombian.

Camilo is the fourth Colombian in the studio's portfolio, which is not entirely surprising, given Alex's scouting and recruitment efforts in the sizeable Colombian ex-pat community in and around New York.  We have selected 44 of the studio's favorite shots of the model on Fire Island and in the studio for a photo essay entitled, simply, Camilo.  It is offered to his fans as a print magazine or an instantly-downloadable PDF.  For a preview, check out his online galleries using the links below.

• Camilo (Photo Essay)
• Camilo's Galleries
• Fire Island Summer

We soon concluded it was too hot to work in the direct sun in the garden.  We found a cooler venue in a glen, deep in the woods near the Housatonic River.  We did some of the best work there...among mosquitoes.

It was inevitable that the model would eventually wind up in the river.  By then it was late in the day and, deep in the river valley, the sun had already left the sky in a mid-afternoon sunset.  In the shadows of the valley, Alex went skinny-dipping for the cameras.  In the name of art, the photographer and assistant were soon standing knee-deep in rushing water as well.

The photo essay Green Shadows chronicles the day's activities with Alex Corso in three portfolios captured in the garden, the woods and on the river in the bucolic Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts.  Because of their funding, these portfolios are quite unlike anything else we have published.  The photo session was commissioned by a fan of the model. 

The commission came with stipulations; the model was paid handsomely for very specific content.  Reflecting the purchase order, an inordinately high percentage of the images in Green Shadows are erotically charged.  We are not talking porn here; studio fans already know to look elsewhere for that. The ultimate creative objective of the assignment was to show the handsome model at his most masculine, buffest, virile best.  Repeatedly.

Additionally, the terms of the commission prohibited the studio from publishing the work for 3 years.  Those terms expired last year and we began editing Green Shadows during the pandemic.

As we conclude our tenth year, it is appropriate to include this session in our celebration of the past decade.  This work may have started out as a private commission, but it deserves an audience larger than the model's patron.  With the vision of hindsight, it is, in our opinion, one of our best sessions with the model.  (If you agree, you'll be happy to hear that the patron subsequently commissioned a second session and the rights to that work revert to the studio this year.)

Preview the Green Shadows portfolios in the video presentation above.  (Not all images in the video are in the PDF.)  Preview the PDF here.

GREEN SHADOWS GALLERY

GREEN SHADOWS PHOTO ESSAY (PDF)

OTHER WORK BY ALEX CORSO

OTHER PHOTO ESSAYS
 

This was our fourth trip to the island to shoot in the sand, the water and the dunes.  Each trip has had its own light, from hazy to cloudy to crystal clear, giving the ocean a distinctly different personality each time. Each of the 9 models we've captured on the island has brought his own personality to the session as well. 

Cristian (in the foreground at right) is the big one, well over six foot, and with an outgoing, gregarious personality to match his size.  It was the Colombian model's first trip to Fire Island and he saw just enough to decide he needs to come back. 

Behind Cristian is Alex, our second cameraman, working with Stephen on the long expanse of beach leading to the East from Fire Island Pines. 

We're opening Cristian's gallery today.  Stephen's will follow.  

We are no longer adding images to the site's Art Prints Galleries where prints of individual photos can be purchased.  Instead, we are increasingly offering photo essays in the form of instantly-downloadable PDFs from many of our modeling sessions.  We've just published "Cristian/Fire Island" that can be found in our shop.

Cristian's Gallery

28 images

Cristian/Fire Island

32-page instantly downloadable PDF.  NSFW

CLICK HERE FOR OTHER PUBLICATIONS

CLICK HERE FOR OTHER MODELS

The debut of Bryce's gallery is long overdue.  We captured this young actor on one of our trips to Los Angeles a few years back.  The work languished on our hard drives, waiting to play a role in a project that, now 2+ years later, is clearly not going to come to fruition.  It is time to break Bryce loose and feature him on his own.

Bryce had recently arrived in LA when we met up with him.  He joined us in a luxurious rented home in the hills above Hollywood, just minutes up from the Hollywood Bowl.  From opposite ends of the 100-foot balcony you could see the Hollywood Freeway, some 300 feet below and Universal studios and Burbank in the distance.  It all seemed fitting for a determined young actor with ample measures of ambition and looks.

Bryce is featured in a new photo essay, Bryce-Hollywood Hills, a 32-page collection of images available as a hardcopy magazine or an instantly-downloadable PDF.

Bryce's Gallery

Bryce-Hollywood Hills

This is our third Will but more unusually, this is the third one of our models to shoot with us immediately before pulling up stakes and moving to California.

Will managed to snag a session with the studio just days prior to his move.  He's landing in the same San Diego area as Norm and Bond.

Along with Will, one of our first models, and Willi, a San Francisco model, our new "Will" joins our galleries as William, and henceforth will be so known on our site.

This body-builder presents himself with an incredibly toned and cut torso, putting him precisely in the studio's sweet spot.  You don't need much light control to see definition in these abs!  Impressively, he maintains his physique with far less time in the gym than most comparably shredded models. 

We hope to see William in front of our lenses again, on either the East or West coast.  Next time we hopefully won't have a pandemic slowing the scheduling.

The full set of William's images can be accessed below.  Come back in July when we'll have a special seasonal addition to the gallery.  (Subscribe to this blog as an RSS feed using the link below.)

William's Gallery

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Dustin has proved to be very popular over the years, but his session actually predated the studio's website by a few months and he's never had the introduction (and recognition) that he deserves.  Pandemic-abundant downtime has provided ample opportunities to redress this omission.

Dustin is one of 8 models featured in Berkshire Place, a compendium of work shot in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts.  The model now stands on his own in Dustin, a new 40-page photo essay, featuring work captured in New England's lush summer greenery.

The setting was Norman Rockwell's hometown in the bucolic rolling hills of Western Massachusetts.  A classic New England village with no stop light and barely enough crime to warrant a police force, its crime-busting reputation is best known for folk-singer Arlo Guthrie's arrest for littering, documented in the 60s movie, Alice's Restaurant. 

We were working on the porch of a home, perched on a hillside and long neglected after the death of its elderly owner.  I had been a weekend neighbor for years.  Overgrown and abandoned, the property had taken on the characteristics of a child's vision of a haunted Victorian house.

But it still had a great porch and in August it was surrounded by a profusion of blossoms and leaves.  Trees and shrubs hid it from both a state highway at the foot of the hill and a Bed & Breakfast inn next door.  We had visited the home countless weekends prior to the death of a cherished neighbor, but no one had been in the house for years. 

Cars buzzed by, oblivious as to what was happening in the trees on the hill above them.  We were in a private, bright green room.

The picture on the top left was taken approximately 30 seconds before we heard the shouts of "Police!" from the side of the house.  Dustin had his back to the highway and was first to see the cop.  He scrambled to find his clothes as an attractive, young policewoman rounded the side of the porch.  Blonde and barely older than the model, she appeared to have been sent by central casting.

The cop wanted to know what we were doing on the property and asked to see our identification.  It was obvious that Dustin had no ID on him (or much of anything else) and mine was across the yard in my own home.  Stumbling for words and with my heart in my throat, I explained that we were doing a photo shoot on what had been part of "my world" for years.  The policewoman's grave expression indicated my excuse didn't mitigate the fact that we were both trespassing and the model could be arrested for indecent exposure.  (This was not Norman Rockwell's type of art.)

Once Dustin had gathered his clothes and was dressed, the policewoman accompanied us across the lawn to my property. Several paces behind me I could hear the her asking the model why he "does this."  I don't remember his answer, I was too preoccupied with crafting an explanation I could give the police chief who I had known for many of the years I had owned a weekend home in the community.  I had no idea where this might lead or end.

When we got to the house I went inside to find my wallet.  Dustin entered a few moments later and from the front window (right) we saw the policewoman go down to the patrol car in the driveway.  She appeared to be retrieving something, but instead started the car and backed out of the driveway. Turning the patrol car around, she drove down the hill.

We stood at the window for a couple of minutes waiting for her to return.

She didn't.

Dustin and I processed the incident differently.  I was rattled and waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Dustin summed up his reaction differently, "She can slap handcuffs on me whenever she wants!"

The other shoe never dropped.  I have no reason to think that the incident was not recorded on the appropriate police log but I never heard anything from the police chief and I never saw the cop again.  The cop had apparently accomplished her mission:  she'd chased trespassers off the abandoned property.

We eventually finished Dustin's shoot inside and "Dustin" features 40 images from before and after the bust. 

It was the last time I shot on the property next door.

• Dustin (photo essay)
• Berkshire Place
• Dustin's Galleries
• All Things Dustin at New Manhattan Studios

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All relevant social distancing and masking protocols were observed. Covid tests required all around and a partially-vaccinated crew greatly reduced but did not eliminate all risks.  Nonetheless, the post-pandemic world was coming into view.

The distinction of cutting the ribbon on reopening the studio doors goes to a new model from Virginia, Lane.  In town for a week, he was accompanied to his sessions with a friend (who appears occasionally in some behind-the-scenes shots).  

We did the first of two sessions in the studio.  The second session took place in an unusual space on the rapidly-gentrifying Lower East Side.  Our venue was housed in a modern condominium building, one of many luxury buildings nestled amid the neighborhood's legendary tenements.

The space had been used by an artist as a working gallery and residence. During the pandemic it was being rented out as an exhibition and event space, with dozens of the artist's work on display throughout a 2-level loft apartment. 

Posing Lane's toned and sculpted torso amid the paintings in the gallery space was more than using art to create art, it was akin to placing a new piece of art amid competing objects of interest and beauty; a creative challenge that could have best been met by an interior designer or museum curator.  We did have, however, the assistance of Lane's friend who had accompanied him on his trip to New York (on lower left).  

The studio does not permit non-participating by-standers at sessions, but for Lane, having a friend nearby was an added a measure of comfort for his first modeling sessions in New York.  His friend was deputized as an assistant, holding reflectors and assigned the stylist's task of paying attention to the extraneous details of the background. 

We are pleased to open two galleries showcasing our work with Lane in both the photography and the art studios.  We hope to bring Lane back for additional work and perhaps to encourage his friend to step out of the shadows as well. Meanwhile, our sessions with the remaining two sides of the 3-sided drum will debut next month.  Watch for Nick and Daniel coming soon.

LANE'S GALLERIES:

In the Photography Studio

In the Art Studio

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We had only a few remaining warm weeks to work after New York came out of its initial lockdown.  The rapidity with which the summer drew to a close cut short a planned fourth trip.  We went from frolicking in the surf in early August to "too-cold-to-go-into-the-ocean" 4 weeks later at Labor Day. 

The late summer sun was already quite low on the horizon and by midafternoon the light and shadows were taking on the hues of the imminent golden hour.

For a non-beach-going person like me, how different the light and the surf appeared each time we arrived at the beach was striking.  It was never the same. We had brown sand mixed with a pounding surf under a gauzy yellow sky; calm green waters under blue skies and white clouds; a hazy, sunless morning and the amber hues of late afternoon sun.  We saw it all in the space of three August and September mornings and afternoons.  

Our excursions left New York City around 7AM and returned in the early evening.  Twice we shot with models that were already spending the summer on the island and on each trip we had at least one first-time-on-Fire Island model.

For the uninitiated, Fire Island is the renowned gay summer resort on a long, narrow barrier island off the southern shore of Long Island, about 50 miles east of Manhattan.  The year-round population of the island is less than 300, spread across a handful of small communities that dot the island.  That populations

In the second half of the 20th centuiry, two villages become known as havens for the gay and lesbian communities.  In the brief period between Stonewall and AIDS, Fire Island became synonymous with drug-and-sex-drenched parties filled with young models and wealthy movers-and-shakers.  It was the ultimate expression of the hedonism and excesses of the pre-AIDS era.  

The Pines, the newest and most affluent community of several on the long barrier island, is predominantly gay.  It is separated from Cherry Grove, an older prewar village with a large lesbian community, by a half mile of wild dunes and beaches.  In the tangled wooded area above the beaches is the infamous Meat Rack, a stretch of dunes where nudity and public sex are defining characteristics. 

Working on Fire Island during a global pandemic was relatively easy in terms of adhering to social distancing protocols; witnessing the effects of the pandemic on the resort community was harder.  The beaches were exceptionally empty, as were the dunes where we worked.  The summer population was a fraction of its usual level and businesses were shuttered or struggling.  Happily, most of the bars and restaurants were offering a form of limited service in their ample outdoor spaces.  At the end of 6-hour shooting days, we had a place to nurse sunburns and daquiris while waiting for the ferry back to the mainland.  

Three new galleries accompany this post, one for each of the models, Conor, Jacob and Harry.  Click on their photos to enter the galleries.  The first Fire Island set appeared last fall, with Joshua, Camilo and Alex.  The final models, Steven and Cristian, will arrive next month along with a new photo essay featuring all eight models.

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Bond has had more "last" sessions than normally allowed.  He has been retiring on us since our first year shooting together when we ultimately scheduled 3 "final" sessions coincident with his move to California at the end of the year.

This time it's the real deal.  

The BOND/ROXY session has been in the can for over a year and we can confirm that Bond has, indeed, finally retired from modeling.  After 15 photo sessions spanning five years, this is the last chapter in the Bond saga.

It is fitting that Bond is the first blog entry of the year.  It is a slot reserved for special models that are prominently featured in the studio's current work.  Rest assured, we will be featuring additional work from Bond's swan song over the next few months.  

Bond has held the coveted "first slot" once before.  Indeed, he was the first model featured on the blog.  He was also the first model that we shot in the Long Island City studio space that became our home for several years.  He was brand new to modeling.  At the end of the night, accepting our offer of a second session, he chose the modeling name Bond.

Bond was a natural and eased into modeling over the course of a year.  He morphed from the shy, guy-next-door in his early twenties into a hot and confident model, using the classic Bond character, 007, as his inspiration.  Now in his late 20s, he fits the part.  

Over the years we worked on locations from coast (New York) to coast (California) to coast (Florida).  We shot on a working farm, along the Brooklyn waterfront and on cliffs overlooking the Pacific ocean.  An earnest and dedicated model but always a very private person, he has not maintained a social media presence and worked with only a small handful of photographers across the country.  

From the beginning, when he discovered that Bond had fans, his overriding objective was to please them.  Always the eager and enthusiastic model, never caring who the audience was, he wanted to look his buff, masculine best.  His standards were high; his modeling once went dormant for 18 months when he felt he wasn't in shape.  He did not want to disappoint. 

Bond/Roxy features the model in Tribeca, the trendy, 19th-Century waterfront area in lower Manhattan.  Both the gallery and the published photo essay contain representative photos from all the photo sessions in and around the hotel and his suite. The 68-page photo essay is presented in three groupings:  morning, noon and night and contains dozens of NSFW images.
  
Fittingly, Bond's final trip to New York yielded a treasure-trove of images.  With the assistance of three 2nd cameramen, we captured thousands of photographs over 3 days.  There will be more than one photo collection flowing from Bond's long weekend at the Roxy and this will not be the final blog entry about Bond.  There is more to share.

It was Bond's dedication to his fans that prompted his retirement.  Anticipating that he would loose access to the university gym after graduation (as well as the requisite time to work out), in his final year of grad school he announced that the 007 Session would be his last.  He wanted to go out on a high and we scheduled the session anticipating it would be his last.

But, as had happened before, circumstances brought Bond back to New York later that year, after graduation.  Once again we had a second "final" session.  (Or maybe it was the fifth.)

Knowing his long history of last sessions with the studio, with tongue in cheek, our friend Tye Briggs at Favorite Hunks named this session for us: "Bond at the Roxy:  The Farewell Tour."  More than anyone else, Tye is responsible for the world-wide following that Bond has developed.  He has featured the model multiple times on the FH blog.

As in the behind-the-scenes shot above, you can still see flashes of the early-twenties everyboy who first walked into the studio years ago.  But this is the ultimate Bond.  This sexy, late-20s dude was not just "still in great shape;" physically, he was in the best condition our cameras had encountered. Now out of grad school, Bond wasn't just going out on a high, he was at his peak for his final modeling session.

Bond is not a body-builder as much as he is an athlete, working to stay in shape.  Sitting quietly at the end of our final session, I asked what his motivation for modeling had been.  His response was quick and certain, "Years from now, I want to have documentation of how I looked in my twenties."

The documentation is complete and the body of work is impressive.  We are grateful to have had the opportunity to document Bond's changing looks over so many years and we hope that "years from now" he looks back on our work with as much pride and pleasure as we do.  

For the record, Bond graduated with an advanced degree in public health in time to be serving in the greatest public health challenge of our time.  Now a fulltime soldier in the fight against Covid, his modeling days are behind him.  We applaud the work he is now doing and will always be grateful for the time he spent with us.  As a friend and muse of the studio, his contributions to New Manhattan Studios have been profound.

There are more new images to be shared (in curtain calls), but after 5 years and 15 photo sessions,  it's time for Bond to take his final bows.  At The Roxy.

As ever, he wants you to enjoy!

BOND's Online Galleries

BOND AT THE ROXY Photo Essay

ALL THINGS BOND at New Manhattan Studios

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Mason is part of the silver lining in the grim cloud of 2020.  

In exchange, the pandemic has freed up unprecedented amounts of editing time and we have put it to good use by cavorting through long-dormant folders looking for unpublished images.  With Mason's folder, we have more than a trove of unseen images, we have an unpublished model.  

In a joint session with Keith Ingram Photos (@keithingramfoto_2.0), we initially worked with Mason on one of our annual trips west.  We shot the popular California model in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills with a specific publishing objective in mind.  We had the good fortune to work with Mason a second time, in the New York studio, when we collaborated on a body painting session for a Halloween feature on a popular blog that fall.

Ironically, not only was the second session seen first, the first session has not been seen until now.  The project we initially had in mind  when shooting Mason may still come to fruition, but after several years hiding on the computer, it's well past time to be debuting our work with Mason in Hollywood.

We have picked 36 of our favorite images, from balconies to bedrooms, for Mason's online gallery.   We are also featuring 40 images, many NSFW, in  a new photo essay, Mason/Hollywood, available in the shop.

Mason (@masohnn) is the second Celtic model in our portfolio.  Compared to Corrin, I like to think of Mason as the "dark ginger" of the two, but they're both quintessentially Irish in appearance if not demeanor. 

Mason's Gallery

Mason/Hollywood

Mason 's Halloween Feature on Favorite Hunks

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Of the 100+ models that have passed through the studio, Ricardo possesses one of the most impressive physiques.  Among the body-builders in the portfolio, he dominates in sheer size.  This is a big man with a powerful torso; beautifully-sculpted from hours in the gym.  Standing just under six feet, everything is in perfect proportion.  His is a classic body you would expect to find on a Roman coin and aficionados of the macho Latin male physique will appreciate the studio's latest photo essay.

Ricardo/Stormy was born of two photo sessions, a few months apart.  Both sessions were captured on cold, stormy nights.  Ineed the outside weather was the inspiration for wetting down the model to bring the drizzling night in the studio.  Photos from that series were featured in "A Dark & Stormy Night" in Captured Shadows #3.  This new photo essay features new art from that series as well as many additional images from both of the sessions.

Assisting at the sessions were the model's older brother, Alex (the studio's assistant and second cameraman), and David, the friend who lent the studio a valuable piece of art used in the shoot.  After supervising the transit and placement of the metal ball sculpture, David was fortunately free to take on the assignment of keeping the model wet, since Alex leaves the set while his kid brother is modeling.

The young body-builder, a construction worker by day, strikes some classic physique poses as he tries out male modeling.  For him it's as a means of paying off all the hard work in the gym.  For those who appreciate the body beautiful, it is a special treat.  Ricardo/Stormy is 36 pages long and definitely NSFW.

Ricardo/Stormy

Dark & Stormy Night (Captured Shadows #3)

Ricardo's Online Gallery

All things Ricardo at New Manhattan Studios

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Alexander's was one of our last pre-pandemic sessions and, as with Grant's session, we consider the work to be only half done.  We have held off editing and releasing his work with the expectation that we would be bringing him back into the studio to finish what we had started.  Unfortunately Covid-19 has had other plans.  Other than some socially-distanced shooting on Fire Island at the end of the summer, the studio's operations have been closed since March. 

At some point in the future we hope to bring both Alexander and Grant back into the studio, but it's increasingly obvious that we are many months out from managing such a feat.  It's time to share what we have already captured with this striking model.

Alexander is a classically-trained, professional dancer.  He had just finished a production of The Nutcracker when we worked together last winter.  In the best of times, dance is a a challenging, competitive profession with limited opportunities for regular work.  Like most performers, dancers string together a life of gigs, forever grabbing at fleeting jobs.  As with all of the performing arts, the pandemic has devastated the profession.  In a cruel twist, the "plan B" employment option for many New York dancers, working as waiters and bartenders, has been equally obliterated.  The pandemic has demanded a pound of flesh from all of us.  We are all paying differently, but paying a price nonetheless, in diminished hopes, expectations and opportunities.  I can hardly complain about the inability to bring models into a studio while so many others are paying far greater prices.

There's an unusual degree of similarity in the studio shots from this session.  Expecting to round it out with a session outdoors or in ambient light, we were playing with using the studio's walls and reflectors as components of the compositions.  Pay attention and you'll detect the white sides of the studio's V-flats as background elements.  We look forward to adding some variety to the work as soon as we get the necessary go-ahead from the Center for Disease Control.  Until then, check out Alexander's work with the studio here.
  

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The summer of Covid.  (More likely, the first summer of Covid.)

The beaches of Fire Island beckoned as ideal outdoor shooting venues for the studio's physique art.  

Having closed all in-studio operations in March with the start of New York City's lockdown, we were eagerly monitoring the City and State's infection rates over the spring.  By summer the city was opening up for a variety of activities, requiring social distancing and masks.  We had a brief window of time before seasons and temperatures changed; we seized the opportunity to salvage what we could from the year.

Fire Island is famously home to a gay summer resort community nestled on a narrow strip of land on a barrier island about a mile offshore from Long Island.  Since the 60s, The Pines and Cherry Grove have been home to thriving gay summer resort communities with long-ingrained traditions and cultures.  It should also be noted that the communities have first-hand experiences with epidemics.  The HIV epidemic wiped out a generation of homeowners and the island's two gay communities are no longer exclusively gay domains; it is common to see children on the boardwalks and beaches.   There is a great deal of money here.  International celebrities and A-list New Yorkers own expensive homes precariously perched on dunes in the path of Atlantic hurricanes.  

The fact that it is so difficult to get to only adds to Fire Island's mystique and allure.  Those coming out from the city without cars ("most" New Yorkers) take busses or trains from Manhattan to a town on Long Island where they catch a ferry to Fire Island.  Once on the island there are no private cars or taxis.  Getting off the boat they drag wagons of groceries over boardwalks to their houses, perhaps a mile or more from the dock.

We had worked on Fire Island years ago and I remembered it for an abundance of shooting venues where models could comfortably work in the nude. There are people around and no guarantee of privacy, but stumbling upon a nude photo session while walking through the dunes would be inconsequential.  More on that in the following posts.

Given the time, effort and expense in getting models and cameramen onto the island, it only made sense to work with two or more models per trip.  It was a long day for all.  Six hours in the sun were sandwiched between 3-hour car and ferry rides.  Models got home 12 hours after they were picked up.

Of the 5 models that had been on the studio's calendar when we closed operations in March, only one was still in the metropolitan area.  It took a few weeks to herd the cats but by mid-August we scheduled 3 trips to The Pines, shooting on the beach and in the Meat Rack, the notorious stretch of dunes between the two gay communities on the island.  It was a 3-part master class in shooting at the beach that started with the models Joshua and Camilo.  More about all of that in a couple of following posts.

First, we start by opening new galleries for Joshua and Camilo.  Joshua had shot with us last year and was on Fire Island when we started reaching out to models.  Camilo, a native of Medellin, Colombia, started his day in New Jersey.

I cannot close without commenting on the shot at the top.  Two photographers worked with two models in solo sessions for most of the day.  It was a breezy and sunny August day; the photographers kept their distances with telephoto lenses. 

At the end of the day all four of us were working together at the water's edge.  As the models backed further and further away from us, the waves became harder and harder to withstand and they reached for each other to brace themselves.

It made for a short series of pictures and we didn't give it second thought at the time but while the models  were being drenched by the surf, clearly social distancing rules had been breeched.   I am pleased to note that six weeks later no one reported becoming ill.

More follow in 2021 (including new models!).  Here are the Fire Island links to-date:

• CAMILO'S GALLERY (center left)
• JOSHUA'S GALLERIES (bottom right)
•  
• FIRE ISLAND 2020-Part 2 (additional models)
• FIRE ISLAND 2020-Part 3 (additional models)
   
• FIRE ISLAND 2013 (Ethan & Alex)

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STANDOFF*

Iggy was in from out of town.  Both he and Alex, the studio's second cameraman and model, were natives of Colombia.  They had met on social media.  A trip to visit family in the metropolitan area provided an opportunity to meet in person.

Iggy had first encountered Alex, online, as a model.  When a chance to attend one of Alex's photo sessions morphed into an opportunity to try modeling himself, he agreed to take a shot at it.  Having a friend (and an experienced model) nearby eased the newbie's comfort level. 

Having a friend nearby turned out to be not only a source of comfort but a source of inspiration as well.

We were working in a studio that could easily accommodate two simultaneous photo sessions at opposite ends of its barnlike expanse. 

Stephen Kahrs Photography and New Manhattan Studios were sharing the models as well as the space.  Operating independently, the photographers staged their own lighting and sets and directed the models.  At halftime, the models switched sides of the room.

While the models were taking direction from the photographers it was clear that their attention was wondering. In time, they were watching each other as intently as they were staring into the eye of the cameras trained on them.  As the models began mimicking, teasing and posing for each other, an unexpected dynamic took charge and gradually fused the two sessions.   

Standoff similarly merges the work of two photographers into a compelling photo essay of two models.  It documents this unique session as two models face off on opposite sides of the studio and start slowly disrobing for the cameras and each other.  The 64-page photo essay is NSFW.  Standoff contains work by both Stephen Kahrs Photography and New Manhattan Studios.  Click here to preview and order.

Use the links below for additional work by the models and Stephen Kahrs

• Iggy at New Manhattan Studios
• Alex at New Manhattan Studios
• Stephen Kahrs Photography

Postscript:  This was not Iggy's last modeling session.  It was his first.  He returned home to whip himself into top physical shape and quickly launched a successful modeling career.

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*Standoff is one of several recent publishing projects inspired by Covid-induced free time.  Lacking new models, we have been reexamining archived folders for previously-unpublished work deserving of attention.  When we reordered and paired photos from two photographers cameras we discovered a new way to appreciate what we had captured one afternoon a few years back.

Lower Manhattan has long been a go-to destination for street photographers.  Surrounded by water, the triangular tip of the island offers a huge variety of shooting venues between the historic waterfront along the East River and a marina filled with luxury yachts on the Hudson.  Here countless landmarks and archetypal urban settings are nestled amid the iconic canyons of Wall Street.

Into those canyons we trekked with Trevor Jacobs.  It was one of several sessions we captured with the lithe Midwestern model more popularly known as TJ.  

The ravines cut by skyscrapers are deep and narrow. Natural light hits many of the area's old streets for only a brief period during the day, if at all.  Yet, a sizable portion of the canyon walls are panes of glass.  When the sun hits them as it arcs through the sky, beams of light reflect down into the dim streets.  Pedestrians do a star turn in the spotlight before turning the corner where a light-colored wall is reflecting a soft glow onto a plaza. To work in this environ is to spend your time chasing ever-moving, shape-shifting pools of light. 

We had the pleasure of working with TJ several times over the course of two trips to New York.  He made this first trip to New York to work with New Manhattan Studios and Keith Ingram Photography (@keithingramfoto).  A second business trip to New York provided us the opportunity to schedule additional sessions with him, ultimately a total of four times.

Earlier in the year we published our first collection of work with TJ under the title of trevor blanc. The bright, white palette of the portfolio earned a prized spot on New Year's Day on the international model and celebrity blog, Favorite Hunks.  The international publication Malesuality featured our work with TJ in issue #15. 

We now share the balance of our several sessions with Trevor in TJ NOIR, work captured with the model on location in and around his hotel in the Financial District and in the studio.  A companion piece to trevor blanc, a darker palette predominates in the 48 previously-unpublished images in the new collection.

Check for the new images we've added to TJ's "safe work work" online gallery.  You can preview trevor blanc and TJ NOIR at the links below right. 

I have long joked with friends and around the studio that I could stop shooting and spend the rest of my days editing the tens of thousands of images on my hard drives.  Well the grand pandemic of 2020 may put me to the test.

As New York City emerges from its deathlike lockdown, I have been contemplating how the studio operates over the short- to mid-term future.  As previously noted, we closed down all studio operations in early March.  Until there is a vaccine or 5-minute at-home testing, I cannot conceive of resuming operations in the enclosed space that is the studio. While shooting outside would be an easy alternative, the studio's New York City location is a negative in this case. The need to get to any viable venue outside the neighborhood (or city) involves taking some form of public or semi-public transportation and degrees of risk.  Not yet.

In time, we'll get there; as much as I love editing, I love photo sessions even more.

In the meantime, we shall get caught up on a huge backlog of unedited work. Near the top of the overdue list was the second of two sessions with a California teenager, Andrew.  We had originally planned to include Andrew's session in another format, but a recent romp through his folder in search of fodder for Instagram inspired us to combine work from two very different sessions into one very steamy photo essay, Andrew2.

Our latest photo essay features work from two photo sessions taken a year apart.  Think of it a Andrew Squared.

The first of the two sessions was shot around the home of Mike Tossy and Mark Grantham in the hills above Santa Cruz.  The model, who had done his first photo session with Mark, was from the South Bay Area.  Assisting that day was Wm Weyeneth, a west coast associate and photographer, who also shot as the second cameraman.  The story of that session can be found here.

A year later the studio and model reunited for a second session in a secluded garden nestled on a hill in San Francisco's famed Castro District.  This time, the assistant and second cameraman was Alex Bustamante, a fellow model.  The two had met the summer before; when Wm and I were shooting with Andrew, Alex was working with a third photographer. 

In San Francisco, the photography gods had smiled and we were blessed with an ideal September afternoon.  It's rare in San Francisco when you would want to shower outside, but this was just such a day and Andrew took his time bathing in the warm sprays of light and water.  Direct sun piercing through cloudless blue skies bounced off the water, scattering diamonds in the air, but it cast harsh shadows, too.  Alex got wet earning his salary by tracking the reflector from below to soften the shadows, but perhaps more importantly, his teasing banter appeared to inspire the model to greater things.  

Together, the two sessions track this striking California model at the end of his teenage years. Andrew has since told me that he has retired from modeling and that the session in San Francisco was his last professional photo shoot.  Given that, we are happy to put to good use the first of our pandemically-induced free time to finally finish processing and publishing the photos of his last session.  

Check out Andrew2 here.  And you can find photos from each of his sessions here.

Andrew's is just the first of what looks like it may be a pandemically-inspired publishing spree around here as we start tackling piles of under-attended photo sessions. We'll be posting new content for months to come, including several models whose sessions have yet to make it online.

Stay safe.

Renn was a popular model in Northern California's Bay Area in the mid-teens.  Lacking serious modeling ambitions, he was encouraged to give male modeling a try by a girlfriend who apparently understood the monetary value of his exhibitionist instincts.  He worked with a limited number of photographers, always to acclaim, but was notoriously difficult to schedule.

We had attempted to schedule a session with Renn on a prior trip to California but, not working through his agent (the GF), we had failed to lock down more than an "interest" in working with us before time ran out.  It was through the intervention of our good friends, Mark and Mike, who had previously worked with the model, that we succeeded in landing a session with him last Leap Year.  We thank them also for the spectacular shooting venue they provided for the session.

Renn had been dropped off by a friend, another athletic California dude, who politely turned down our offer to model and couldn't turn his car around fast enough in leaving.  Renn, thankfully, was all-business and an amiable and conscientious model.  His goal was to please. 

Lanky and projecting a very contemporary California teen-ager's look and vibe, he was a natural model.  From the apple orchard, to the pool, to the couch, he hugged trees, towels and took things in hand with a cool, confident gaze and occasional smoldering smile.  It was understandable why he was so popular and in-demand.

As with many models with whom we've worked, we parted agreeing to shoot a second time.  It never happened.  The model changed "agents" shortly thereafter and ceased modeling.  To our understanding, this was the final day this young man modeled before retiring at the age of 19.  He left behind him a small but remarkable canon of work with several California photographers.

We are happy to finally add to that canon by publishing the model's final (public) modeling session.  Renn, the studio's newest photo essay, features 32 images taken of Renn on a late summer day a couple of months before his 20th birthday.  The publication is available as a hard copy magazine or as an instantly-downloadable PDF.  A gallery of work from that session can be found online.

•  RENN, New Manhattan Studios Photo Essay
•  Renn's Gallery at NMS

We acknowledge our debt to our hosts and encourage fans interested in seeing more of Renn to check out the outstanding work of Mark Grantham and Mike Tossy.

Renn is one of a dozen photo essays published by the studio featuring work from special sessions or with individual models.  Find all photo essays and other studio publications here.

He glanced at no more than two or three photos on the tablet and responded, "Got it."  End of discussion.  We headed into the studio.

• Bond/De-Tux (preview & order here)
• Behind the Scenes at Bond's Last New York Session (video presentation)
• Bond's Galleries at NMS
• 2015 Valentines feature on Favorite Hunks
• All Things Bond at New Manhattan Studios

Johnafry was introduced to us by a friend of the studio.  (Yes, we get a number of referrals that way.)  It was Johnafry's first modeling session and with a powerful torso and an easy smile, he had no problem commanding the attention of the camera.  Like many a beginner before him, he took to modeling like a natural.  

His friend accompanied him to the session and assisted with lights and reflectors.  At a first-time modeling session, you never know what impact a friend's presence is going to have on the model.  For some shy first-timers, it's a confidence-booster; others become extremely self-conscious and reserved in front of a friend. 

When you're lucky, like this time, the two friends casually interact, joking, bantering and enjoying each other's company while one, incidentally, mugs for a camera. Johnafry's innate self-confidence needed no boosting and he showed no signs of inhibition in front of his friend.  The two were out together and having a grand time with this modeling session thing.  

With a medical degree from his native Dominican Republic, Johnafry is pursuing a healthcare career in the US and is skeptical about taking his modeling any further.  "But it was fun and we got some awesome shots!" 

Like many a young man who has spent hours in the gym, it was great to have all the hard work documented and validated.  And it was fun doing so, for all involved.

Check out Johnafry's photo session here.

It's a meaningless number, but the fickle finger of fate has chosen the southern body-builder and med student, Nate Bell [@nate_bell08], as the 100th model to be featured in a gallery on the studio's website.  We have worked with many more models than are represented on the site, but the fact that we are opening the 100th model gallery at the start of a new decade gave us pause for reflection.

The fact that Nate snagged the bold-letter entry is a happy coincidence that mirrors the serendipity of our meeting.  The model was in from Atlanta.  We had been introduced through a mutual friend and though we were both interested in working together, I had tried to no avail to find an empty slot in the studio during his brief stay in town.

It happened, by happy coincidence, on my birthday.  I had already filled the day with a photo shoot and an invitation to out-of-town friends of the studio to stop by afterward.

Nate texted during Joshua's session that he would be available to shoot late in the evening after getting out of the theater.  It was his last night in town.  When he told me the name of the theater I sensed fate intervening to seal the deal.  At approximately the same time we would be finishing with Joshua, he would be exiting a theater less than 2 blocks from the studio.

We had a few minutes to swap out lights and set-ups before Nate showed up, on schedule.  He and a friend had come up from Atlanta to catch a what sounded like an improv performance at one of the city's concert spaces that's around the corner from our Flatiron District studio.  

I have admired this model since his earliest work with his friend Josh, an accomplished photographer [@joshmc84].  With his classic and perfectly-portioned physique, Nate, Model 100, is the very definition of the studio's type and I was grateful to have the opportunity to grab a 2-hour session with this gentle man. 

After a full day of shooting we were pretty much on autopilot.  Forgotten in the drama of the impromptu session was the outstanding invitation to the Texans to drop by after Joshua's session.  They showed up about half-way into Nate's session and were quietly ushered to front-row seats in the shadows.  There they were essentially abandoned, for which I again apologize.  I had been looking forward to meeting them, out-of-town fans of the studio who I've only known online.  Maybe next time; without such an obvious distraction as Nate.

Assisting in the studio was Rob Cline [@robnthecity], working as stylist and second camera.  Photos on this page were taken by Rob, as well as several in Nate's gallery.  In 8-plus years the studio has added 100 models to its online galleries.  Five photographers are associated with the studio, each regularly contributing work as first and second cameramen. 

We're making no claim that Nate is one in a hundred, but clearly Nate has one of the finest physiques in our portfolio.  Looking back over the long string of active and retired models in our vault, you may have to go all the way back to DZmitry, to find a torso as perfectly chiseled as Nate's. 

Nate is a worthy bearer of the honorific Model 100.  The fickle finger of fate did well this time.

POSTSCRIPT:  Nate completed his medical studies during Covid and is now addressed as Dr. Bell.

Model 100    [NATE'S GALLERY]

The Vault    [8 YEARS OF STUDIO MODELS]

As is our tradition, in featuring Trevor as the first post of the year we are looking both forward and back. We honor one of the most striking models to come before our camera in 2019 and celebrate the end of the year by publishing two portfolios of our work with this young man from Ohio.

The studio has been in operation for nearly a decade and Trevor's galleries embody, we hope, not just the culmination of 9 years of honing our craft but also a beacon of where we are heading.  It's fitting that our second session with him this summer was a bright, high-key session full of light and optimism.  Let's start our new decade there. 

The model had never been to New York before his first trip in late summer.  It was a session shared with our good friend and West Coast shooting partner, Keith Ingram [@keithingramfotos_2.0].   

There were a lot of cameras trained on Mr. Jacobs (A/K/A “TJ”) over the course of his three days in New York. In addition to Keith's and my cameras, two of the studio's regular assistants, Timothy Edwards and Alex Bustamante, also manned the shutters.

We started with our work with Trevor around some of the iconic locations and landmarks of lower Manhattan.  I particularly enjoy wandering the canyons of Wall Street and the Financial District on a sunny day.  Turn any corner and you can encounter unexpected pools of light, reflected down from towering glass skyscrapers into the dark streets.  It is some of the city's more dramatic natural lighting. 

We worked with Trevor a second day, capturing him in and around the studio hotel he called home for 3 days.  He apparently found it all agreeable; he ventured back to the city barely 10 days later when he returned on a business trip.  Fortunately, he was able to schedule ample time on his calendar to fit in a session with us in our Flatiron District studio.  

The two sessions couldn't have been more different and we have presented them in separate galleries.  We are grateful to have had the opportunity to expand our portfolio of work with this striking model so quickly and hope to add more.

We end 2019 with the release of Trevor blanc, a 32-page photo essay with white at its core.  Featuring work in front of bright windows and yards of white paper, there is little to distract the viewer from Trevor's sinewy torso and beautifully-honed body. 

Trevor blanc is available as a print magazine and as an instantly-downloadable PDF.  In early 2020 we will be releasing work from the downtown sessions, Trevor/Wall Street.

Trevor isn't just appearing as 2020's cover boy at New Manhattan Studios, he is also being featured as the lead entry for 2020 at Favorite Hunks.  Be sure to check out Tye Brigg's feature on Trevor at Favorite Hunks.

Clearly it was not accidental.  With large, carefully-chosen wire-rim glasses and a mop of hair that dominated his face, he was aiming for a particular look.  And why not?  With a facial structure to support it, the model bore a family-like resemblance to the young wizard of Hogwarts... perhaps his cousin Terry Potter?  Maybe his long-lost brother Gary Potter?

Felipe's session came on the heels of a body-painting session with Charles Zambrano. The South American student had waited patiently as the earlier model cleaned up and we rearranged the lights and studio for his more conventional photo shoot.  When the second session finally wrapped it was late in the evening and we were all hungry. 

Since models typically never eat before a photo session, the studio has a custom of taking models and staff out to eat afterward.  We were heading out late that night and despite our mid-Manhattan location (and the fact that the immediate neighborhood hosts not one but three colleges), most of the local haunts had already stopped serving.  Charles, a graduate The School of Visual Arts, of one of the local institutions, knew the neighborhood quite well and suggested a late-hour sushi joint.  Felipe surprised us both with his familiarity with the nabe and had suggestions of his own. 

Over a dinner of sushi, we were surprised to learn that this student from Colombia had worked at a pizzeria just up the block.  Really?  How unlikely was that?  In another "small world" incident, Felipe admitted that he was a student in the college that shares the block with the studio.

Felipe didn't just look like the cute boy next door, he was the cute boy next door!  Check out his gallery here and follow him on Instagram at @pipedel_18.

It is time to fill a promise, made months ago, to share the behind-the-scenes story of a dual photo session with Bond.  It came at the end of a long winter weekend he spent in New York. 

Bond was in from Southern California.  After four years of talking about it, we were finally doing the fantasy photoshoot that we’d discussed for years:  shooting Bond as the secret agent.  It was months in the planning.

Bond was determined to deliver the “sexiest and buffest” Bond yet.  He was adhering to a rigid diet and a demanding workout schedule.   But as he approached the end of grad school, he began to realize that he likely wouldn’t be able to keep up this workout regimen once he was in the full-time workforce.  When the model said he wanted to end on a high note, we agreed that this might be his last modeling session.  We were both determined to make it his best and most memorable.

In the 4 years that we had discussed the secret agent session, not once was any thought given to executing the 007 concept in body paint.  However, when the artist, Charles Zambrano, agreed to work the weekend-long Bond photo shoot, we realized that painting him as 007 would indeed, be a memorable final session.  Charles is an Emmy Award-winning makeup artist who is booked on film and television productions non-stop.  He rarely has time for a longtime creative passion:  body painting.  He is a master artist and scheduling a body painting session with him would be a coup for Bond.

When informed of the concept, Bond was all in.  I secured a large block of time in a studio space with shower facilities and started to think about ways to use the rental to my advantage while paint dried for hours.  I remembered Bond’s recommending a friend as a potential model.  It was a co-worker from his years in New York right after college.  We had talked a year before but he wasn’t ready to start modeling.  I was disappointed since Bond had said they were gym buddies and that Brendt had the most ripped body of anyone he knew.

When I reached out to Brendt to see if he might now be ready to try modeling, I was able to offer a potentially skittish first-time model the chance to have a friend present at his photo session.  I don’t remember if I got that far, however.  He was happy to hear that Bond was coming to town and eagerly accepted the chance to spend time with him.

Most models, like Bond, jump at the chance for a body painting session with only a vague awareness of all that it entails.  It is far more physically challenging than most realize.  It’s all done standing, with limbs extended for prolonged periods of time.  Depending on the concept, it can take hours and be both far more tedious and intimate than most anticipate.  Bond was a trooper, I knew he’d enjoy the experience.  Every model has.

Bond was excited to hear that Brendt, his referral to the studio, would be having a modeling session co-incident with his.  They hadn’t seen each other in years and see each other they would. 

I did not expect the cold space we encountered in the studio.  It was mid-February and we were in a 170-year-old townhouse that was long on history and charm and short on heat. 

Alex, the studio’s second cameraman assisted on the shoot.  He had been present at Bond’s first shoot and they had remained friends over the years.

Bond and Charles set up shop around a space heater in the rear of the studio.  The painting was underway when Brendt arrived and was taken to the front of the studio, under the lights. 

We were using strobes so standing on the paper between the bright lights didn’t offer any warmth for a model posing in various states of undress.  We had five bodies heating the room but it was a large space and seriously cool for this type of work.

After 4 hours we were running out of time; Bond was leaving directly for the airport in an hour and needed to shower before departing.  He was marched onto the paper, artist and paint in tow.  Brendt didn’t expect to have a front-row seat for his friend’s photoshoot but, ushered into the shadows, that’s exactly where he found himself as his own session ended. 

The artist continued painting as Bond started getting into character, mugging with the gun.  In the final push to complete the job, the black briefs came off and Alex was deputized as an assistant to help cover the remaining blank skin with black paint as quickly as possible.

Charles continued sneaking onto the paper to tweak his artwork until we had had to stop.  

Shouting “Wrap” doesn't mean turning the lights and cameras off at a body-painting session.  After about 15 minutes of shooting, that was the signal that we had all the shots we were going to get with the finished art; it was time to pivot from creating to removing the art. In a ritual that starts on camera and ends in the shower, the art is deconstructed.  The model is drizzled with baby oil (to break the bond between paint and skin) and encouraged to smear the paint into his own artistic designs.  In Bond’s case, a nearly all-black tuxedo yielded swirls in 50 shades of charcoal gray.  It is an apt reference.  Oil.  Paint.  Skin.  They may be some of the most erotic of the shots captured over the 3-day weekend.  And in a strobe's flash, Bond’s last photo session was over and he was off to the shower. 

We were striking the set when, minutes later, a panicked call came out for help.  The clock was ticking and he couldn’t get the paint off his back.  His old friend Brendt was first to arrive to assist.

Twenty minutes after he stepped off the paper he was rushing out the door on the way to the airport.  Bond, the secret agent, had been captured on camera and in paint.  Mission Accomplished! 

After four years, there wasn’t time for goodbyes.  The muse left the studio for the last time.

• Painting a Secret Agent goes behind the scenes, from applying the paint to posing and deconstructing the paint.  72 NSFW pages
• Bond/Manhattan, the Bond Fantasy is a 64 page photo essay captured over the entire weekend, NSFW
• Online galleries for the body painting session and the entire weekend
• Click here to see what Brendt was doing at the other end of the floor.

Experienced model that he is, he needed scant direction.   Striking one pose after another, he stretched and twisted.  His frame writhed. His legs and arms extended and then collapsed back on each other.  It was like photographing a shape-shifting pretzel as he coiled and contorted.  

The results are a delightful gallery of striking poses that make good use of the model's trim, runway physique. 

• Vin's Gallery

For the curious, in the background is midtown Manhattan's East Side, on a late summer afternoon.

Ethan's was one of the original galleries on the site.  He was featured in Berkshire Place and his art nudes have long been available in the Art Prints galleries, but we had held back from heavily promoting our work with the 20-year-old out of deference to his privacy.  Six years later, we feel it is time to bring broader attention to our work with this striking young model.

Our new photo essay, Ethan, captures the college student on summer breaks in the Berkshires of western New England.  He traveled up from New York City with the studio's assistant, Alex, and spent a number of weekends in the country as a model and assistant. 

Some of the content in Ethan was previously released in Berkshire Place or available from the studio's art prints gallery.  A majority of the images, however, are unique to this publication, including previously-unpublished explicit images. Ethan is available in a hard copy print edition or as an instantly downloadable PDF. 

Follow the links below to Ethan's published work and the galleries captured on Fire Island and in The Berkshires.  

• Click here to preview the photo essay Ethan
• Click here to enter Ethan's galleries
• Click here to go to Summer Review (featured on FH Blogspot)
• Click here to find All Things Ethan at New Manhattan Studios

The city was awash in rainbow flags.  Storefronts and windows of coffee shops, major national retailers, hotels and banks were all sporting celebratory banners and welcoming messages for tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world arriving for World Pride 2019/Stonewall 50 and a month of celebration.  Bathed in colored lights, the Empire State Building stood as a rainbow-hued exclamation point at night.  Down in Washington Square Park, a short 3 blocks from the Stonewall Inn, the Square's iconic arch was meticulously painted in bright bands of red, yellow, orange, blue, green and purple light.  With its banners welcoming the world, New York University, surrounding the Square, took proud ownership of Stonewall's history--history virtually on its sprawling urban campus.

Joshua impressed me by showing up for his photo session in a shirt that used a double entendre to commemorate the events of fifty years ago.  Its message seemed to be aimed at his generation. The celebrations of 2019 were joyous, loud and prideful.  While we were enjoying a riotously grand time at this year's activities, it was lost on many that we were marking the anniversary of what had been an honest-to-goodness riot in 1969. 

Those of us who were in the city in 1969 (I was a recently-arrived student from California), do not need to be reminded that Stonewall had been a bloody confrontation between the police and the nascent gay community. The Stonewall Inn, a seedy mafia-owned bar in Greenwich Village, was a known gathering point for "homosexuals and other deviants." Frequented largely by closeted older gay men and young hustlers, runaways, and faceless queer youths, it was a frequent target of police raids.

The specifics as to what exactly ignited the disturbances that night has been the subject of much discussion over the years and it's now hard to separate fact from legend.  The Gay Rights movement that was born that night quickly became the province of middle class white males.  Indeed, most of the early history of the gay rights movement in New York was written by activists drawn from the city's professional and creative classes.  Lost in the shuffle has been an appreciation of the fact that the intrepid souls who set spark to the movement were the most marginalized members of the community.  When the closeted gay businessmen fled the bar, it was the hustlers, effeminate "Nellie boys" and youths of color who were the ones who took up arms [or stones] against the police that night.

Joshua was a great model.  We were lucky to get him into the studio in late June before the young actor left town for weeks of performances in summer stock in theaters in the Adirondacks.  He was one of two models that we shot that day.  Both will be remembered fondly but only one will be remembered for his wardrobe choices.

Joshua's T-shirt hit precisely the right notes with me and I was happy to start his session with it front-and-center.  In the midst of all the raucous and well-earned celebrations of Stonewall 50 and our accomplishments since, it was good to be reminded that Stonewall had been a bloody confrontation with the police and of how much we owe to an unlikely handful of misfits who went to jail that night.  Those who first stood up for our rights, who had the audacity to fight the New York City Police Department, were literally those with the least to lose:  the most marginalized members of our own community.

The euphoria of Stonewall 50 has faded but let us not forget what we owe to those brave young men and women who first confronted authority and fought back in the name of justice and a future that was inconceivably brighter than they could have imagined.

Joshua was great fun in the studio and kept mugging for the camera as only a trained actor can.  We captured several distinct sets in the session and we have uploaded two galleries for Joshua, one in full color, the other filled with black-and-white images.

Enter Joshua's Galleries here.
 

This is another big man.  From every angle, Corrin's hulking presence and supersized body was a reminder of the tighter quarters that we now work in.  But he fit—yards-long legs and all—as you can see in his galleries below.

Corrin needed little direction.  He regularly moved on to the next pose as soon as the strobes fired.  He has the capacity to change characters with the crook of his eyebrow, making it entertaining to work with all of him.  At the end of the session, we noticed that we had spent an inordinate amount of time on headshots and have, accordingly, devoted a separate folder in Corrin's gallery just for them.

This Irishman is one of the many international models that have passed through the studio in recent months.  To keep things balanced, we're adding a couple of all-American boys from the midwest.  If you follow us, you've seen our work with Joshua on our Instagram feed.  He's up next.

Working with John, I couldn't help but think of the classic Jimmy Dean ballad.  At six foot tall and with a powerhouse build, this 23-year-old could easily play the part of the coal miner hero in the saga of Big Bad John.  Photographing his back, I could see him braced against the falling timbers of the mineshaft as his fellow miners escaped from the collapsing mine.

John's backstory isn't quite as mysterious as that in the ballad.   He is one of three Dominican models that have passed through the studio in the past few months. Now a resident of New York City, John holds the title of Mr. Santiago and is representing his home town in the Misters of the Dominican Republic contest. 

And bad, he isn't.  He's a local student who obviously spends a good chunk of his time in the gym.  Check out John's gallery here to appreciate how big, if not bad, he is.

We don't want to leave you thinking we see an ending for the Dominican Big Bad John that is as fatally heroic as that in the saga.  But don't get too bummed out by the lyrics and be mindful of the second song in the triology, The Cajun Queen, about John's true love who brings him back to life and a happy ending.

• John's Gallery

That Alejandro holds such a title is understandable.  A commercial and runway model in the Dominican Republic and New York, he's everyone's definition of tall, dark and handsome.  He also has a look that is classic; stirring images from Greek mythology and evoking heroes of gladiator movies.  The hair is certainly a defining feature and the camera loves it.

We covered quite a bit of ground in our session with Alejandro--wet hair and dry--and you can find much of it in his gallery.  More will be added over time as we continue to edit and process images for a variety of uses and reasons.  Further, there were a couple of set-ups and ideas we tried that warrant further development in a follow-up session that we hope to have with Alejandro in the near future.

June will be a busy month in New York and for the studio.  We are involved in a major World Pride project with the make-up artist/body-painter, Charles Zambrano, and six rainbow-colored models.  We have two new photographers providing fresh perspectives of our sessions and two more Dominican models are about to pop up on the website.  Three new models are on deck and finally, with his reign recently over and schedules permitting, Alejandro will be returning as well.

To borrow a phrase, watch this space. 

You can also see the first edits from all of our sessions on our Instagram account (@newmanhattanstudios) and to learn about updates to the site, subscribe to the blog as an RSS feed using the button below.

One of several recent models who has arrived at the studio by way of Instagram, we had assumed from viewing his profile that he'd done previous modeling. 

He had modeled, "once" but he dismissed it as "just with a friend" [a very talented friend, I might add].  Beginning jitters aside, he soon became comfortable in front of our cameras and as he relaxed he became an animated and easy-going, natural model.

Yes; he spends plenty of time in the gym, but not compared to most of the models who have passed in front of our lenses.  He's a student.  His build is natural and [still] relatively effortless, it would seem.

Javier has been patient enough to work with us on some slow-moving photo sessions as we continue experimenting with lights and props in our new studio space.  Check out work from his first two photo sessions here.  And keep checking back.  Not only are there more edits coming from these sessions, but we look forward to having Javier back in the studio this summer.

UPDATE:  And return, Javier has.  Not to the studio, but to an elegant loft apartment on Madison Avenue.  See work from his third session in the new gallery Madison Avenue Loft.

Over the years the studio has regularly scheduled photo sessions across Northern California, my native land.  Alex, as our stylist/assistant/second photographer, has participated in many of the trips.  He has been fortunate to be able to stay in a small flat owned by friends of the studio.  Tucked away on a side street in San Francisco's fabled Castro District, it has been a perfect vacation hideaway for a 20-something model from New York.  Walking from the flat to a nearby restaurant, minutes into his very first stay, he quickly began to sense the possibilities.  In the early days of Grindr, the phone in his back pocket started vibrating like an out-of-control dildo as he walked toward the Castro.

The flat has been a boon for photographers, too.  The soft ambient light in the all-white space is like working inside a softbox.  It is unsurpassed on a sunny afternoon, enveloping models in a warm golden bath of direct and reflected light.  As glorious as the main room is, the garden in the back is even better.  Trellises and a covered arbor give shape to a quiet green space, complete with ivy, bird-of-paradise, bougainvillea, stone tiles, falling water, and wind chimes.  In a pool of light is an outdoor shower.

September is summer in San Francisco and on a cloudless midweek afternoon, the hidden garden exudes serenity in fifty shades of green.  Secluded from prying eyes, neighbors quietly and invisibly go about their lives behind ivy, walls, and vines.   We worked uninterrupted by the distractions of the city all around us.  Until mid-way through the afternoon.  Suddenly the bliss of the garden was jarred by incessant shouting of children and the unmistakable cacophony of a schoolyard.  When we realized that the private day school next door had a playground on the other side of the wall, we scrambled, checking vines and wooden lathes for cracks and sightlines.  We found none, but it was disconcerting nonetheless to be doing this type of work with the sounds of children all around.

Alex, as usual, was unperturbed.  Today, he was the model, not the assistant.  One of two cameras trained on him was being shuttered by Wm Weyeneth, a west coast photographer and a Bay Area associate of New Manhattan Studios.  It was not Bill's first session with Alex, and this time out he captured more than half of the afternoon's best shots.

The resulting work has languished far too long as an unprocessed folder in the studio's archives.  As we finally open it to Alex's fans, we do so in fitting fashion.  As well as opening Alex's first new gallery in a couple of years, we have chosen three dozen of the best shots of the day for a new photo essay, Secret Garden.  We culled the collection down once more to post a dozen new art nudes in the Art Prints galleries. 

Having been an employee of the studio since his early modeling days, Alex holds the distinction of having been photographed more than any other model in the studio's portfolio.  By far.  (We've lost track of how many times, at the last minute, he stepped onto paper that had been rented for another model who had flaked.)  Not to overwhelm the site with our work with one model, we have held back many sessions that beautifully document his changing physique and appearance over the years.  In time, more will follow.

Meanwhile, you can find all of Alex's work with the studio here, including five publications, art prints and additional video presentations of his sessions.  Be sure to check out the new art nudes in the Art Prints gallery.  (A note for our new visitors:  by agreement with our models, NMS does not post explicit photographs online.  Digital fig leaves are used when we post explicit images in the Art Prints gallery.  All such distortions are removed when images are sold as prints or published in our books and magazines.)

Over the years a significant portion of the studio's models has been drawn from the ever-changing pool of international models who have either moved to New York or have been passing through on business.  Effectively spanning the globe, we have have been fortunate to be able to work with models from Canada to the Philippines; from Moscow to the Carribean; Nebraska to Paris and Milan.  I've lost track of the number of South Americans we've shot; Luan is our third Brazilian.

Our sessions are collaborative efforts.  We start with some concrete ideas as to where we're going creatively, but for the studio's part, the concept is more about lighting and venue than poses or wardrobe.  With Luan, the starting point was a dark room and a small shaft of mottled light. 

What happens after we've nailed our starting point is largely up to the model and reflects the interplay between the collaborators on the set (which usually includes the model, one or two photographers and occasionally a stylist).  I've repeatedly stated that each session is as unique as the model on the paper.  Luan is as unique as they come, and delightfully so.

To the extent possible (and within set parameters), the studio lets the model drive the direction of the session once we're rolling.  In some respects, as was the case here, we create a pool of light for them to play in.  Luan actively embraced the challenge and put his stamp and personality on the session to a much greater degree than most models.

Luan can alternately project a street-tough meanness and a playful boyishness.  Who he actually is, might lie somewhere in between.  (And exactly where in between might vary from hour to hour.)  English was no problem for a model who has been in the states for only about a year and little direction was needed once the lights were turned on.  We feel confident that his exuberant personality and enthusiasm for posing comes out in our collaboration.

Check out Luan's gallery here and be sure to pop into the Art Prints section to see some of the explicit images captured over the course of his 3-hour session.   You can find work with one of his fellow Brazilians here [Gabriel].

New models continue to arrive at the studio but we are scaling back our shooting schedule for the time being to focus on publishing the work we have already captured.  Look for a couple of new additions coming soon to our photo essays collection.

• Luan's Gallery
• Art Print Galleries

Neither model mentioned it, but I'm quite sure that Charlie learned of New Manhattan Studios while working with Alex on another set.  Maybe each has his own reason for keeping a low profile on that session.  Alex remains an active model recruiter for the studio as well as his roles as stylist, assistant and second cameraman.  In any event, we're happy that Charlie found his way to our cameras.

An eager and willing model, Charlie was easy to work with.  His enthusiasm played out in his eagerness to keep trying new outfits and poses.  A lot was accomplished in two hours, with his demeanor and mood bouncing from playful to smoldering. 

Check out the work in his gallery, where two dozen shots from his session are on display.  Don't miss some additional explicit work in the Art Print galleries.  This is as good a time as any to remind visitors that the studio does not post explicit images online.  Digital fig leaves are used when exhibiting such work in our galleries.  All published content and images purchased from the Art Print galleries are printed without fig leaves.

Charlie was one of the first models to work with us in our new studio in the Flatiron District.  Over the years we have earned the plural in our name, Studios.  In the past several years we have leased spaces in studios across the city, from mid-Manhattan to Long Island City, Brooklyn and most recently, an historic townhouse in SoHo.  This last move we expect to be permanent (or at least long-lasting). 

Ironically, we have returned to where it all began, for us as well as others.  We're back in the Flatiron District, the city's historic photography district. It's fitting that the District's name derives from the distinctive angular building on Fifth Avenue at 23rd Street.  Everyone from Steichen to Stieglitz has trained his camera on this iconic building, making it one of the most photographed objects in the city and the world.  Behind it is the building that once housed the Bachrach brothers studio.  It was here that they made history photographing a presidential candidate.  Their photos of Abraham Lincoln were the first commercial photographs used in a presidential campaign. 

OK.  Our photos of Charlie are probably not going to be used in any presidential campaign. . .   but then again, these days, who knows!  

I was surprised last week when I went online searching for our posted work with Dominic.  It wasn't there!  A small handful of his images from our session with him last summer had been uploaded to a gallery on the site, but there they had languished, unannounced and incomplete for months.  There's no green theme here, but we're using St. Patrick's Day to complete the folder and release his images into the wild.

As previously noted, it was a challenging fall for the studio and many things slipped through the cracks.  Dominic should never have been one of them!  Using Instagram as a yardstick, our work with him—in particular the shots at the studio's window on Bleeker Street—includes some of the most popular images we posted last year.  (There's nothing like muscles in sunlight!)

We had the good fortune to work with Dominic in a shared studio and session with the talented Connecticut photographer, Stephen Kahrs [@stephenkahrs_2.0 and www.stephenkahrs.com].  Stephen did the legwork to schedule the model, we provided the studio.  Together we did two concurrent sessions with two photographers and two models in our relatively small studio space in an historic townhouse in SoHo.  We met the challenge by working with the models in the studio, on the roof and in the street.

UPDATE

Since first posting this page, our work with Dominic has been featured on the cover of Malesuality magazine, Issue #15.  This international publication features models from all over the world and we are delighted that the studio's work has now been featured in Malesuality four times. Find all issues at MALESUALITY.COM.

In August of 2022, Dominic was tapped as the coverboy for Playgirl magazine.

Check out his New Manhattan Studios gallery here and check out Stephen Kahr's work here.

The inspiration for this collection dates back to the January night we met Bond.  At the end of what was his first professional photo shoot he chose Bond Brown as his modeling name.  Within minutes we were spinning secret agent scenarios and making plans for the next photo session. 

Initially, we underestimated the ease of finding a realistic prop gun in New York City.  Other opportunities arose (see Lancaster).  Soon life got in the way of the best-laid plans and Bond moved out of New York before we could capture a secret agent session.  But since that first night, the 007 Session has remained an elusive goal, morphing from our next project into—eventually—the now-or-never session that would culminate Bond’s modeling career. 

As followers of the blog and website know, after our first sessions with Bond in New York we continued to shoot with him over the years. . .in California, in Florida and eventually back in New York.  The work has appeared in Gramercy Square, the inaugural issue of Captured Shadows and three photo essays.  Our work with Bond has appeared on Favorite Hunks and in DNA.   He has been the subject of two Private Portfolio books and a third is on its way. 

Bond has always been a reclusive but enthusiastic model, shunning social media, he has worked with very few photographers over his modeling years but has manifestly enjoyed the work.  Now in grad school and very much an ambitious young man getting on with his life, he took the challenge seriously.  This was the session we’d talked about for years.   He’d soon be acquiring an adult-sized, 40-hour-a-week desk and realistically, this would be his last photo session as a model. 

He dedicated himself to the gym for months of serious workout and diet regimens.  Knowing that the extended, time-lapse documentation of his changing physique was coming to an end, he was determined to deliver "the buffest, sexiest Bond yet." 

When we finally captured the session that we’d been nurturing since his first shoot, four years had lapsed.  It worked out well.  The boy-next-door had matured quite nicely and now fit the persona of a dashing secret agent.  It was our thirteenth session together.

In all respects, this was a special occasion, a grand finale.  We flew Bond and his GF into New York for a long weekend that included a celebratory dinner and a Broadway show with the studio's staff and crew.  (Alex, our model/assistant/stylist/photographer, has known Bond since that first night, too.)  The couple stayed in the apartment west of Times Square that we used as a shooting space.  By day, the unobstructed views from their 43^rd story perch was breathtaking.  By night, the setting was iconic New York and wildly romantic.

Day or night, the space presented challenges for the photography.  The view was not entirely unobstructed.  A comparably high building across the street blocked the view to the east.  Further, it had terraces.  About half way through the morning’s shoot, our stylist noticed an admirer . . . directly across the street . . . on her balcony . . . taking pictures back at us from about 100 feet away.  We discretely switched windows.

Two walls of the room were floor-to-ceiling glass. By night, the challenge was reflections on the glass separating us from the dramatic view.  The opposite interior walls and ceiling were white.  If you were having a candlelight dinner you could appreciate the view, but turn on any lights and much of the nighttime view was obliterated by reflections of the bright white room.  Using our strobes was out of the question; they lit the place up like a lightning bolt.  Ultimately, the only light source that didn’t cast significant reflections on the glass was a reading lamp near the chair.  It was primitive and the dim light forced us to push the ISO to the max.  Some images are the worse for it but at least we could see both the model and the view.

Assisting us for the weekend was the talented stylist and makeup artist, Charles Zambrano.  When Bond saw our portfolio of Charles' body paintings, he wanted in.  In the final hours before he had to bolt for the airport, we found time for a body painting session.  This had never been part of the plans, but with paints, stencils and brushes in hand, Charles realized Bond as the dashing secret agent in his trademark tuxedo . . . in body paint. 

Every model that has done a body painting session with Charles has enjoyed the experience.  Bond was no exception but that’s the topic for the next blog entry and a separate behind-the-scenes photo essay, Painting a Secret Agent.  

We have uploaded over four dozen photos from the session to new online galleries and have released the latest studio publication.  Bond/Manhattan, a new three-part photo essay, features a collection of 60+ images from Bond's final photo session, including Bond as the secret agent (in the flesh and in the paint) as well as a very special NSFW morning session with Bond high above Manhattan and on top of the world, a fitting finale to a long modeling career. 

• Bond Manhattan:  The Bond Fantasy (preview and order here)
• Painting a Secret Agent, Lancaster County and other photo essays
• Bond's Private Portfolios
• All Things Bond at New Manhattan Studios

After thirteen photo sessions, rest assured that we have not seen the last of Bond.  We still have mounds of raw files that have never been released.  And—if the modeling Gods smile on us—Bond might make it back to the East Coast one more time before he starts his new job.  With luck there just might be one more session with this model before he moves on to his inevitable adult life.

The models jumped at the chance to spend a couple of days on a working farm.  Our hosts made every corner of the 30-acre farm  ̶  home to over two dozen horses  ̶  available to us, as well as some of the gentler 1000-pound creatures.  

Etched in my Madison Avenue memory bank is the tidbit that Leo Burnett, the Chicago advertising agency that created the iconic Marlboro Man, learned early in the decades-long run of the campaign that they needed to move casting sessions out of downtown Chicago.  Lack of familiarity with horses and horse culture doomed most men sent from modeling agencies; they looked out of place if not downright uncomfortable on and around horses.  Within a couple of seasons the ad agency was only using real cowboys, recruited from fairgrounds and rodeos around the country. 

With no idea of what to expect, we were heading to southeastern Pennsylvania with three New York City models (from left:  Alex, Bond, Oleks).  Although they were abounding with enthusiasm, none had a farm background. One grew up in an apartment building in the Ukraine, one was from the suburbs of Buffalo and another from Metropolitan New York. 

Despite their outward bravado, their first encounters with the animals on-the-hoof was generally humbling and often amusing.  To their credit, the three quickly became at ease around the horses and each enjoyed the session.  We spent the better daylight part of two days at work on the farm.

We thought the session was so successful that we planned to return with additional models and the objective of publishing a book.  Months passed as we searched for additional models that could work out-of-town on the two workweek days.  Years passed before we realized how rare it had been that we had been able to work with multiple models and horses at the same time.  

As our original models began retiring from modeling it became apparent to us that we would not be adding more content to the Lancaster session.  Recognizing that a full length book was not to be, we are happy to publish the work now as a photo essay featuring three of the studio's favorite models over the years.  

While images from this session featuring individual models has been released in the past, this is the first time most of these images have been presented, and the first time as a set.  In addition to the 56-page photo essay, we have opened a new gallery with 25 images from the set.

It's been years arriving, but here's a happy backwards look at some of our earlier work and favorite models:  Alex, Bond and Oleks.  Preview and order Lancaster County here.

At this time of year it is customary to reflect back and to look forward.

It's also a studio tradition to choose a noteworthy model for the first posting of the year.

If the image of the stereotypical seasonal image is the New Year’s Baby, Tyler was the obvious choice this year; he’s brand new to modeling.  He hadn’t done a professional photo session until we connected on Instagram in the fall.  His unabashed enthusiasm for the work reminds us of another model who holds both the distinction of the first model posted in 2014 and also the first model posted in the blog. 

Like other models who've been tapped as our New Year's Man, we hope to be seeing more of Tyler over the course of the coming year. 

Reflecting back. . .my period of convalescence this fall was not an entirely lost cause.  While the studio ceased shooting for several months, we turned our attention to the collections of images past that have long been waiting for their due attention.  We have been actively curating and publishing content at a rapid clip.  Two new private portfolios have been published and the studio's new series of photo essays now includes five themed photo collections with featured models.  More publications are in the works and new photo sessions are scheduled to begin shortly.

New Manhattan Studios is pleased to announce a new series of publications:  Photo Essays.

These themed collections reflect the studio's roots in photo journalism.  Most tell a story or illustrate an individual photo session with the featured model.

Ranging in size from bite-sized collections of a couple of dozen images to longer studies such as the documentation of a body-painting session, they are priced according to size.  All featured the uncensored work of the studio and are classified as NSFW.

The new series joins the list of studio publications that include individual books; Captured Shadows, the studio's magazine-style portfolio of physique art and The Private Portfolio series, featuring our uncensored work with individual models over an extended period of time.

More essays are in the works, and a new Private Portfolio (for Norm) has just been added to the series.  2019 will see additional entries in all series.

• Photo Essays
• Private Portfolios
• Captured Shadows
• Books

A Lost Fall. 

Regular readers of the studio's blog know that I resist comments about my personal life. The blog is about the models and their photo sessions.

However, I cannot let the blog go silent for months without comment.  In this case, the explanation is both very personal and simple:  health.  For months now I have been dealing with multiple hospitalizations and slow recoveries.  The studio has been inactive for almost the entire Fall.  The good news is that I'm ending the year well on the road to a complete recovery and I expect to resume normal operations in early 2019.

Meanwhile, some work has been going on behind the scenes and without public mention.  New galleries have opened and new publications have gone to press. I now have the energy (and interest) to start posting some of this work.  Over the next few days/weeks, I'll be adding three new models and their galleries to the website as well as providing links to new published collections.  

Resuming activity on Instagram is a bit more problematic.  I have certainly enjoyed my vacation from daily postings but recognize the commercial necessity of maintaining a presence on the platform.  Like many, however, I am deeply troubled by the near-daily news reports about Facebook (Instagram's owner) and the dark underside of social media platforms that appear to be undermining our personal, civic and national health.  I accept the well-documented thesis that people who participate on these social media platforms are less happy than those who simply stay off, as several of the studio's models have chosen to do.

Enough with the personal and soap-box rhetoric.  Back to the models.  Watch for new entries coming soon for the three men you see on the header (from the left):  Ronnie, Nelson and Tyler will be making their debuts here in the days ahead.  Stay tuned.

And to everyone, my wishes for a happy holiday season and abundant health to all in the new year.

WT

Enter Nelson's Gallery Here

At year end, it seems natural to be thinking both backward and forward.

Nelson was the last model that we shot in the studios on Bleeker Street. It was easy attracting models to the area on the trendy border of SoHo and NoHo.  For the non-New Yorkers, they are acronyms for South of Houston and North of Houston Street.  These downtown neighborhoods are among the trendiest parts of the city; littered with clubs, serious foodie destinations, boutiques, hotels and bistros, all powerful model magnets.

At the end of the year we have completed our move to new studio space in the Flatiron/Madison Square neighborhood, about twenty blocks uptown. The new space has been designed to our specifications and we have a long lease.  The studio may finally end its itinerant nature.

The plural in the studio's name could well refer to the dozen-or-so studio spaces represented in our portfolio.  Over the years the studio has rented or leased shared studio spaces across Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.  Some have been long-term leases, others more tactical and short-term in nature. We have enjoyed working in converted historic buildings, a 100-year-old cigar factory in Long Island City, a Civil War era rope factory along the Brooklyn waterfront.  We got our start in Manhattan in a studio in the Garment District and ended up in an historic house just off The Bowery.

We will begin shooting full-time in the new space in January.  Not only is it private, non-shared space (meaning we can book anytime!) but it is closer to home than any space we've previously used.  What may be lost in the "model appeal" of the neighborhood will be more than repaid by personal convenience.

And to kick the studio space into high-gear, Nelson and his boundless energy will be one of the first models we book in January.  Be watching for more Nelson and more publication releases.  Follow us on Instagram or subscribe to this blog (using the button below).

We struck up a conversation on Instagram.  Ronnie, a European runway model, had recently arrived in New York City from his native Germany. 

Don't let the swarthy Mediterranean looks deceive, Ronnie is German.  And a successful model, to boot.  He's appeared in runway shows and commercial fashion videos, videos and photo shoots across Europe. 

An avid fitness buff, he spends hours in the gym each week and in "off time" chases around the city, exploring the haunts and venues of his generaton. He's heeded the admonition that everyone should live in New York City once [and leave before it hardens them] and has seized this as his moment. You can follow his exploits on Instagram @ronnyclooney

We worked with Ronny in midsummer and he is one of several models who've arrived quietly on the website as we have opened and slowly added images to his gallery over a couple of months. We are proud to be officially debuting our work with this young model, you can find his gallery here.

First off, let's straighten out some potential confusion.  Piren and NMS's Peter 2 are one and the same.  The model has used more than one modeling name in his career in the studios and runways of New York.

We are pleased to announce that Piren is one of three featured models in the sixth issue of Malesuality magazine.  It's a delightful pairing.  Malesuality is published in Caracas and Piren is Venezuelan.  

Piren (or Peter) is part of the major disapora of Venezuelans who have left home, seeking relief from the economic turmoil now ravaging the country.  Tommy, the publisher of Malesuality, is part of the country's once-vibrant middle class that is struggling to keep the lights on until some semblance of normality and order return.  We wish them all well.

New Manhattan Studios is proud to have one of Venezuela's popular sons featured in this international magazine dedicated to "the sensuality of the male form captured by the best photographers."  Issues one through six are on sale here and the magazine is available in hard copy format as well as PDFs and ebooks available as instant downloads.

Piren's work with New Manhattan Studios can be found in his own gallery and in the Art Prints galleries where new images  have recently been added in conjunction with Piren's appearance in Malesuality.  Read more about his sessions with the studio here.

We are happy to open a special gallery to celebrate the next chapter of the Bond saga on Favorite Hunks.  Over 4 years ago, the site gave birth to the Bond fantasy, an alter ego that this somewhat reclusive model has been happily projecting ever since. 

Modeling under the name Bond Brown, this young man has long guarded his online privacy (he is not on social media).  Ironically, he now holds the distinction of having been featured more often than any other model on this popular international blog.  (See links at bottom.)

The new set we debut couldn't be more appropriately named.  Tease.  Few do it better than Bond.  He's honed his bedroom eyes well since his first session.

While Bond may be teasing the viewer, so are we.  This collection comes from our recent Brooklyn Session, with much of the work recently edited for Bond's fans visiting from Favorite Hunks. 

As a reminder to returning fans and of note to new visitors, by agreement with our models, the studio does not post explicit images online.  Any digital fig leaves used on the website (as in the slideshow above) are removed from all images sold in the Art Prints Gallery or our publications.

We've shamelessly used the word "tease" and a provocative pose to get your attention.  Bond is the featured model in Captured Shadows #5, which has just been re-released in PDF format.   

It has come to our attention that a number of ebooks purchased from our fabricator, Blurb, have been defective.  Unfortunately, there is no way for the studio to exercise quality control for digital products purchased and downloaded from their site. Accordingly, we have decided to stop offering ebooks, replacing them with PDFs.

If you purchased a defective product from us in the past, please click here for a replacement in PDF format.

Going forward, the studio will be releasing all digital content in PDF format.  This universal format is viewable on almost all devices.  

We will close with the good news that Bond: Private Portfolio 3 is now in production.  Featuring work from the model's four most recent sessions with the studio, it is a companion piece for the earlier volumes, tracing the model from his first year in New York to California and beyond.  Watch for its release in the fall.

Find Bond's latest features on Favorite Hunks below:

• New York Return
• Preantepenultimate Bond

UPDATE:   Since the initial posting of Tease, the studio has published a new collection of photographs from this session, Skull & Bonds, that takes Bond's tease much further than the above-referenced online gallery.  This special publication is definitely NSFW.  You can preview and order it here.

Oliver is hardly the first model we've taken up to the roof of the 3-story townhouse that the studio calls home.  Oliver isn't even the first French model we've had on the roof this month; see the previous blog entry.  Oliver's session was, however, the first time we'd been up there in mid-day.

Every building has a roof, in New York, most of them are accessible.  The view from our roof on Bleeker Street ("backdrop" is probably a better word than "view") is quintessentially New York.  Surrounded by taller buildings, hundreds of windows stare down. The obvious lack of privacy is hardly a concern for New Yorkers. 

Affectionately known as "tar beach," New York City's roofs are popular hangouts for tenement dwellers, residents of high-rise co-ops and owners of private brownstones alike.  Suntans by day, parties by night.  That they are such a part of the city's culture is affirmed by the enduring popularity of Carol King's song Up On on the Roof, recorded by The Drifters in 1962.*  It could have served as the soundtrack for Oliver's session.

It's always fun to get outside and to work in the fresh air; but this was August and we only lasted about 15 minutes.  The heat was brutal.  At one point, seated in a deck chair, 20 feet in front of the model, I reached down to move my chair a few feet to the left.  It wouldn't budge.  Each of the four legs had fused with the roof; sinking a full inch into the thick layer of tar.  I took that as nature's sign that it was time to head downstairs to the shade and relative cool of the studio.

Oliver is one of the studio's "happenstance" models.  He calls Paris home.  Our base in New York City affords us the opportunity to work with many models passing through the city.  Oliver had inquired about doing a session with us last spring.  His job with a major international airline meant that it was just a matter of time before we could pull it off. 

We're counting on the same travel benefits to get Oliver back for a second session later in the year. I'm not sure if the "view" from the roof warrants another session, but the model himself certainly does.  He possesses one of the most impressive physiques we've shot this year and we look forward to working with him again on a future trip to the city. 

In the meantime check out the images from his first session in Oliver's gallery.  Head on over to the Art Prints gallery for additional images.

• Oliver's Gallery
• Art Prints Gallery

In the coming weeks and months as more images will be added to Oliver's gallery.  Subscribe to our RSS feed (below) to keep up to date with new arrivals on the site.

* For those interested in a more contemporary rendition of Up on the Roof, here's a link to a 2007 version by II D Extreme with a collage of rooftop images of NYC.

The summer of 2018 seems to be an appropriate time to reach out with appreciation and gratitude to our European friends.  Trade wars be damned, what better way to say, "We still love you!" to our than to feature two stunning French exports straight from the sidewalks of Paris.

Anthony was the first of the two to pass through the studio.  An Instagram connection brought his versatile looks to our attention.  He has the ability to project innocence and worldliness at once.  He can be a waif from the pages of Les Misérables or, tilt his head, a cosmopolitan millennial.  Don't let the tattoos mislead you.  Put a shirt and tie on this Parisian and you have an international banker with a graduate degree in finance and a job on Wall Street. 

Anthony's gallery is open and we're starting to fill it with work from his first session in June.  More will follow as new edits are added to the gallery over time.  We're also hoping to get Anthony back in front of the cameras later this summer so plan to return to see more.

Check out the links to Anthony's gallery below and watch for the second French import, Oliver, who's following close on Anthony's heels.

• Gallery Slideshow (desktop)
• Gallery Slideshow (mobile devices)

"Liberte.  Equalite.  Fraternite."

Liberty.  Equality.  Brotherhood.

Vive la France!

The mutual friend was a model of the studio.  We had first heard Brendt's name years earlier when one of our new models began promoting his workmate and gym bud.  They were both just out of college and worked together in New York City's hospitality industry.  Their lives took them in different directions (and opposite coasts) before any introduction to the studio was made.

A year ago our old model was back in town, shooting with us again and still promoting his NYC bud as "the most ripped" dude that he'd ever worked out with in a gym.  We encouraged him to invite his friend to join us for dinner after the photo shoot.

After three years, we finally met Brendt at one of the studio's favorite after-session dinner spots.  It was hard to judge Brendt's physique seated in a popular mid-town restaurant but he held his own against stiff competition in a room full of dating-age New York millennials.  He'd never modeled before, but with the encouragement of his friend, was considering the idea.  

The mutual friend was Bond and amusingly, we were in a restaurant owned by the man they worked for when they met.  After an evening of camaraderie with staff, models and fellow waiters, we parted agreeing "to set something up."

It was another seven months before Brendt reached back out to us to talk about scheduling a session.  Co-incidentally his friend was heading back to New York a couple of weeks later.  I suggested that we could schedule a session with him to coincide with his friend's return to the studio.  When he heard what I had in mind, he agreed.  His friend would be with him at his first photo session.

Now Bond was heading back to New York for a very special photo session.  We were shooting him, finally, as James Bond.  At the end of three days of shooting, we were going to be doing a body-painting session with Bond reimagined as 007, complete with gun and tuxedo.  Body painting sessions are tedious affairs with a corner of the studio being occupied for two, three or four hours by the actual process of painting the model's body.  It leaves a big, open studio that the photographers can be working in while the paint dries.  Brendt agreed to fill that slot at the other end of the studio.

After nearly four years, it was worth the wait.  I cannot vouch for whether Brendt has the most ripped body of Bond's gym buddies, but I can say that his chiseled torso is one of the top physiques to have stood under our lights.  I had thought his dark skin might present a challenge to lighting his definition but I woefully underestimated the depth of his definition.  All I had to do was turn on the lights. It was a delight working with him. 

While we were able to conduct two overlapping sessions over the course of several hours.  It was Brent's first time modeling and we had agreed to a straight-forward fitness session.  We got started later than planned and could not have been working more than 30 minutes when I needed to divide my time between documenting the body painting session and shooting Brendt.  Eventually Alex took over Brendt's session while I focused on Bond.

The body-painting session was similarly off schedule.  Eventually I had to pull Bond down to the other end of the room and under the lights, summarily kicking his friend off the paper.  I was surprised to find the new model clad in a single piece of clothing (held in front of him) and he retreated into the shadows while we finished prepping Bond.  We had a hard deadline.  Bond was leaving directly for the airport from the shoot and we only had 40 minutes for the photography and his shower.

Eventually Brendt had a front-row seat at his friend's photo session:  Bond, painted as the dashing secret agent.  But now we're getting ahead of ourselves.  Before getting to that gallery, treat yourself to Brendt's gallery.  As with most of our model galleries these days, it will continue to expand as we edit additional images for publishing and promotional purposes.

Brendt returned to the studio a couple of months later for a session exclusively focused on him with one of our collaborating photographers, Rob Cline.  Work from both sessions are found in his galleries.

Since the start of 2017, New Manhattan Studios has  morphed from a commercial business to a retirement operation focused more on art for art's sake.  We continue to take commercial assignments that fit with our interests and are always exploring new horizons in an attempt to "do it all" in our remaining productive years including, for example, a number of sessions with the makeup and body painting artist, Charles Zambrano.  These days, many of our models arrive from social media platforms, most notably Instagram, as was the case with Sergey.  We continue going on location and making regular trips outside the Metropolitan area to work with models around the country.

Instagram has had a significant impact on the studio's operations.  Now many sessions are being structured to provide promotional material for Instagram.  Reflected on the website, you'll be seeing more galleries such as Sergey's; studio sessions that contain as much variety as can be squeezed into a short time frame and 100 square feet of studio floor. 

Most notably, Instagram has altered our workflow.  Editing is now driven by a need to feed Instagram and the first place our newest work appears is on our Instagram feed.  Our photo sessions are now being edited over a period of months as we bounce back and forth from one open folder to another.  As a result, on our website we have started soft-opening new galleries that contain small but slowly-enlarging bodies of work.  When there is sufficient content to warrant, we announce the gallery on our blog, much as we always have.  The biggest difference is that most galleries should now be considered "works-in-progress."  We continue to add images to folders as we seek new content for Instagram and our publications. 

We are now typically "soft-opening" galleries with new models within two or three weeks of their session.  If you see a model on our Instagram feed, look for his work in the Models Gallery and expect to find a folder into which we will continue adding images over the coming weeks and months.

The body painting sessions are something of an odd fit with the rest of our portfolio but we have found a corner for them in our art galleries.  Every model that has participated has enjoyed the experience and a body painting session is now something to which newer models aspire.  We know that this art is not a natural fit with the the rest of the studio's physique art photography but many of the body painting galleries on the site have side-car galleries with behind-the-scenes shots of the laborious body-painting process.  Below right is such a photo of Timothy, assuming the persona of Neptune, Ruler of Oceans.  My interest in telling the story harks back to my roots as a photo journalist.  Be sure to check it all out if you find the whole process as interesting as I do. 

Sergey's session gave us the opportunity to play with a new light in the studio that we currently lease in lower Manhattan.  It's a Fresnel light to which we've added a diffusion gel that provides a beautiful, natural looking light.  We're overcoming an aversion to mottled light as we learn how to use it, but this is the type of lens and lamp that has long been associated with Hollywood sets and it has a retro feel to it that is fun to play with.  

Experimenting with new lights lights and tools of the trade is part of our mission at the moment.  We are adding all sorts of things (like lights) to the wish list for the new studio that is being built to our specifications.  "Hollywood lighting?  We'll take that to go, please." 

Bringing us to the last bit of behind-the-scenes news, a new home base is in the works.  After years of itinerancy, we are designing a permanent new studio with a long-term lease.  I withhold further comment for now except to say that we hope to start shooting in our new midtown space by mid-summer.  

• Click here for Sergey's gallery
• Click here for Sergey in the Art Prints Gallery
• Click here for Timothy as Neptune

While a new studio space is being constructed to our specs, we currently work in a drafty old townhouse in one of the oldest parts of town.  Built before the Civil War, it's just off the Bowery, traditionally New York's skid row.  Neither the building nor the neighborhood were ever fashionable.  Until now.  Today, the Bowery is as chic a nabe as can be found, with trendy boutiques, bars, restaurants and clubs rivaling neighboring SoHo.

Over the years, the studio has operated in of a number of spaces. Interestingly, three of our four leases have been in historic buildings.  For several years we worked in spacious quarters in a converted cigar factory that was built in the late 1800s.  Then we did a stint in a Civil War-era rope factory on the Brooklyn waterfront (that today houses a complex of modern studios and offices).  Back in Manhattan, what our current spaces lack in size is made up for by ease of access (ever the New York City trade-off).  The fact that it has the quirkiest history off all is a freebie.

In Daniel's gallery you'll find several shots with a mirror, giving you a glimpse of three walls in the studio.  In its size (25' by 100') and general layout, this house isn't all that different from most New York City's townhouses, just much older.  The entire third floor is now an open studio space, as is a portion of the second floor. The well-worn floorboards on the staircase betray the house's age.  In a neighborhood with an abundance of "haunted houses" this one is a possible candidate.  Its most recent owner, a troubled soul, committed suicide.

The building's first floor is occupied by a boxing gym.  (That's a story for another time.)  Upstairs are two floors of studio space and offices.  Judging from the storefront and location, it's likely the ground floor was always a commercial space, probably that of the original owner whose living quarters were "above the store."  With its street views, the end of the third floor that you see here was probably once the master bedroom.  

The mid-century black-and-white tiles were probably part of the decor when, after years on the run, Abbie Hoffman acquired the house. 

The reformed Sixties radical and political activist sought a home for himself and his activist causes and friends.  This is what he could afford:  an old building in a seedy part of town.  It suited him well and even today much of the public space in the building is as he had it, with historic photos, political banners posters for long-ago events.

That's right, Daniel, you are standing in Abbie Hoffman's bedroom! 

The FBI had tens of thousands of pages in its files on this anarchist who had been a founder of the radical Yippie Movement, a major anti-war activist who was arrested and convicted as part of the Chicago Seven (for plotting to disrupt the 1968 Democratic Convention).  In his later years, this was his base; he remained an activist and political organizer until his suicide at the age of 52. 

The unfortunate soul died in bed, but not in this room.  The curtain came down on Hoffman's final act in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

It was a cold room the night of Daniel's session.  Whether it was the chilly breath of the departed or the lack of gas (which had been turned off as "a safety measure"), the frigid experience earned Daniel a second session in warmer weather.  This 20-something personal trainer is just the second Canadian in our portfolio. Work from both sessions has been combined in Daniel's Gallery.  We'll let you see if you can find the goosebumps that betray the first session.

Benjamin was one of the more frenetic models that we could recall shooting. Reviewing the work as I downloaded the images to my PC, I was surprised to see goosebumps on the model in several pictures.  No wonder he wanted to keep moving!  In texts later that month we agreed that he would come back under more agreeable conditions.  

We seized the opportunity to make good on the"conditions" promise a few weeks later on one of the city's first delightful spring days. 

Just out of school at 22, Benjamin is new to the city.  I was curious to check out a possible shooting space along the East River and as we started out, I told him that we were heading to an isolated complex of towers and plazas that few New Yorkers have ever ventured into.  Built on stilts and landfill over the East River, pedestrian access to these residential, school, and commercial buildings is by a single pedestrian bridge over a highway. Benjamin stunned me by announcing that not only had he been there before, it had been his first home in New York City.  

Benjamin hadn't been back "home" in months and his exuberance is captured in some of the work.  Behind him (below) is the new skyline of Long Island City across the river.  Yes.  Long Island City!

We weren't exactly being discrete and with a 400 mm lens hanging off my camera, we didn't look like residents or tourists taking in the view.  Lacking a film permit, we were eventually chased off the private property but not before Benjamin was able stroll past the front door to his first New York home.  Like most New Yorkers, he has no reason to cross the pedestrian bridge over the highway to reach this enclave nestled on the East River.  He hadn't been back since he'd moved out.

As is traditional, our first model each year is one that we expect to see more of in the coming year.  Benjamin is exemplary of several new models that we've shot in the SoHo studios that will be appearing in 2018.  And we are already talking of having Benjamin back.  We hope you will be seeing more over time.  And over 2018.

Meanwhile, check out Benjamin's gallery here.  We've added some new content since it previewed a couple of days ago and now there are a number of images in the art prints gallery as well.

When the studio ceased its commercial business at the end of 2016, we began refocusing our work and, freed from clients, altering long-standing workflows.  The refocusing of our work is a discussion for another day; the altered work flow has directly impacted the here and now of blog postings.

Today, after the preparation of an initial “Instagram set” (a half dozen pictures given to a model shortly after his session), the session folder remains open.  We continue to process images as needs arise and the work in a model’s folder fills out quickly over two or three months. 

The accumulation and selection of random images is driven by publishing projects or the need for promotional content on social media.  When a critical mass has been reached (typically a dozen or more photos), we have been opening public galleries on our website with the edited work under the model’s name.  You will find that several such galleries have been opened, quietly, since the last blog post.

We have refrained from promoting such new work with blog postings because the galleries were never complete.  We continue to add additional work. 

In reality, galleries will no longer again be “complete” in the sense that they were once closed and fixed collections of the best work from the session.  New work is always being added, often very different from what may have appeared in the first weeks or months.   

The “big picture” is that this phenomenon doesn’t just apply to recent photo sessions; new work has been appearing in many of the older galleries on the website as well. As the studio feeds the maw of social media, we revisit old folders, finding undiscovered new gems worth editing. 

How to deal with the altered work flow and best promote the new content being uploaded to the site is the dilemma that has halted blog postings.

For the time being, we have decided to resume announcing new models on the website.  We will draw attention to the fact that their galleries are works-in-progress.  New content can be added at any time and will often be seen first on our Instagram feed. 

We continue to explore how to best reflect shifts in the studio’s oeuvre in the organization of the site, but that’s a discussion for another day.  It’s time to get back to the models.  We’ll be back-dating some of the blog posts so roughly reflect the time their galleries went public. 

To that end, Benjamin, above, is the teaser for all the new men coming in 2018.  Announcements of more new models and work will be posted in the coming days.  We have catching up to do.

First, check out Benjamin's gallery here.   Remember to return from time to time to as more images will be added to the gallery. 

Few models have stood before our cameras more often than Norm but this may be the last chapter.  He first worked with us at the age of 18 when he followed his gym buddy to the studio.  Alex, the studio's stylist and second cameraman (left, lower), and Norm work out at the same gym in their hometown, just across the river from Manhattan.

Back in January, Norm was the first model we posted in 2017.  We've worked together three times over the past 12 months and it seems fitting that his will be the last work posted for the year as well.  Norm, hosting Venom (body-painting by the artist Charles Zambrano) was featured in July.  Work from two other two sessions, recently prepared for publication, is debuting in Norm's new 2017 Gallery.

We have long discussed working on the streets of New York, but despite living just 15 minutes away on the other side of Hudson River, Norm doesn't get into the city that often.  At a spring session in the studio, Norm announced his career plans and push came to shove.  The session on the sidewalks of Manhattan finally happened just days before the model moved out of the area. 

Two-and-a-half years after his first tentative photo shoot at the age of 18, Norm is one of five New York models featured in Captured Shadows 5, New York Sessions.  Visiting his online galleries here at New Manhattan Studios, you can see the remarkable progress this young body-builder has made over the late-teen years that we've documented.  He has always had one of the most defined torsos of any model we've worked with and it's only gotten better.  For those who admire well-proportioned, chiseled torsos, Norm is the bull's eye.

It was quite a thrill for Norm to assume the persona of Venom, a long-revered comic book villain.  If working with the artist was his last turn in front of our cameras it was a fitting high note.  A few days later, now 21, he packed his bag and moved out of town, following employment opportunities and dreams.  We hope this isn't our last work with Norm.  He'll be home from time to time, but whether he'll have a chance to pop into the studio is an open question.  He's very much a young man getting on with his life and we wish him well.

Below is an outtake from Captured Shadows 5.  Check out all of Norm's work with the studio here.

We have more than doubled the size of the gallery and many new images have been added to the Art Prints Gallery as well.

Most of the new work has been edited for publication or print sales including art nude and explicit images that can be found in the Art Print Galleries and in upcoming studio publications.

Bond: Brooklyn is a special feature in Captured Shadows 5.  The publication has just gone to press and will be on sale in early 2018.  At 124 pages, it is the longest publication the studio has released.  Bond is one of five featured models.

Bond has matured impressively since his first photo session three and a half years ago.  Now a grad student in southern California, Bond is a semi-retired model who's about to step into the real world of an adult-sized career with all attendant responsibilities and demands on his time.  Gone are the days when he could quickly rearrange his schedule to spend a sunny afternoon with a photographer.  These days we feel lucky to be able to work with Bond at all. 

While he's firmly embraced the California life stye, enticing Bond back to his old, home turf in New York is not all that hard.  We are happy to report that he's returning to town for a long weekend with our cameras in February.

Meanwhile, check out the new work in Bond: Brooklyn.  Don’t forget the new additions to the Art Prints galleries as well.  For a complete listing of all of our work with Bond, go to All Things Bond at New Manhattan Studios.

• Read more about Bond's Brooklyn Session here.
• Find All Things Bond at New Manhattan Studios

Blond and eminently capable of pulling off a preppy look, Timothy has long been one of the studio's most popular models. Our history goes back to 2013 when we worked with the 21-year-old actor/musician in his home state of Massachusetts.  His image (if not his character) is anything but diabolical, however, and it had been a while since he’d been in front of our cameras.  I had concluded that he was an unlikely candidate for the job when an opportunity to do some Halloween-themed art presented itself at the last possible moment. 

I had less than 24 hours to secure a model for a second body-painting session that we were tacking on to one that was already planned for Alex, the studio’s model/photographer. The two sessions would now go late into the night.  

Alex’s friend, Jorge, would be assisting on the set and I had inquired as to his interest in possibly modeling for the second session. This is paying work that requires a signed model release and interest aside, it is not work for everyone.  I was not sure if his personal situation allowed for him to appear on the Internet in partial or implied nude poses as the job required. 

Less than 24 hours before the session, while waiting for word on Jorge’s interest and availability, I wound up texting with Tim. He and Alex have known each other for four years and we had been planning to have Tim arrive in the studio with pizza at the end of Alex’s session.  Knowing that my window on finding a model was closing, I decided to extend the offer to Tim as well. I had no reason to think that he’d accept it, but since he would be there anyway, I thought he’d enjoy the work if he could get past the intimidating hurdle of body painting. 

To my surprise, Tim was the first of the two models to say yes to the offer.   I had shamelessly appealed to the actor in him by promoting the hand-crafted costume he’d be wearing.  That had its appeal, no doubt, but in the end I think it was the character rather than the costume that grabbed Tim’s imagination.  He would be playing the Prince of Darkness.  When he got back to me, he indicated his girlfriend was totally into the concept!

Having done eight body-painting sessions with the artist Charles Zambrano, I have now watched each and every one of the eight models get past their initial jitters to thoroughly enjoy their sessions.  Most fascinating to me, however, has been each’s reaction to the costume itself.  It fuels my interest in documenting the entire process, as well as the finished costume and character.

Costumes have amazing transformative powers.  Just put on a mask and you can get away with almost any out-of-character behavior.  In the studio I have watched even the stiffest and most stoic of models come to life in new personas that live as long as the masks.  Whether they are action heroes or mysterious aliens, the models get into character and perform for the camera in a manner that differs from their standard modeling sessions.  From most accounts, models enjoy these sessions more than any other.

But there is that initial hurdle.  I saw it on Tim’s face when he entered.  Alex was standing naked in the center of the room, painted from top to bottom.  Tim's mouth said hello, but the big gulp on his face said “What the f* did I get myself into?” 

I don’t think he’d visualized the small crowd that would be attending his session nor, despite earlier correspondence and sample photos, the intimate nature of some of the work.  To his credit, Tim didn’t bolt for the door.  He did, however, head for some of the beer that was on hand for the pizza-party-now-working-dinner.

Finishing the pizza, it was Tim’s turn.  We stepped into a separate room where I promised again that I would not post any explicit content online and that despite his jitters I was confident that he’d have fun with the session.  He assured me that he completely trusted me to keep his junk off the internet, so why, he wanted to know, did it have to be painted as well.  I fumbled a photographer’s answer then punted by attributing the policy to the artist.  As Charles later explained it, I appreciated the logic of the rationale.  For the artist, it’s all about creating the illusion. Bringing the character to life requires painting the entire body as anything less breaks the illusion for both the viewer and for the model.

Still uneasy, Tim said that he trusted me and would not let me down.  I handed him a model release and a wrap; a few minutes (and texts) later he entered the room and sat down in his bright red towel.  Ready to start the transformation.

Jorge’s chance under the lights will come later.  For this session he was deputized as Charles’ assistant to speed a lengthy painting process that was starting late at night.  At least with five people in the room, what can otherwise be a quiet and tedious task of applying paint turned into something of a party.  Tim’s stage fright was precisely that.  Once the session began, a “this is work, but let’s have fun” mentality took over the room and, as expected, Tim relaxed and had fun with it all.  From early-on, he was texting selfies of the process to his girlfriend. 

When the art was finally finished the long preparation yielded a photo session that lasted less than an hour (but still well into the wee hours of the morning).  The illusion was successful.  For a brief time we had the Prince of Darkness in our presence.  The red skin brought out some seriously sinister attitude.  The horns played to the model’s natural friendly combativeness and you had the impression that playing the devil came natural to the kid in Timothy. 

If you have any questions about Charles’ success in bringing the Devil out of Tim, check out the new gallery.  It includes both behind-the-scenes shots as well as the finished art which debuted on Favorite Hunks yesterday.

Did Tim enjoy it?  He announced as much half way through the photo session when he remarked that he’d forgotten how much he enjoyed modeling.  He couldn't wait to show his girlfriend and wouldn't consider showering off before leaving.  He was dropped off late at night and the two of them apparently had a good time haunting the deserted streets of Brooklyn as people were stumbling home from the bars.

Tim was our cover model on Captured Shadows #3, but that was some time ago.  He's very much a busy young man getting on with his life.  I do not foresee a return to modeling.  However. . .

We’re already in discussions about a second body-painting session in a character to be conceived by his girlfriend and brought to life by Charles Zambrano.

Most models who’ve done it agree.  Costumes are fun and body painting sessions are special.

• Bringing Out the Devil in Timothy (slide slow)
• Tim's Halloween feature on Favorite Hunks
• Find All Things Timothy at New Manhattan Studios

Nick in Madison SquareLate Spring in New York City

Nick's was a guest appearance.  Given our respective locations at extreme opposite ends of New York State, it's unlikely we would have crossed paths had it not been for the introductions made by a friend and fellow photographer.  Keith Ingram Photo and New Manhattan Studios have been working together on various projects for a few years now.  Some of Keith's art will be appearing in the California models edition of Captured Shadows, now in the works.

Originally a New Yorker, Keith was on a trip home from his current base in San Francisco.  While here he had arranged to work with a model from western New York.  We agreed to share studio space with him in exchange for introductions to the model.  Nick, the model (and an avid gym enthusiast if there ever was one), was delighted to shoot with both of us.  Not only would the photo sessions help pay off all the 21-year-old’s hard work in the gym, but it meant he would be able to extend his visit to New York City, where he’s lucky enough to have an older-brother-with-couch.

Nick had a busy 4-day trip to New York.  The way the schedules worked out, New Manhattan Studios wound up shooting with Nick before Keith.  Upon arrival in New York, Nick went straight from the airport to NMS.  We spent the afternoon shooting around Madison and Union Squares, strolling through the neighborhood between the historic urban squares on a delightful late-spring day.  

The following morning Keith arrived from the West Coast and the three of us met in the studio for an afternoon photo shoot.  Keith continued working with Nick the following day and some of the work can be found here.  We got one last shot at working with Nick on his fourth day in the city.  Working around Madison Square, we found ourselves in Eataly, with the models surrounded by hundreds of varieties of pasta (bottom left).

For our part, we thank Keith for the introductions and Nick for being such a welcome addition to the studio’s portfolio.  In the short time we have been featuring early edits on our Instagram feed, Nick has proven to be one of the studio’s most popular models.  We have been eager to open a gallery with all of Nick’s work and are doing so now.  Nick’s gallery contains shots from both the exterior and studio sessions with Nick.  Additional physique art and art nude work featuring his chiseled torso can be found in the Art Print galleries.

UPDATE:  Unfortunately, Nick never did return for an additional session.  In the fall of 2021, the studio published NICK, a 36-page collection of the best of our work with the model.  Read more about it here.

Summer on the Brooklyn waterfront.  It felt like we were back where we belonged.  For those just entering the conversation, since early 2014, this trio of photographers and models has logged thousands of miles, from coast to coast to coast (that would include Florida) capturing Bond Brown, one of the studio's most enduringly popular models, as he has matured from the kid next door into the confident fitness and physique model that locks gaze with you here.  

Bond's role in the studio's life is probably best punctuated by the fact that he is the subject of the first entries in this blog.  The longitudinal study of the same subject over a period of time is a defining interest of the studio and Bond is one of several models whose physical development we have been privileged to be able to document over several years.  With this young man, the off-camera changes are as dramatic as those the camera has captured, but that's another story.  If you detect a growing sense of confidence in the photographs, then I have been true to my photojournalism roots.

In mid-June we were on a Brooklyn pier jutting far out into the East River.  Gorgeous skies and a classic New York backdrop made for a perfect "welcome home" setting for this ex-New Yorker.  It was the polar opposite of our first session with Bond, the evening after the blizzard of 2014, when this native of Buffalo had diligently trekked through blocks of unplowed streets and sidewalks of record-setting snowfall to make it to his first professional photo shoot.  Fueled by such determination and his discovery of the rewards of modeling, in the space of six months, Bond became one of the studio's most popular models.  When he announced that he was moving West at the end of the first year we doubled down on our shooting schedule and had not one but three "last" New York photo sessions.

Bond is not a professional model; what had started as a lark for someone working as a busboy in a high-profile Manhattan restaurant turned into a rather heady experience.  With photos of him winning contests and his last New York photo session earning him the position of Valentine's Hunk for 2015 on FH [Favorite Hunks], Bond's move fortunately did not mean the end of his modeling career.  With introductions, he continued modeling with a select number of established fitness and physique photographers in California and New England. 

The studio was fortunate to work with Bond twice in 2015; his first year in California, a year that I’m sure the model will never forget.  It included a beautiful home in San Francisco, lots of biking, hiking and exploring and occasional waiter-ing.  Published work with the athlete in his mid-20s in archetypal California settings can be found in Captured Shadows #1 – California Dreaming and Bond:  Private Portfolio II.

Reality bites, even in the Land of Oz.  Bond’s modeling career slowed to a halt at the end of that first carefree year as he doubled and tripled down on work to save money to return to school.  In 2016, grad school took him to Southern California where he found a bit more time to hit the gym.  He joined us as a non-modeling friend last year as we partied around our photo shoots in the Hollywood Hills. 

In L.A. last year, Bond agreed to get into shape to return to modeling, “for just a few friends.”  We booked him almost immediately for his spring break and we met up in Florida in March for the first of what we hope to be three sessions this year.  The June session was captured as he passed through New York on his way to a family reunion in Iceland.  He explained that no one in the family was Icelandic, but they all thought it would be a cool place to meet up.  His relentless promotion of the island in the far North Atlantic prompted me to schedule my own photographer's tour of Iceland just weeks after his visit. 

Beyond the staggering natural beauty of the island, I was struck by how popular and powerful the Viking image remains in this Nordic country.  Bearded Norse seamen are like mascots, they're everywhere; on book covers and huge advertising posters, on T-shirts and key chains.  I know it's an international look, but I was amused by how many young men seemed to be actively cultivating a Viking look with beards and rakishly shaggy hair.  It took me a few days to realize that this was more than a cultural statement.  With one of the most isolated and insular gene pools on the planet, the very twenty-first century men of Iceland are the direct decedents of the real thing:  Vikings. 

Bond arrived in Iceland two days after our photo shoot. With his facial hair exactly as you see it here, he must have slipped right into the 20-something street scene in Rekyavik.  The Brown family may not be Icelandic, but it strikes me as likely that there’s some Viking blood in there somewhere!  Just the thought adds a new dimension to Bond's interpretation of the dashing secret agent.

In addition to welcoming Bond back, the Studio welcomes a new set of hands to the NMS family.  In the picture below, Bond is surrounded by Alex, the studio’s assistant and second photographer (left) and Alex's friend Jorge Figueroa (right).  Jorge had joined us in California last year where he had assisted on several photo sessions in Hollywood.  Jorge and Bond had, well, bonded, in our off-hours last summer and Jorge, a New Yorker, changed his work schedule to meet up with his West Coast friend in June.  Not only was Jorge deputized to swing lights in the studio, he was handed a camera and several of the images in the new Bond gallery were taken by Jorge.  He quickly caught the knack of using the second camera to capture the model at play in the studio.  That's his capture (above, right) of a surprised Bond hitting a falsetto note as Alex adjusts his underwear.

Jorge will be getting specific credits when the work makes its way to Captured Shadows #5, as it will.  "When?"  Click on the "subscribe" button to follow the blog (as an RSS feed) and be the first kid on your block to get word of the publication date.  Meanwhile, check out Bond's new folder, Bond New York 2017.  Additional new art nude and physique art pictures have been placed in the Art Prints Galleries.

Click here for All Things Bond at New Manhattan Studios.

When conducting business with Peter by text or email, I feel like I'm dealing with a different person than the carefree model in the studio.  The duality is striking.  In this case I'm confident that they are indeed one and the same person, although I have had lengthy correspondences with agents posing as models (including an agent/mother once).  

I now recognize this apparent split personality to be part-and-parcel of the entire package of Peter.  He has a good command of English but I suspect his relative strengths in written and oral English may lie at the root of this dual personality.  In texts and emails he comes across as abrupt and all-business (with a bit of a macho aggressiveness).  In person, Peter is as aggressively fun-filled, as lighthearted and mischievous as any 23-year-old.  The seat of his pants sums up his spirit in the studio quite accurately. 

If the finessing of correspondence takes a bit of patience with Peter, the payoff in the studio is worth the effort.  He is also one of the most photogenic models we've worked with in quite a while.  I use the term photogenic to place him in that class of models whose looks are enhanced by the camera.  I have found any number of average-looking men to be extremely photogenic subjects. In Peter's case, he starts from a very high base and intereacts with the camera to make his own special magic.  In the silence of the two-dimensional photograph, his beauty can be frozen at perfection.

We worked with Peter twice this summer and hope to work with him again.  Photos from his initial sessions have been placed in a new gallery in the vault with the name of Peter2 and additional work can be found in the O-Z folder in the Art Prints galleries.  With yet more unpublished images to be featured in an upcoming issue of Captured Shadows, you'll definitely be seeing more of Peter.  We hope we will be, too.
 

Zach's session was our second in the large home in the Hollywood Hills. It was with Zach that we first explored the balconies and staircases. With an abundance of rooms, nooks, crannies and shooting angles, we hoped to shoot five models in various settings without repeating ourselves. Over the course of several models, the balcony rail reappears, but Zach owned the staircases, both of them. To the right, you'll see Alex's shot of him on the exterior stairs (above) and my shot of the two of them working (below).  Both illustrate what a natural setting it was for his long, toned body.

We did some of our best work with Zach on the balcony and stairs and some of these shots are among our favorite images of the entire trip. This toned athlete, actor and experienced model stretched, curled, extended and bended into striking poses on a sunset-facing balcony with a sweeping view that included Studio City, the San Fernando Valley and the Hollywood Freeway, zipping past just below us on the hillside.  That the view was two-way didn't bother Zach or, for that matter, any of the other models who worked in the space that week.

In addition to eight models, we were joined by two West Coast affliates/partners/friends, fellow photographers, Wm Weyeneth and Keith Ingram.  Wm worked with us on a new session with Andrew in a garden apartment in San Francisco's Castro District. (We last worked with Andrew in the hills above Santa Cruz two years ago.)  Bay Area photographer Keith Ingram flew down to Los Angeles for the second half of our sessions in Hollywood.  Portions of the work with all models and all photographers will be appearing in the upcoming California issue of Captured Shadows.

You can find Zach's gallery here.  Additional images of Zach can be found in the Art Prints galleries here.  You can follow Zach on Instagram here.  (And while you're on Instagram, check out the studio's feed here, it's the first place you'll see previews of our newest work.)

The California Issue of Captured Shadows will be published in late fall of 2017, along with a parallel issue devoted to our east coast models.

 Venom.  Hosted by Norm.  Conceived by Charles Zambrano.

CLICK HERE FOR ALL ZAMBRANO GALLERIES

When Norm heard that he could become the action hero of his choice, he was all in for a body painting session with the artist Charles Zambrano.  In a New York minute, he chose the super villain Venom, a Marvel Comics character from the Spider-Man series.  Norm had started with the studio having just turned 19.  This was to be his eighth and possibly last photo session with the studio.  He had met us as a gym buddy of the studio's assistant, Alex.  Now 21, he was moving out of the area pursuing a job opportunity.  

I was pleased that Norm had accepted the challenge to do a body painting session.  It is not work for everyone.  Depending on the design, it can be a very intimate experience and it will invariably be a long process that requires standing most of the time, at times with limbs extended for minutes on end.  I suspect Norm didn't know exactly what he was getting into.  Most models don't.

The artist took the symbiote as his inspiration and embarked on a painstakingly detailed re-imagining of Norm's torso as the host of a symbiotic partner.   We have worked with Charles four times now but this was the first time I had the un-interupted time to document the process from start to finish.  As I watched the application of each stroke I marveled at the mastery of the makeup artist.  

It's rare to encounter an artist as successful as Charles at leveraging his artistic talents and interests into a rewarding livelihood.  He is a trained artist who finds financially and artistically rewarding work in the studios, stages and runways of New York City. Charles is one of the wizards behind the magic and beauty we encounter on Broadway, Madison Avenue, film and television.

I felt privileged to be documenting the artist and model at work.  Although there were three of us in the room, it was generally quiet with music selected by the artist softly playing in the background.  Each one of us were intently involved in our own aspect of the artistic endeavor.  

In many ways, I find the photographs of the process as interesting as the photos of the finished product.  I'll trace that back to my roots as a photojournalist. Judge for yourself, check out the behind-the-scenes shots in the Creating Venom gallery.   If they pique your curiosity, check out our photo essay Creating Venom for 56 NSFW pages of the process and finished art.

After 4½ hours, the last stroke was applied.  The model stepped in front of the camera.  Venom.  Hosted by Norm.  Conceived by Charles Zambrano.

After seven photo sessions, it was as if we'd saved the best for last.  As I tweaked camera settings, Norm struck poses.  By the time I was ready to start shooting the model was clearly in character.  When the strobes started popping, the model came to life as I've never seen him before.  The dude was seriously into his character and quite possibly living out a fantasy life he'd nurtured since his preteen years.

I'm not a comics afficionado; this villain's name meant nothing to me.  But Charles' art and Norm's characterization brought Venom to life for me in a seriously evil way.  I never expected Norm to be able to pull off a villain, so I was caught unawares by the brooding, sinister and a taunting maliciousness that was confronting me.  We leave it to the viewer to decide if our collective artistry has brought forth a worthy character and body of art.

A gallery with the finished work has been opened in the special galleries section the Fine Arts Galleries, alongside a second gallery with the behind-the-scenes shots from the body painting session.

Our earlier work with Charles Zambrano can be found here.  You can see more of his work here. You can also follow Charles on Instagram.

And while we saved the best for last as far as Norm is concerned, we think we saved the best for last for his fans.  Our seventh session, captured just one week earlier, shows this 21-year-old man-about-town on the streets of Manhattan.  In a few more weeks we'll be opening what may be the last Norm gallery for a while.  Watch for Summer in the City.  Featuring Norm.  Coming soon.  Here.

Creating Venom (photo essay)

All Things Norm at New Manhattan Studios

ENTER BRANDON'S GALLERY HERE

The studio follows many models (and vice-versa) on a variety of social media platforms.  Brandon and Alex, the studio's stylist, assistant, photographer and talent recruiter, had been pinging each other for years.  As far back as 2015, when Brandon was still living on the east coast, we had attempted to schedule a session with him while we were working in the Washington, DC, area.  Time passed and we failed to coordinate a date before the model moved to northern California.  

A half year later we hoped to work with him in San Francisco on our annual trip to California.  But by the time we arrived in San Francisco, Brandon had already moved on to Los Angeles.  

Finally, last year, we met up with Brandon in Hollywood where the model was pursuing a musical career with a band.  It was worth the wait, as I trust the viewer will agree.  Brandon has one of the most toned physiques in our portfolio and we look forward to adding more to our body of work with him on one of his future trips east.  In the meantime, we have opened a gallery of our work with him in California in 2016.  A number of Brandon's photos also appear in the recent additions section of our Fine Art Gallery.  (If you can't find them there, they might have already moved to their permanent home: the A-F folder in the Fine Art Gallery.)

Brandon will be featured in an upcoming issue of Captured Shadows dedicated to the several West Coast models that are now part of the studio's portfolio.  Watch for it later this summer.  To be notified of the publication date, you can subscribe to the blog's RSS feed using the "subscribe" button at the bottom of the screen.  In the meantime, expect to see several new galleries open in the coming weeks that feature the rest of our Golden State men.

Our correspondence had begun about three months earlier, when Gabriel, a Brazilian fitness model planning a trip to the United States, wrote to arrange for a physique portfolio session while in New York at the start of his trip.  

With a bit of a language barrier, our exchanges had been limited to the basics of scheduling and what he needed or wanted for his portfolio was unspecified beyond a physique and fitness session that would include implied or partial nudity.  After reviewing his portfolio we agreed and waited out a couple of months to see if the mid-twenties Brazilian model would be as fit as his online presence suggested.

Gabriel delivered.  Fit and trim, he was an established model who was at home in the studio.  The ambiguity of whether or not he would be posing nude was resolved shortly after we began shooting.  He had signed up for implied and partial nudity.  As he became comfortable with the work style of the studio it was a boundary that passed without comment and so naturally that I recognized it as a protective filter I've seen many models use:  meet the photographer first.  

Half way through the session we had met his portfolio needs and we continued with some art nude work that more than met the studio's needs.  Or expectations.  

At the end of the evening, I promised to deliver to Gabriel the set of portfolio shots that had been the initial purpose of the session.  Then I asked him to sign a model release and paid him the studio's modeling fee for an outstanding physique art session that generated images that will be appearing in upcoming issues of Captured Shadows. 

Our real world missions fulfilled, the meeting ended and we reverted to our ongoing cyber relationship.  It's almost enough to inspire faith in the Internet.  Almost.

As we prepared to open Gabriel's Gallery (henceforth known as Gabriel 3), we were curious as to how much time had lapsed since the session with our first Gabriel, the Venezuelan actor and model (on the right).  Opening the long-dormant folder to read the date stamp on a raw file, we discovered our answer (3 years) and a number of previously-uncirculated images.  With fresh eyes we even found a couple of new RAW files to edit.  

As a consequence, new photography has been added to Gabriel's gallery and to the "Recent Work" section of the Fine Art galleries.  There you will find his work next to Gabriel 3.  Caracas, meet Rio.  Last we heard, Gabriel 3 was home in Brazil, working as a baker/chef and Gabriel 1 had escaped the chaos and turmoil that has engulfed Venezuela and was living in a land famous for welcoming refugees.  Canada.  

Happy First of July!

The model is Bond.  He was in town last week, passing through New York on his way to Iceland.  He had an afternoon to make what may be the first of 2 appearances in the studio this year and what we hope will be 3 appearances before the studio's cameras in 2017.  This marks the Studio's first work with the model since Bond:  Private Portfolio 2 and his first modeling sessions since starting grad school in Southern California last year.

We completed our first 2017 session with Bond on a spring break in Fort Lauderdale.  Over the years we have made various grooming demands prior to our shoots and, trooper that he is, Bond has met all requests with scissors and razors (or the lack thereof).  In Florida, in March, he had obliged us by trimming off his facial hair just days before the shoot but NOT cutting his hair for the previous six months. When we heard that the GF had been on his case to get his hair cut, we decided to give him a break for this most recent shoot in Brooklyn.   We made no demands whatsoever and he appeared at our door as you see him here.  This is the real deal, this is Bond as you will encounter him around school today (or in Iceland in June).

It seemed appropriate that Bond be the first model that we shot "behind the barn" at our new studio space in a building along the historic Brooklyn waterfront.  Back in January of 2014, Bond had been the first model in our home in Long Island City.  Three and a half years later, we jointly christened some of the industrial and waterfront venues around a studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  The studio that will be our home for a few months is housed in a converted industrial building from the late 1880s that is typical of the massive brick warehouses and factories that once lined the waterfront directly across the East River from midtown Manhattan.

Today the old working-class, waterfront neighborhood, just north of Williamsburg (the hottest of Brooklyn's trendy neighborhoods), is undergoing rapid gentrification that is putting pressure on the artists, artisans, craftsmen and photographers in the area.  It's déjà vu all over again, as New Yorker Yogi Berra would have said.  Many of the creative community that have helped turn Greenpoint into such a trendy neighborhood had previously been priced out of Manhattan.  

It's a familiar pattern in the city's post World War II-development.  The displacement and regeneration of creative communities is an ongoing cycle driven by gentrification.  The galleries/artists/artisans that flock to low-rent districts eventually, by their number, set the forces of gentrification into motion that will eventually drive the rents up and the initial tenants out.  Today in Greenpoint, historic waterfront buildings, long abandoned of life and value, are filling with start-ups, tech companies (think Kickstarter, headquarted across the street) and expensive condominium make-overs.  Most of the hulking brick buildings along the 10-block waterfront fall into two categories:  those being converted into luxury loft apartments or those being torn down to make way for a new high-rise residential towers with million-dollar views of midtown Manhattan across the East River, as in the view below.

We will not last long in this neighborhood, but it's nice to know that the space behind the studio is not likely to change.  It has already been converted into a waterfront park with a new pedestrian pier jutting out hundreds of yards into the East River.  The shot on the top left was taken in an ally adjacent to the studio and on the top right you'll find Bond doing his titanic best to find a fitting pose on the new pier.  Immediately above, Alex preps Bond for the camera and in the shot below you can see Bond with a restaurant-bar-barge and encroaching development behind him.

We are holding off formally opening a new gallery with Bond's 2017 photo sessions until more work has been processed.  But as several images have already appeared on the studio's Instagram feed, it's time to make room for some new Bond shots on the website.  A Preview Folder can now be found in Bond's gallery.  You'll find work from both the Fort Lauderdale and Brooklyn sessions.  From time to time we will drop new edits into the folder.  

By the end of the summer, BOND 2017 should be coming online.  Be notified when it happens by subscribing to the blog using the button at the bottom of the page.

Apparently it's a much more common name in Russia.  Both our Romans are Russians.  Together they comprise two-thirds of the Russians in our portfolio.

Our latest Roman, the 24-year-old fitness model, Roman Bekker, shall henceforth be referred to as Roman 2 at New Manhattan Studios.  He joins fellow Russians Roman Khodorov (another fitness model) and Dzmitriy Moon (a fashion model with A&F to his credits).  We could play this game all night, apparently.  Dzmitriy is the original Russian on the site but the second Dzmitry.  He joins DZmitry Patuk, a European fashion and fitness model from Belarus.

Roman 2's session this month marked our first outing in a new home for the studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  As with our previous space in Long Island City, this is one of the city's trendier nabes where the likes of Kickstarter mix it up with various tech and green companies in an old working-class neighborhood.  True to the style of the millenials who populate the area, our new home, in a Civil-War era rope factory on the Brooklyn waterfront, could easily be confused with a loft building south of Market in San Francisco.  With spacious, well-lit hallways, communal lounges and bicycle rooms on every floor, all traces of the grim Victorian-era sweatshop have been vanished in an amazingly well-preserved architectural gem that dates to the late 1800s.  In a shoot scheduled for June first, we will be working outside the building and hope to soon have pictures of the neighborhood to share.

Of note, Roman's session was a joint photo shoot with our friend Keith Ingram (left), a talented photographer from San Francisco who shot with us in Hollywood last fall.  (More about that, later.)  Keith had separately arranged to work with Roman on his trip to New York and when he had the opportunity to extend his session with the model into a second day, I offered the studio space.  Amusingly, I already had Roman's name penciled in on the calendar at New Manhattan Studios.  Later this summer we plan to do a session together with the body painter Charles Zambrano.  (More about that later, too.)

We certainly hope to be adding more to Roman 2's folders in the future.  In the meantime, a gallery of his first session with the studio can be found here.  Additional images have been added to the "Recent Work" section of the Fine Art Galleries.

Not to be evasive, the session on June first is with one of the studio's most popular models, Bond.  He passes through New York on his way to Iceland and will be the second model in the new space.  This will be our second session with Bond in 2017.  You can find previews of the new work on our Instagram feed.  Bond's new galleries are coming soon.  Stay tuned for more on those Hollywood sessions, too!  Subscribe to the blog's RSS feed using the button at the bottom left and don't miss the updates.

UPDATE:   Roman returned for a body painting session with Charles Zambrano, the NYC makeup and body-painting artist.  Images from all of Roman's sessions with the studio are featured in Captured Shadows #5, which also includes Bond's above-referenced session.

At the risk of provoking political backlash in 2017, we pay homage to the 1966 comedy, The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! a delightful period piece satirizing life in an era when fear of Russia was paramount in American minds and culture.  In addition to a few good laughs at the expense of our overzealous national paranoias, the movie provided a breakthrough role for 60s' heartthrob, John Philip Law, who went on to star opposite Jane Fonda in Barbarella, an action adventure with more flesh than plot.  

Whether or not the phrase once again conjures images of cold war and espionage, the Russians are coming! is an apt description of the studio's schedule in recent months.  We are happy to report that our Russians are every bit as cute as the young Mr. Law; all accomplished physique models proud to display ample amounts of chiseled flesh.

Reflecting the sizable Russian and European immigrant communities in metropolitan New York and a constant flow of international models passing through the city, the studio has an exceptionally high percentage of East European models in its portfolio, with models representing Ukraine, Belarus, Hungary and Poland.  But the Russians?  We now have five.

Ivan is the first of two Russians whose work we are debuting this month and the third Russian we have added to the portfolio this year.  

Ivan.  It doesn't get more Russian than that.  This first-generation Russian-American holds a day job as a construction project manager in New Jersey while pursing acting and modeling gigs in the city (when not working out).  The facial hair (which came off a third of the way into our session) is all about giving some "gravitas" to this 20-something who supervises a largely-older construction crew.  Our photo session was to compliment each others' portfolios.  We trust you'll agree that Ivan's gallery is an asset to the studio's portfolio.  His torso is one of the most impressive physiques we've photographed since our last Russian model, Roman.  

In addition to two dozen shots in Ivan's Gallery, you'll find an additional collection of contemporary physique art featuring Ivan in the Recent Additions section of our Fine Art Galleries.

Be sure to come back next week for our third Russian (and second Roman).

The Russians are coming.  The Russians are coming!

[BELOW:  IVAN WITH ALEX, THE STUDIO'S STYLIST/PHOTOGRAPHER]

This 6’ fashion and fitness model calls both New York and California home, but between his trips to Europe and the West Coast, we managed find time to shoot together twice last year.  Dustin is a familiar sight to many.  An established model, his visage has graced runways, printed pages and computer screens for a number of years in any number of modeling assignments.  

Our session was briefer than normal and we parted with plans to work together again. We held off publishing any of his work until we completed the anticipated session but when Dustin did return to the studio, it was for a session we facilitated for two other photographers but did not participate in.  We have since moved forward with editing and sharing the work.

Alex Bustamante's work with the second camera is the focus of a 16-page feature on the Dustin, the cover model for Captured Shadows #5.  Alex often shoots with a behind-the-scenes perspective that has made his work popular here at NMS (and not appropriate for work).  Dustin is one of five models (with Bond, Nick, Norm and Roman) featured in Captured Shadows #5.   

Check out Dustin's folder here.

For many, the news here is the release of the digital version of Bond:  Private Portfolio 2.  This is a sequel to Bond's first portfolio and the two books span 24 months in the life of one of the studio's most popular models.  Both the print and digital versions are now on sale here.  You can read more about the book in last month's blog entry, when the hardcover edition was released.

Books labeled Private Portfolio have quietly resided on a back shelf of our website since 2014.  With the release of Bond: Private Portfolio 2, the fourth book, it's time to promote a trio of books into a series.  (And a fifth is on its way!)

HOME

In many ways, Roman and this blog entry reflects the shift in focus of the studio's business and website that has been occurring for many months.

There are three photographers associated with New Manhattan Studios, and as the lead photographer, I set the pace and direction.  In what has been a slow-moving process, the studio has shifted its focus as I have moved into semi-retirement.  As of the end of 2016, we have wound down our commercial work and have tightened the focus of our activity to physique art photography.  "Art for art's sake."  Finally.

As a result, you can expect our work to look less commercial and the models to have more consistently impressive physiques as we choose the models for our various artistic projects and publishing endeavors.  

The fact that we are based in one of the modeling capitals of the world means that we will not close our doors to all commercial work.  We still accept assignments that align with our focus on the male torso and physique art photography.  We still shoot on demand; we just aim a bit more precisely when we shoot.  

Roman is one of the always-on-the-move international models and an excellent example of the type of internet fame that attaches to models today.  A celebrity in his world of models and body-builders, he has a sizable following on a number of social media platforms.  His Moscow manager arranged for his fitness shoot on a recent trip to New York and we were fortunate to be able to squeeze a session into his busy schedule.  

We were fortunate to have an assistant-in-training on hand in the Long Island City studio the day of Roman's session.  Christina was quite capable, a hit with the model and enjoyed the work but unfortunately she returned to her home in Spain a few weeks later.

Going forward, we expect this will be the pattern for opening and filling individual model galleries on the site.  Content will be more physique- and fitness-oriented and art will be dropped into the galleries as it is tackled and finished in connection with various studio projects.

The other change in the studio's operating pattern is the growing portion of our time that is being devoted to publishing and distributing our work.  Fewer photo shoots, more finished art for the studio's publications.  To that end, in a few days we will be announcing the release of the first of two books scheduled for this year, both part of our Private Portfolio Series.  More on that in a later post when we release Bond:  Private Portfolio 2 as a print and digital book.

If you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to the blog as an RSS feed by clicking on the button on the lower left.

ENTER ROMAN'S GALLERIES HERE

Wesley Triplett

LEAD PHOTOGRAPHER, NEW MANHATTAN STUDIOS

Bond fans have patiently awaited the followup to Bond: The Private Portfolio, published in 2015.  The wait is over.  

The Private Portfolio series features the uncensored work of New Manhattan Studios.  This book has 62 pages of art nude and physique art studies taken in both New York and California during our second year of working with the man who has turned out to be the studio's most popular model. Most of the images (the work of three staff photographers, Alex Bustamante, Wm Weyeneth and Wes Triplett) have never been published.  Together, they represent a definitive collection of the best of our most recent work with Bond.  Captured over the course of six months, the collection is a fitting sequel to his first private portfolio, featuring our work during the first year of his modeling career.

Bond does not disappoint his fans as he turns up the heat in a series of casual, lifestyle essays to complement the more formal art nude studies.  As he matures as a model, the confidence and command that he brings to his work is palpable. This is Bond as you've never seen him: bold, wet and steamy.

Bond: Private Portfolio 2

The print version was released in late January to coincide with a sale offered by our printer.  

The deluxe, hardcover Collectors' Edition is printed on premium lustre paper with a hard-cover image wrap. The softcover version is printed on standard paper.

62 uncensored pages (8×10 in, 20×25 cm) in color and B&W.

• $79.50 Collector's Edition
• $49.50 Softcover Edition 
• $24.50 Ebook Edition (late winter release)

Click here to preview and order

LEFT:  Bond at Alex and work on the "Mariner" set, one of five studies of Bond Brown in Private Portfolio 2. 

Click here to preview and order a hard copy edition of Private Portfolio 2 (or any other NMS publication) 

Find all NMS publications 

You can receive notice on the full release of Private Portfolio 2, including the electronic edition, by subscribing to the blog using the button on the bottom left or by clicking here.

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We open a most unusual gallery today for Ronan.  It is not work that we ever expected to see the light of day again as it represents the studio’s first commercial assignment.  It's a job that predates, actually, the founding of New Manhattan Studios.  We wound up pulling the files as part of our response to a request from Tye Briggs at Favorite Hunks. 

Starting with the New Year, FH is running a series with photographers reminiscing about the first time they had a nude model in front of their camera.  The clever reader can deduce what role Mr. Ronan might have played in the studio’s history, but for the story, you’ll have to head over to Favorite Hunks.

Ronan’s gallery will only be up for a limited period of time.  Dated as it is, it does not represent our current shooting and editing styles.  As such, think of it as part of our Fifth Anniversary celebrations, a brief look back at an historic artifact.  Ronan was a local body-builder who sought us out to take pictures for his application to be a dancer at Chippendale’s.  There’s more to the story, of course (and more pictures) at FH.

What digging into Ronan’s file taught us, again, is that we see things with a very different eye now.  I cannot go back into an old folder without wondering why I chose to edit the pictures I did.  Invariably I find images that interest me now but failed to catch my eye then.  It was fun, while in Ronan’s folder, to pull out a few newly-discovered images.  The gallery that opens today contains three such current edits of images that were captured prior to the studio’s opening in 2011.

The work we'll be posting in 2017 contains a goodly number of body-builders and gym rats as, increasingly, we train our cameras on the torso as our principal subject matter.  It is especially interesting, therefore, to revisit early physique models that we shot, searching through unedited files for hidden gems that catch our contemporary eye. 

While the external archive drive was plugged in, I seized the chance to pull a couple of new shots out of Karl Simon’s folder from 2012.  I was struck by how different the lighting and posing techniques were from the work done just a year earlier with Ronan.  It spoke volumes about the experience levels of both the models and the photographer.

Karl Simon (right) was named by DNA magazine as one of ten sexiest men of 2015.  Our work with the Scandinavian fitness model was done three years earlier when he was in his late 20s, babyface notwithstanding.  What I recall most from our session was that Karl had been up since 5:00 AM in Stockholm and had come to the studio directly from JFK.  He wanted to shoot on the roof, in front of the Empire State Building at night.  We shot until 11:00 PM, New York City time, by which point he had been up for 24 hours and looked none the worse for wear, as his photos show.  The new edits of Karl’s work can be found in the Recent Works section of the Fine Art Gallery. 

Over the next few months we plan to revisit some of our earlier sessions, searching for the elusive captures that slipped under our gaze the first pass through.  We’ll be sprinkling more into the Fine Art Galleries as we find them.

You can stay up to date with the studio’s newest content and models by using the button at the bottom left to subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog.  You can also follow us on Instagram with the name below.

• Instagram: newmanhattanstudios

LOOKING FORWARD and BACK

For four spins of the calendar, we have used the first posting of the New Year to pay tribute to notable models that have passed through the studio.

We hesitate to call the distinction our man of the year.  That honorific seems to carry too much weight and baggage.  Instead we pay tribute under the banner of our Man for New Year’s Day. It suggests a tighter focus in time while mischievously pointing a finger at the fleeting nature of our fads and fashions and illuminating how fluid our concept of masculinity is. 

In some respects, we see our selection as more a “man of the hour” (as is literally suggested in the accompanying photo essay that appears on New Year's Eve on Favorite Hunks).  This is our man for the New Year.  This is our submission to the collective album of once-in-a-year snapshots of what our culture looks like as the clock strikes midnight and the calendar pages turn.  Here is a man who well represents his generation.  This is the style.  This is the look.  This is who and what we admired at the start of 2017.  

Appropriately, the first model to appear on the blog in January of 2014 was Bond.  The focus was on the studio’s new facilities in Long Island City and there was no suggestion that the model exemplified anything more than an aspiring model who had just finished his first photo session.  Prescient posting that it was, however, Bond went on to take the studio and its fans by storm, earning a distinction that year that he still holds:  one of the studio’s most popular models.  If the blog had started earlier, no doubt the lead models of earlier years would have been DZmitry, the fashion and runway model that was an early face of the studio and Alex, the first model that we consistently shot, the PA/cameraman/stylist/muse of the studio.

At the end of the site’s first year we chose to debut our work with one of the most-photographed models of the previous 12 months, Oleksandr.  In what was our first New Year's tribute, we gave 2015's lead slot to the runway model with a winning personality that matched his well-honed, kick boxer physique.  We started 2016 by paying tribute to Timothy a model with whom we had worked since a session in the Berkshires in 2013. We were able to capture the young model three times during his first year in New York and it became the focus of a cover story in Captured Shadows #3.   

But this is more, of course, than just citing a model as exemplary of the look and feel of his times.  We also pay tribute to these men as models as to these models as men.  In this regard, few models have warranted a turn in the limelight more than this man. 

In the two years that we have worked with him we have admired his dedication to his physique work.  From Day I, he has had one of the most impressive torsos we've ever shot and we have seen the man blossom into a confident, accomplished model as he has continued to hone and chisel his physique.  For personal, professional and physical growth alone, this man deserves an award. 

We are talking about Norm, 18 and just out of high school when he walked into the studio, accompanied by his gym buddy, Alex, then the studio’s stylist/PA.  

Norm is 20 now.  Work from his fourth and fifth sessions, captured late in the year, is being debuted over the holiday weekend on both our blog and on Favorite Hunks.  We had brought Norm back into the studio for a new fitness & physique session that included some art nude work.  While there, we had planned to capture additional work for a holiday-themed feature on Favorite Hunks.  The “New Year’s Eve” shots didn’t turn out as we had hoped and Norm agreed to return for a second session to continue working on the theme.

The result was two photo sessions, both yielding some holiday art but with very different looks and little, if anything, to tie them together.  We're happy to use some of the holiday art for the blog entry here, as it works quite nicely with the focus on the man of the midnight hour.  For the purposes of displaying the work in Norm's galleries, we will take a cue from Favorite Hunks and group the photos into the Midnight Hour and New Year's Morning sessions.  Additional physique art and art nudes from the two sessions can be found in the Fine Art Galleries.

As we approach the second anniversary of our collaboration, we are planning new session to document the progress.  Norm had started bulking up when we shot him in December.  By February the shredding will be complete and we'll have a new look:  Norm 2017.  

It's a date.  The lights will be ready.  Quite fittingly for the man of the hour, Norm epitomizes the ripped torso and defined physique that we prize in our photography as we start our sixth year as a studio.

As we hand Norm the honor of being the lead model in 2017, we look forward to the year ahead as much as we honor past work.  We anticipate seeing more of this model in the future and hope to document his personal and professional growth for years to come.

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Speaking of the year to come, we will start posting the many models captured in the fall of 2016 as we roll into the New Year.  You can preview the upcoming models here.  A new issue of Captured Shadows is in the works, as are two new studio publications featuring the models cited above, Bond and Oleks.

You can subscribe to the blog (as an RSS feed) by clicking on the SUBSCRIBE button on the bottom left.

We have noticed a cyclical pattern to the studio's work flow that is more pronounced than ever this year.  Fall is the season that we typically devote to getting the studio's work into print.  This year our publishing schedule has virtually overrun all work on the blog and website.  Indeed, in addition to having released the latest edition of Captured Shadows (Issue #4), we have started work on the fifth issue (due out this winter) and have prepared two new books for publication.  Bond:  Private Portfolio 2 will be released in the next few weeks and Oleks:  The Private Portfolio, will follow soon thereafter.

In the meantime, we have not stopped shooting.  In fact, we have models waiting in the wings (and in the studio, and down by the pool, and even a few in the bedroom).  

In addition to three new studio sessions yet to be posted, we did sessions with eight models in California in September, all of which will be appearing on the site in the coming months.  The New York City studio sessions include three new models:  Dustin, Ivan and Roman.  You'll be seeing work with five more new models (Brandon, Bryce, Mason, Tony and Zack) shot in Hollywood, plus a sixth, Renn, captured in Santa Cruz.   Finally, we will be posting new work with Andrew and Alex that was shot in San Francisco.

You will be seeing some changes on the website in the coming months that reflect the changing nature of the studio's focus.  We are slowly winding down much of the studio's commercial work and devoting more and more time to physique art photography and our publishing endeavors.  

But first up, to start the new year, next week we'll be posting our annual New Year's Day feature:  the studio's Man of the Year, showcasing work with one of the studio's most ripped physiques.  With so many models passing before the studio's cameras this year, it has not been an easy choice.  Come back on New Year's Eve to see the featured model.

In the meantime the studio wishes a happy holiday season to all, and to all, a new year filled with joy, beauty and ripped men.

Wes Triplett, lead photographer

Alex Bustamante, photographer and model

Wm Weyeneth, photographer and editor in chief

The Halloween-themed photo shoot, a project for Favorite Hunks, was planned far in advance.  Yet it came off in a haphazard manner that left us rolling with the punches and improvising along the way.  We had worked with Mason (left, with skull) in Los Angeles in September.  In mid-October he was in New York, following up on our offer to do a studio session to complement the work we had done in a beautiful home in the Hollywood Hills.  We had already contacted Ricardo about the Halloween goblins shoot; we decided to spend part of Mason’s session with him in costume as well.  

I was expecting to work alone.  Alex, the studio’s assistant, was in Florida and I had already warned Mason that he would be steaming his own wardrobe.  Hours before the session, a young lady was referred to me by a business partner.  To my happy surprise, she turned out to be a makeup artist as well as a competent production assistant.  When I seized the opportunity to add a bit of ghoulish body paint to the mix, I added a final complication:  meshing the calendars of more than just the four studio participants.  In the end, I wound up coordinating the schedule of an actor in LA with the class schedule of the baby sitter working for the makeup artist in New York.

On the day of the shoot, it all came off (as usual).  In the end, we scheduled two back-to-back sessions and delayed the start time by an hour to accommodate the makeup artist.  We had time to capture some basic studio shots with Mason before applying makeup and costumes.  Fortuitously, both the makeup artist and Ricardo arrived early and Ricardo came out of makeup about 15 minutes before the end of Mason’s session.  We had a brief, unplanned window to shoot the two of them on the paper together.

It would have been nice to have planned in advance how to best use a makeup artist for the project and to have had a viable concept for using two models.  But given the intended application of the work, the rather static poses we captured in a very brief time frame made it easier to find suitable background imagery for the composited images.  But this was a fun photo shoot for our friend Tye.  (All three of us have previously interacted with the owner of the Favorite Hunks blog.)  Our objective, above all, was to have fun with it.

For me, the partying was in celebration of two anniversaries.  Halloween marks the fifth anniversary of New Manhattan Studios.  We effectively hung out our corporate shingle on October 31, 2011.  Tye Briggs, the blogmeister of the Canadian-based blog Favorite Hunks, found our work online just a few months later when he asked permission to feature our photos of Drew on his blog. 

In the nearly five years since, we have developed a deep admiration for Tye and his labor of love.  He actively seeks out the work of new photographers and models and gives them world-wide exposure to his 25,000 followers.  The studio has gained impressive awareness through our relationship with his blog and Tye has had an outsized influence on both our creative product and our business model. 

Favorite Hunks is a well-curated site with a weekly flow of stunning images of attractive men and a loyal following that makes it a networking hub for emerging models, artists and creative ideas.  If you are not familiar with it, check it out here.  It pleases me to acknowledge that October marked the 10^th anniversary of Favorite Hunks.  It gives me the opportunity to thank Tye for the invaluable service he provides to our industries.

I am grateful that the studio was in a position to create art specifically for Favorite Hunks as a thank you gesture as they celebrate their tenth anniversary.  I find it especially sweet that the art made its public debut on the studio’s fifth anniversary.  What photographer can’t appreciate the symmetry of that?  

• Check out Models Gone Mad at Favorite Hunks
• Find All Things Ricardo at New Manhattan Studios

The studio's additional work with Mason O'Sullivan can be found here.

We’ve also been quiet as we’ve put the finishing touches on Captured Shadows #4:  The Kick Boxer Model, featuring Oleksandr, the Ukrainian model who first appeared as the site’s New Year’s Day model in 2015. 

To celebrate Oleks' appearance as the cover model on Captured Shadows, we are opening a new gallery featuring previously unpublished images from the session at which we captured the cover shot. 

Oleks is an unusual fashion model in that he’s also a kick boxer.  Our work with Oleks the boxer was featured in DNA magazine and online here in 2015.  We round out his professional portfolio, if you will, with a series of fashion and art nude studies taken in Central Park and an east side apartment/studio.  You've met the boxer, now meet the New York model here.

Captured Shadows #4 joins three previously-published portfolios of the studio’s physique art photography.  Find all four publications here.

Find more work with Oleks at All Things Oleks and click on the thumbnail below to preview Captured Shadows.  Additional work with Oleks will appear in Oleksandr:  The Private Portfolio, to be published in 2017.

Captured Shadows #4

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This blog is primarily about the studio’s photo sessions and the models that have worked with us.  I rarely get personal here, but every once in a while the personal intrudes on the professional and warrants note.  This is such an occasion.  As I slide further into retirement, I am continuing to ease back the studio's pursuit of commercial work.  New Manhattan Studios continues, to be sure.  We will still consider commercial projects and proposals of specific interest to us and we always welcome recommendations of qualified models.  Our primary focus going forward, however, will be on creating photos for art’s sake. . .a position where most of us would like to permanently reside.    

This decision affects both the nature of the photography and the nature of the models that will be featured on the blog and website in the future.  As we move forward, you will notice subtle differences in our work and changes on the site.

The studio began its commercial life as a provider of headshots and portfolio work for the endless flow of models, actors and actresses arriving in New York.  Many of these sessions can be found in the Models Galleries.   Over the years, we met and worked with additional models on commercial fashion assignments, from fashion shows to photo shoots.  Many posed for physique art sessions and made their way into the studio’s physique art portfolios and publications.

As the recent trip to California indicates, we continue to shoot.  As we discontinue the studio’s commercial photography business, the emphasis is less on fashion/commercial photography and more on fitness and physique art.  We are both becoming more selective in the models that we work with and are freeing ourselves to work with qualified models outside our previous bicoastal, New York and California markets.

We continue to pursue our creative instincts and are spending more time on editing and post-production.  Our blog posts may become less frequent as Captured Shadows makes increasing demands on the studio’s time.  But we are far from slowing down.

We added a fourth photographer to the studio’s fold in September.  Keith Ingram worked with us on three of the Hollywood sessions and we plan to be sharing some of his work in the future.  Also shooting with us in the Bay Area was Wm Weyeneth, the Editor-in-Chief of Captured Shadows and, of course, Alex Corso, the studio’s second cameraman, was in front of or behind the cameras for all sessions. 

Work from all four of us will be appearing here in the coming months.  You can use the Subscribe button at the bottom left corner of this screen to receive updates (as an RSS feed) from the blog when new content is added to the site.

Wes Triplett, Lead Photographer

It was the model's first session and he didn't know quite what to expect.  Pietro was yet another model to find his way to the studio by way of our assistant and second cameraman, Alex.  The two are friends, from neighboring towns, and Pietro had expressed an interest in having a photo session at Alex's studio.

For a first-time model, having a friend on the set can be both reassuring and inhibiting.  The studio neither encourages nor discourages models from bringing a chaperone to their first modeling session.  It's all about building trust and we permit a model to be accompanied by a friend if it is cleared in advance and the guest promises to be a quiet, non-participating observer.  

In particular, a model who has agreed to do a nude session with a photographer he has not met, can find it reassuring to have a friend on hand in the event the photographer turns out to be less than totally professional.  I have heard many experienced models talk about shoots gone awry. As well, this photographer can tell tales of stage mothers (literally mothers) being present at their son's shoot and girlfriends earnestly promoting their boyfriends to the point of plying said boyfriend with beer on the set.

How comfortable the model may be once work has begun is another matter.  Often the friend will wait in the dressing room, in full earshot of the activity in the studio but out of sight.  Others sit in the back of the studio, quietly observing from the shadows. Depending on the relationship of the model and the guest, the dynamic can be supportive or inhibiting.  Even under ideal circumstances, most new models are self-conscious and awkward when facing the camera for the first time.  We let the model define the boundaries; it's all about all parties building trust in each other as professionals.

In the case of Pietro, Alex's presence was an easy given.  He knew of Alex's role in the studio and having a friend there to guide him along the way was obviously a comfort.  There was an easy camaraderie that led to a lot of laughter and the relaxed, natural smiles that follow.  That Pietro was at ease and enjoying himself reflects in the work we captured.  It couldn't have been a better first session.

We put Pietro through the hoops in three hours. We captured over 1000 images on two cameras and added another Italian to the studio's growing international portfolio.  

Inspired by the photos from his first professional photo shoot, Pietro has hit the gym and is intent on future work with more definition on his trim, 19-year-old physique.  We look forward to it.  We may yet fill out a long-discussed book on Italian models in New York!

Check out Pietro's Gallery here.

Additional shots of Pietro can be found in the Fine Art Gallery.

NMS Photo by Wm WeyenethNMS photo by Wm Weyeneth

I had reason to dip back into a 2015 folder in order to pull a set of images of Bond around the pool for Tye Briggs to feature on Favorite Hunks.  This was not hard.  All the images had been edited a year ago; I just had to select a dozen or so.  I was surprised to find that there had been very few distinct set-ups in the series.  There were a lot of insurance shots, but precious few unique shots. 

I remembered the day.  We had been working with Bond and a friend at the pool in late morning when the afternoon model arrived early.  I had handed my camera to Bill, our West Coast affiliate, who was assisting on the shoot.  I had suggested that he and Bond work together for the remainder of his session while I started setting up with the afternoon model.

Bill and Bond left the pool and headed into the shower.  Knowing the space, I had been skeptical of their success.  Architecturally the shower is impressive.  As a venue for shooting a model, it has its challenges. Principal among them is the very uneven distribution of the light:  bright light from bare windows in the top half of the frame, deep shadows in the lower half.

Last summer, when I had first reviewed the photos captured that day, I had quickly dismissed the shower stall series as a noble but failed attempt.  The images had been underexposed and many photos had motion blur from shooting at the slow shutter speed required.  In my pass through the files that day, I did not flag any of the shower series for further consideration.  Many of the day's other shots, from the pool, beach and orchard, made their way into Captured Shadows #1.

This summer, while searching for additional images to augment the pool shots, I tumbled directly into the shower series which had followed the pool work.  Near the beginning were two captures that appeared to have been throw-away shots, taken at the start of a session as the photographer adjusted his settings. 

Staring at the dark image of a man seated in the shower, I slid the exposure setting on my software to brighten the image by two f-stops.  Revealed was an image of stunning light and beautiful simplicity.  But it was the light that gave me pause.  This was the light I associate with the Dutch Masters.  Glorious light flowing from a window into a dark space.

"Wet!"  This might work with the pool shots.  Were there more?  I had not taken these photos, I did not know what to expect as I moved through the folder searching for more images that might have this same, beautiful ambient lighting.

In the end, I found and tagged two dozen files for editing.  More importantly, a nearly-lost collection of beautiful art has been rescued and shared.  In the folder that I once thought contained a failed experiment done in a challenging environment, I discovered some of my favorite work done with this model during 2015.  “Wet!” will be published as an uncensored portfolio in Bond:  Private Portfolio 2, being published in late 2016.

Bill has had his art featured on the website and in Captured Shadows before.  But this exceptional series warrants our rarely-bestowed byline.  New Manhattan Studios photos by Wm Weyeneth.

Click on the links below to view the Wet gallery.  Additional images from this series also can be found in our Fine Art Gallery.

• Wet! Gallery
• Fine Art Gallery
• All Things Bond

I find it fitting that these two photo sessions, the pool and the shower, are being presented together.  We were making use of the presence of a charming young lady at the pool that day but we had no idea as to if or how the images would ever be used.  Ultimately, in search of a way to present them, they achieved a noble purpose by leading us to a cache of images that otherwise would have been lost.

We first met and worked with Gabriel in California last summer. A professional dancer, trained in contemporary dance, he had just graduated college in the Bay Area.  The photo session was one of our rare duo shoots:  Gabriel and a fellow dance classmate and friend, Frankie.  Our work with the two is featured in a gallery and blog post, Two Dancers Two.

This was not Gabriel's first trip to New York.  Late last year he and his troupe were in the city, performing at one of New York's premiere dance venues.  It was a delight to see him dance, but we had been discussing working in the studio since our session in California.  Watching this graceful athlete on stage only added to the frustration at not being able to squeeze time out of his busy rehearsal and performance schedule for a session in the studio.

The studio session finally happened months later when Gabriel made a trip to New York on a more relaxed schedule.  Not only was there ample time for the studio session, but we had a chance to do some sight-seeing together (with camera) that resulted in the photo at left.    

We had walked over the Brooklyn Bridge for dinner and were exploring Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo, the rapidly-gentrifying old industrial waterfront area found Down Under the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges.  Pausing to admire the 133-year-old bridge, the camera came out and soon Gabriel's inner dancer sprung into action, spinning in the air and leaping off park benches.

As the sun was setting, the crowd in the waterfront park watched the dancer.  I remember thinking that we were just a couple of sailors short of recreating a scene from On The Town.  But upon noticing the splayed fingers in the finished work, another classic New York movie springs to mind.  I'm sure I'm not the only one to think that Gabriel could qualify for the remake of Spiderman.

A few days later we celebrated two birthdays after the studio session, Gabriel's 25th and my . . . my. . .where did I put that slip of paper?  

The studio session did not disappoint.  There is just something about dancers.  They even know how to stand still gracefully.

Gabriel may not get cast as Spiderman, but the birthday present he received while in New York was word that he's just been hired by a prominent Midwestern dance company.  He'll soon be moving from San Francisco to the upper Midwest.  In time, we hope that he makes it all the way east.  

• You'll find both Gabriel's 2015 California session and the 2016 New York session here.  
• The blog entry for Gabriel's first session can be found here.
• A selection of images from the session can also be found in the Fine Art Gallery.

When we first shot Adoniis in the spring of last year we had the foresight to do a bit of work with a red-white-and-blue scarf that we had found in our travels.  (Yes, the flag you see at the left is really a scarf; all the better to catch a breeze in the studio.)   When we opened Adoniis' first gallery last year, we held back several of the images that we are debuting today, intending to use them last July.  Time and the tides got the better of us, and July 2015 passed without posting Adoniis' holiday-themed images.

We are happy to correct the situation in 2016 and Adoniis can now be found waving the flag on our website just in time for the 4th of July.  We are debuting several new edits (including some without the flag) and the new images now lead the offerings in Adoniis' Fine Art Gallery.

In a year of increased awareness of the nation's diverse ethnic heritage and traditions, we are pleased to note that not only does the Puerto Rican model represent the rich cultural and ethnic diversity of the nation whose flag he proudly waves, Adoniis also embodies the diversity of the studio's work.  As we look back on the nearly 100 models that we have shot over the course of the past five years, we find not just ethnic diversity, but models representing nearly two dozen nationalities, from Russian, French and German to Cuban, Canadian, Colombian and Chinese.  

To a large extent the variety of models we have had the opportunity to work with is attributable to the local modeling pool and New York's role as a center of fashion, modeling and media.  Aspiring and established models are drawn to the city from all over and we are perfectly sited to be able work with some of the most beautiful people in the world.  The studio's work is all the richer for it.  Similarly, it is obvious that the city thrives on this robust cultural mix of ideas and talent.  Indeed it is why so many of us are attracted here. . .and attracted to the nation we are fortunate to call home.

Happy Fourth of July!

Come back in a week when we debut work that carries this theme forward.  Our next model is a contemporary dance artist.  Mexican-American, he has recently landed a role as a dancer with a prominent dance company in the Upper Midwest.  That new gallery will open in the next few days.  

You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog by clicking on the "subscribe" link at the bottom left of this page to receive blog posts when new work is debuted.

• Find the earlier blog entry for Adoniis here
• Find Adoniis' galleries at NMS here
• Aditional work with Adoniis is featured in Captured Shadows #2
• Adoniis is featured on Favorite Hunks for July 4th, 2016

Matthew is the walking embodiment of the classic American mongrel.  Part Mexican, part Polish, this fitness buff and model projects a timeless All-American look.  Fittingly, he calls Washington, DC, home.  

We did Matthew's session on a recent trip to Washington and the northern Virginia suburbs. It was a session almost a year in the making.  We had started corresponding in the summer of 2015, but our respective schedules did not align until months later. 

Each session is as different as the model on the paper, or in this case, on the staircase.  Our Polish-Mexican-American model had a commanding physical presence.  Clearly this man spends a lot of time in the gym, but from which side of the family he gets his hulking 6'3" frame, we didn't ask.  We just set about looking for the best light to capture a classic torso.  The formal nature of the home in which we were working lent itself well to the classic physique poses that we were pursuing. 

Matthew's was the second session that day and by late afternoon we had explored most of the home's nooks, corners and crannies.  One unused option stood in front of us:  the entry hall's grand staircase.  I wasn't sure what challenges it might present in our attempt to shoot such a tall model from either above or below, as would be necessitated on the staircase.

It had been an intermittently cloudy day.  The hall was filled with a beautiful, soft light as we studied the possibilities.  No sooner than did we start snapping—one from photographer from above the model, one from below—than the sun came out.  The room’s ambiance changed totally and suddenly our camera settings had to be changed.  Sixty seconds later the light changed again.  And the cameras.

Then again.  The peekaboo sun in the fast-moving April sky was wreaking havoc on the set.  It was like having someone constantly turning the lights on and off.  In the end, I capitulated and turned the camera on automatic and kept shooting even though most of the time the model was standing in mottled light as sun poured through blinds on a Palladian window high in the entry hall.  I was skeptical that anything of value was being captured.

What prompted it, I’m not sure.  But not only did the light surprise on the staircase, so did the model.  Gradually he edged into more provocative poses and the final work has a distinctly different feel from the images captured during the first part of the day.  (I'm not sure, but I suspect it may have been "the staircase effect."  Staircases have been known to bring out the diva in many of us.)

And the dreaded mottled light turned out to impart a mood that augments the softly erotic nature of the model’s work.  I can picture him standing in an old home in the French Quarters of New Orleans. Listen closely and you can almost hear the old ceiling fan slowly turning. 

Check out Matthew’s gallery here as well as the additional pictures of him in the Fine Art Gallery.  And who knows?  More pictures from other parts of the house may eventually make their way into a future issue of Captured Shadows.

The shirtless cover model braving that snowstorm is Timothy, who had just arrived for a week in New York.  Ultimately, Timothy never left and the issue features a series of photos taken of the 23-year-old model during his first year in New York.

The issue also features portfolios on Ricardo and Willi.  Ricardo is seen in a photo fantasy series that blurs the line between art and photography and invites the viewer to supply a back story for the pouring rain and flashing lights. 

We’ve pulled some previously unpublished work with Willi from our vault.  To balance off the late winter snowstorm on the first pages, the fifth portfolio captures the 27-year-old Californian around a shimmering blue pool.

Click here to preview and purchase Captured Shadows #3.

With his killer physique, Ricardo has become one of the studio’s most popular models.  The session we’re showcasing here was his fourth visit to the studio.  Fortunately, the younger brother of the studio’s production assistant and second cameraman is relatively easy to schedule.  He can catch a ride to work with brother Alex.  As we turn more and more of our time and attention to physique art, Ricardo has become one of our “go-to” models when it’s time to try new concepts and lighting techniques.

The timing of Ricardo’s last shoot with us, at the beginning of winter, was very much determined by the seasonal schedule of snow birds.  For some time, I have been eyeing a metal sculpture that has appeared as a prop in our photo sessions going back as far as the summer of 2014.  Normally the huge metal globe resides in the studio/office of a friend, David, who has permitted us to shoot in his space on a number of occasions.  The room the sculpture calls home is too confining to adequately showcase such a large prop in a physique art pose and for some time we have been seeking an opportunity to bring it into the studio.  That finally happened in December, just days before its owner, a prominent Madison Avenue designer, retreated to Florida for the winter.

I wouldn’t think of borrowing such a large (and expensive) piece of art without having the owner present to supervise its transit and handling.  We took advantage of having an extra set of hands in the studio that day and pressed David into service as our stylist (and model spritzer), freeing Ricardo’s older brother, Alex, to devote his full attention to the second camera. 

Perhaps it’s a reflection of their native Colombian culture, but unlike the Italian brothers Luca and Matteo, Ricardo and Alex are a bit more reserved around each other.  Alex steps out of the studio when his brother is posing nude.  Perhaps my favorite picture of the day, however, was one of Alex's last shots as Ricardo's clothes were coming off.  Alex's picture of his kid brother at the top of this page inspired the series we’ve dubbed, It Was a Dark and Stormy Night.  Alex wasn't around for the rest of the series, but you can find the full collection in Captured Shadows #3. 

Other images from the day can be found in Ricardo’s gallery and in the Fine Art Gallery on the website. 

Captured Shadows #3 goes on sale on May 1, 2016.

Up next month:  a new model, Borgia.  He has yet to explain his choice of a modeling name but I hope to have that story by the time we debut his work later this month.  Subscribe to the blog using the button on the lower left corner of this page to be notified when we add new content to the site (approximately twice a month).

Click here for all things Ricardo at New Manhattan Studios.

For those of us of a certain age, many of the brightest stars in the firmament of international media celebrities have Italian names.  

In the decades immediately following World War II, Italian cinema flourished and names such as Fellini and Antonioni were world renown.  Italy defined la dolce vita (the beautiful life) for the world, from design, fashion and cuisine to the cinematic arts.  Italian cinema reeked of cool, sexy chic.  Italian beauties Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida were international sex symbols.  

Heir to this tradition is Marco, a 6'1", 22-year-old model from Naples.  At the time of his sessions, he was studying acting at one of the leading drama schools in New York; appropriately enough, the alma mater of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Marlon Brando.

We can’t vouch for his acting skills, but having worked as a model in Europe, Marco is a natural in front of the camera.  But if looks count for anything in this business (duh!), watch for this face.  Marco backs up his contemporary European sense of style and sexy jock vibe with traditional Italian good looks.

We had the good fortune to schedule two sessions with him during his time in New York.  The first was our year-end post in 2014.  The second session was captured less than a half year later in early 2015, before the end of his term at school.  

Marco's is one of several 2015 photo sessions that are just now being brought out of the vault.  Whereas his first session had more of a fashion focus, Marco's second session was a physique art session that included implied and partial nudes.  A number of the images are available in the studio's Fine Art Gallery  and still more in Captured Shadows, the studio's physique art portfolio.  Marco is one of three models featured in Captured Shadows #4.

We hope you enjoy this follow-up session with one of our favorite models.  With the opening of his second gallery, we have written Marco to make sure we get on his calendar for one of his future trips to New York as a model or actor.

Since we started by talking ‘60s names, I’ll toss in another for you.  I have refrained from using any pictures of myself on the blog, but the shot below of Marco at work in front of two panels (being used as light modifiers) was my favorite behind-the-scenes shot from his session.  So just this once, I’m making an exception.  Let’s think of my visage on the right as a tribute to the famed 60s director, Alfred Hitchcock.  (If you’re old enough, you’ll understand.)

WT

After the well-received feature starring Norm on Valentine’s Day, the powers-that-be at Favorite Hunks suggested that we conjure up a St. Patrick’s Day-themed photo series featuring the model Alex who also serves as the studio’s assistant and second cameraman.

When we accepted the challenge we quickly found ourselves racking our brains as to how to turn a very Hispanic-looking Colombian into a Leprechaun. 

No matter how hard we tried, we could not think of any rainbows and pots-of-gold scenarios that didn’t seem trite or contrived. Ultimately, we narrowed the ideas down to two concepts that seemed to convey the über-Irish theme of the day. 

The first half of the session was devoted to capturing physique art shots in a more classical vein, using green fabric on the model and green gels on the strobes.  The second, with a slightly more erotic bent, involved painting shamrocks on the model and turning up the green heat under the guise of “Kiss Me I’m [obviously not] Irish.”

The green fabric and lights fell into place easily.  To my surprise, the shamrocks turned out to be the creative challenge of the day.  With Alex in front of the camera, I had invited a friend of the studio to help out at the session.  An architect by profession, we decided that the artistic nature of his day job qualified him for the job of shamrock body painter.  Unfortunately, none of us had ever worked with body paints before and it shows.  Oh, well.  It’s the spirit that counts and hopefully the green shamrocks on Alex’s torso might be bright enough to attract a Leprechaun or two.

Separately, I am coming to appreciate how Alex’s vision as second cameraman has had a greater influence on the studio’s art than I had realized.  Often he will be taking shots from the side or rear of the studio as the model on the paper is focused on the lead camera in the front of the room.  His shot is of a model is posing, but not for him.  At times the shots are quite wide, and capture the mood and ambiance of the studio.  

It has been from staring at the many striking images that he has taken from unorthodox angles and perspectives that I have begun to appreciate the art hidden in the casual studio shot.  I have started paying closer attention to the behind-the-scenes shots and throw-away jpgs such as those taken while tweaking lighting.  

Many of Alex’s “blog shots” (our term for the behind-the-scenes shots you see on our blog pages) have justifiably been included in our galleries and I find it amusing that I am the one whose career started in photojournalism and it is Alex who is creating art by documenting the model at work.

Image With Alex in front of the camera for the St. Patrick’s shoot (and no second cameraman to “capture the moment,” as it were), I found myself searching out some of Alex’s perspectives to get some of his style of shots.  Examples of such documentary work are included in the St. Patrick gallery. 

Two such images warranted additional editorial time to coax the art out of the shadows.  The first was taken before the session began.  It’s a shot of the model, waiting quietly on the paper as the lights are being tweaked (above, right).  The second is a similar shot taken in the middle of the session:  the model, waiting yet again, as the body painter prepares the paint.  You can find that picture here.  The last two pictures on this page were taken moments later.

You can find more images of Alex St. Pat in the St. Patrick Day gallery.  For a limited period of time, a selection of photos from Alex’s St. Patrick’s Day session will be available in the Fine Art Gallery.

Alex is featured in Captured Shadows #2.  This special double issue features Alex's work in front of and behind the cameras at New Manhattan Studios.  You will find 90+ pages of Alex and ten other models.  You can preview it and find All Things Alex at New Manhattan Studios by clicking here

Click Here to See Alex's St. Patrick's Day Feature on Favorite Hunks

Spotlights, scrims, stage lighting and theatrical poses seemed appropriate for our second session with Strauss, this time in our New York City studios.  It was a sharp contrast from the largely soft and refined look that describes our first work with him in a gracious home in suburban Washington, DC.

We first worked with Strauss in the summer of 2015.  He was referred to us by another photographer with whom we shared a photo shoot in July.  (The work from that first session can be viewed in Strauss’ Virginia gallery.) 

In possession of one of the most ripped physiques we’ve shot lately, we were pleased that day when Strauss agreed to come to New York later in the year to round out our portfolio with some formal work under the studio lights. 

Once in New York and in the shadows of Broadway, the spotlights and bold colors of theatrical lighting seemed entirely appropriate to showcase an established Shakespearean actor and his costumes.  Many of my favorite images captured in the studio, however, were the candid, unposed shots taken by Alex on the second camera. Increasingly I am beginning to see these images for the art they are in addition to the story they tell. They comprise a disproportionally large share of the images in Strauss’s edited New York work.  There are some interesting compositions and striking pieces of art in captures grabbed from the sides of the studio.

Strauss spent a Fall weekend shooting with the studio in New York City in 2015.  Studio work and shots captured out-and-about in the city round out the second gallery (the New York gallery).  In addition to work in the studio the weekend included the obligatory trip to the Broadway Theater for this actor who’s pounding the boards in regional theaters in the mid-Atlantic region. 

We hope to entice the actor back to New York in the near future to continue working with him on various projects.  All of his hard work in the gym needs proper documentation!  If you have any doubts about the physique, check out the half dozen of Strauss' images that have been added to the Fine Art Gallery.

And in the meantime. . .

Opposite.  Entering from stage right. . .is Strauss.

Ah, it was déjà vu all over again, as Mr. Berra would say.

As I edited the photos from Norm’s third session with New Manhattan Studios, it was impossible not to compare them to the “red and white” session that we had done with Bond a year earlier. 

The elements used in Bond’s session—a tuxedo he had brought to the city for a wedding he was attending, red accessories on-hand in the studio—had led us by chance to doing work that we ultimately saw as our first official Valentine’s Day shoot.  It stands out as one of my favorite sessions from 2015.  Norm’s shoot was more deliberately planned; Bond had left big footprints to follow. 

Norm and Bond were both at similar points in their modeling careers at the time of their respective Valentine’s sessions.  In each case, it had been close to a year since the model’s first session with the studio and, having done little more than some basic physique modeling, neither yet had much experience modeling.  Bond was a natural athlete drawn to modeling on a lark with encouragement from friends.  Norm had been introduced to the studio by his gym buddy, Alex, our model/stylist and assistant photographer, who had watched the 18-year-old’s steady and impressive progress in the gym. 

While we had haphazardly wound up in February-14th territory with Bond, from the very start of Norm’s last session we discussed doing work that might be used as a Valentine’s photo shoot.  I needed assurance going-in that this young, new-to-modeling bodybuilder would be comfortable posing in this manner and with having the images broadly circulated. 

Sitting at the counter in the dressing room before heading out into the studio, we leafed through the published work from Bond’s session and I told Norm that if he was up for it, we’d be aiming for a similar Valentine theme.  I showed him that Bond had set a high bar and that the work had a bit of an erotic edge that would require teasing the camera and some nudity.  I assured him that his work in the gym had paid off and that he was eminently fit for the challenge. To my delight, the young bodybuilder appeared genuinely flattered that he was being considered for such an assignment and assured me that he was “in.”

As usual, we spent too much time on the initial set-ups, but such is the nature of warming up for both the photographers and the model.  Norm seemed comforted by the fact that his gym-buddy Alex was working the shoot.  He knew Alex was an experienced model and he was attentive to the directions and pointers being offered by his friend.  Coming from the same town and gym, not only did they have a bit of personal history in common, Alex’s cool and professional demeanor was helpful in putting the new model at ease.  As Norm relaxed, he started getting into the mindset of the shoot.  The camera recorded his blossoming confidence as he started turning on the charm and making eye contact like a pro. 

Ultimately, any two photo sessions are as different as the models working in the center of the floor and the casual viewer isn’t going to see many similarities between Bond’s unplanned Valentine’s session and Norm’s more plotted “red session.”  That said, both men met the challenge and delivered striking sets of photos, well-suited to inspiring fantasies of ideal dates for February 14th. 

A pair of red-flannel long johns inspired the pursuit of a retro feel in Norm’s Valentine’s shoot.  Part of Bond’s session had a similar mid-century pin-up flavor, too.  But there was a more amusing commonality between the two sessions that might be apparent only to the most attentive viewers.  Bond’s borrowed-from-Dad tuxedo and Norm’s purchased-for-the-occasion red flannel long-johns were each visibly too big.  Any number of clamps and pins couldn’t hide the fact that the models were swimming in the clothing. The solution in both cases was the same:  grab a few establishing shots and then get them out of the ill-fitting clothes as quickly as possible.  Both men did so with panache as the camera’s clicked away.

I am happy to report that not only did Norm enjoy creating some old-fashioned Valentine’s images, but everyone loved the results, including Tye Briggs at Favorite Hunks.  Upon receipt of the first shots from the session, Tye accorded Norm the honor of being the 2016 Valentine’s Hunk at Favorite Hunks.  Tye loves behind-the-scenes shots and provided several on his blog [Click here and here].  We pulled together still more and created a behind-the-scenes video presentation for his readers.  You can view it here.  And be sure to check out Norm's new photographs in the Fine Art Gallery.

And we saved the best news to last:  We are confident that we have not seen the last of Mr. Norm at New Manhattan Studios.  He’s already asking when we can do it again.

Click here for All Things Norm at New Manhattan Studios.

Tempting as it is to follow tradition and label this post the "New Year's Baby," it would certainly not do justice to the 24-year-old New York model and actor that we have chosen to kick off 2016.  And besides, with his classic preppy face, I'm sure he's teased (and carded) enough over his schoolboy appearance.  But we are going to capitalize on that great youthful appearance and run with it by tapping Timothy as our lead model for 2016, our "New Year's Model."

That Timothy should be accorded the honor of being the New Year’s Model seems only fitting.  New Year's in New York is all about Times Square and so is he!  He's an aspiring actor who spends quite a good chunk of his time in the Times Square/Hell's Kitchen/Theater District Area. Indeed, he actually worked in the Square shortly after his arrival in the Big Apple this past year.  You could find him around the TKTS booth at the north end of the Square, promoting shows to would-be ticket-buyers.

Tim’s arrival last winter wasn’t by accident, but the decision to remain in New York came quite spontaneously.  He had come down from the Boston area to work as a model in a series of fashion shows for which the studio was supplying models.  By the time he finished the assignment he had decided to stay in New York.  After all, if an actor wants to pursue his dreams, this is the big time.

Tim has his acting chops.  He’s worked regional theater in Florida and the Boston area.  Upon arrival in the city he found his way into film and television appearances almost immediately.  He had, after all, arrived with the required matinee idol looks. Today he has a manager, a “day job” (every actor has one), a GF (every actor needs one) and well-worn shoes from racing around to auditions and acting classes.  But most importantly, he has the determination to succeed.

Tim is one of those models that we have been shooting over time and we have been privileged to be able to document his changing appearance since the age of 21.  (All of Tim’s work with us can be found here.)  Our first session with Tim, taken in Massachusetts, was featured in the studio’s book, Berkshire Place, published in 2013.  A year later, on the occasion of his first trip to New York City, he was featured in the Studio's 2014 Models' Portfolio, Gramercy Square. Today we are opening galleries featuring work from our sixth and seventh session with the model.  All of the work was captured here in the city, from Central Park to a top-floor aerie on Madison Avenue.  

We are pleased to report that in addition to the galleries of his shoots here at NMS, Timothy's work can be found in the Fine Art Gallery and will be featured in the third issue of Captured Shadows, to be published this spring.  And later in the year we plan to be publishing a book with a complete retrospective of our work with this young man.  Watch here for the publication announcement for Timothy: Private Portfolio.

The first anniversary of Tim’s arrival to work the fashion shows is upon us.  Twelve months later, the novelty of being a tourist in town has worn off; the gritty reality of life in the City has set in.  And he’s still here.  

He’s earned it now.  We bestow the title Gotham Guy on him with a time-worn truism, New Yorkers are born everywhere.  It just takes some of us longer to get here. 

Find All Things Timothy at New Manhattan Studios by clicking here.

As fans of the model and the studio know, Alex (at left) has worked at New Manhattan Studios for going on 4 years as a model and now a photographer.  Tye and I have been talking for quite some time about featuring Alex’s work as a photographer, but the 6-part feature that Tye posted on Favorite Hunks this month far surpasses in scope anything that I think either of us had imagined even as recently as last month when we started pulling the content together.  We were thrilled to cooperate, but the project upended the workflow of the studio in an unplanned way.

In the end, Tye’s tribute doesn’t just showcase Alex’s work as an emerging photographer, it also shares many behind-the-scenes shots of Alex at work as a stylist and production assistant and includes an extensive retrospective of his work as an NMS model stretching back nearly four years.  The links to this six-part tribute (with perhaps over six dozen images) can be found at the bottom of the All Things Alex page.  Some of the photos have been shared previously, either in this blog or in the studio’s publications or online galleries.  Many are being seen publicly for the first time.

Since he started working behind the scenes at New Manhattan Studios in early 2013, Alex has worked on countless photoshoots.  He has met, worked with, and become friends with dozens of models.  He picked up the second camera and started shooting for the first time in the summer of 2014.  The first model he shot was Michael (shown on the right).  Since then he has been regularly shooting at most of the photo sessions and some of the studio’s best shots in the past year have been captured by Alex.  One of my favorites, an iconic shot of the studio with the model Adoniis, is shown below, at bottom.   

Having spent hours pulling all of this together for Favorite Hunks, I began to search for a way to repurpose it, to give the collection an extended life and permanent home at New Manhattan Studios.  In the end, a special issue of Captured Shadows was born. . . ultimately a double issue (since it contains twice as much content—and pages—as regularly planned for the studio’s magazine). 

Issue Two, Model & Photographer, went on sale this week, coincident with Tye’s tribute to Alex on Favorite Hunks.  You can preview it below and order it here.  The magazine contains five portfolios of work.  The first portfolio takes the viewer behind the scenes at New Manhattan Studios, showing Alex at work as a stylist and production assistant on several photo shoots.  Portfolios 2 through 4 feature Alex’s work as a photographer (again with behind-the-scenes shots in the studio and on location).  The final and largest collection, Portfolio 5, is a retrospective of the studio’s work with Alex, the model.  Overall there are a dozen models in the magazine and scores of previously unreleased photos. 

Captured Shadows #2 It’s rare that a studio has the opportunity to chronical the life and professional development of a model over time, but that’s what Portfolio Five in Captured Shadows #2 essentially does. Since the studio adheres to a policy of not posting any explicit pictures online, the magazine features many photographs that have never been (and won’t be) shown on the site.  You will follow a 23-year-old aspiring fitness and swimsuit model from the day he walked into the studio to the point where he’s an accomplished model of 27. 

Photographer & Model is both a tribute to Alex’s work with the studio (on all sides of the camera) and a thank you for his many contributions to the studio. 

We are pleased both to have the opportunity to document this model’s career in such a fashion and to be able to share it with his many fans.

You may view Favorite Hunk’s feature on Alex, the model and photographer, by clicking on the links at the bottom of the All Things Alex page.  You can preview Captured Shadows by clicking on the video above.  You may order Captured Shadows here.

​Now we really must get back to our regularly-scheduled program.  We haven't posted the site's New Year's “​baby” yet.  And we need to get to work on what was ​to have been the next issue of Captured Shadows.  (For those paying close attention, Timothy, Willi and Ricardo will now be in issue #3.)

​BELOW:  ADONIIS BY ALEX CORSO

We met and worked with Andrew at the home of our good friends and fellow photographers, Mark Grantham and Mike Tossy.  It was a busy day but we shared the workload.  In the morning we shot the second of our California sessions with the ex-New York model, Bond Brown. Before we finished working with Bond, Andrew arrived early, eager to get to work. 

As a matter of studio policy, there are always two persons present at each model's shoot.  In addition to the lead photographer, a stylist/production assistant is on hand, often also shooting part-time with a second camera.  Alex typically fills this role in the New York Studio.  The "we" in this case refers to the studio's West Coast associate, Wm Weyeneth, who not only serves as a talent scout on the West Coast, but is also our Editor-in-Chief and a mastermind behind the studio's many publications.

When Andrew arrived we split camera duties and Bill picked up the second camera to finish up with Bond while Andrew and I tackeld paperwork and wardrobe issues.  Bill joined us early in Andrew's session as Bond marched off in another direction to work with Mark Grantham.  As I said, it was a busy day and cameras were clicking all over the place.

At the very end of the day we split camera dutues again and I finished the afternoon shooting with Bond while Bill finished our work with Andrew.  I mention all of this now for a reason. Over the course of 2015 the studio has presented the work of three photographers.  To date, we have made no attempt to segregate or identify the work of individual photographers on the website. We are each proud of our work but none of us has an ego that needs that type of massaging.  Collectively, we are New Manhattan Studios.  On a more practical note, we are frequently handing the cameras back and forth as lighting and specific conditions may warrant the use of one camera or lens over another.  At the end of the day we have typically captured well over a thousand images and it is nearly impossible to separate one photographer's work from aonother's when all of the media cards are downloaded into a big folder for editing.

That said, the closing post of the year seems like a perfect time to give credit where credit is due and I am happy to single out two of Bill's images from Andrew's shoot.  They are the first and last photos on this blog page.  Several more appear in Andrew's gallery but as referenced, they are not individually credited.  (And check out the first blog post in 2016 when we highlight some of Alex's recent work.)

Now, as for Andrew, let me just say that he is a delight to work with and a gem that we are happy to add to the studio's portfolio of work.  In addition his personal gallery, be sure to check out several additional photos of Andrew featured in the Fine Art Gallery.  We not only thank Mark and Mike for the introductions, but we look forward to working with this up-and-coming young model in the year to come.  Which starts shortly. 

Happy New Year to all!
 

Wes Triplett, head photographer and blogmeister
 

PS:  Return in early January to meet our New Year's Model for 2016.
 

Well, obviously Norm was just biding his time, working on his already-ripped physique and preparing for a return to the studio that would impress the cameras. 
 

Norm and Alex, our production assistant and second cameraman, still work out at the same gym and see each other from time to time. This fall he started asking Alex about scheduling a second session.  Indeed, he was so eager to get back into the studio to document the progress he had made this year that it seemed as though we couldn't get back to him quickly enough with a date for a second session.
 

Finally, in late November, we managed to agree on a date for his second photo shoot.  And worth the wait it was!  Not only was his physique more chiseled and defined than ever, but he'd taken his confidence as a model up several notches as well.  He exhibited little of the shyness of the 18-year-old first-timer that we'd noted last winter.  Indeed, he even agreed to pose for physique art work that we have included in the Fine Art Gallery.
 

It is entirely fitting that we close the year with a second gallery for this young body-builder.  In the space of approximately nine months, Norm has gone from timid first-time model to ending the year with the distinction of being one of the most impressive models that came before our cameras in 2015.  If you have any doubts, check out his second gallery here.  And stay tuned, we hope to be able to continue documenting the progress of this young body-builder in the months and years to come.

click here for ALL THINGS NORM

at New Manhattan Studios

New Manhattan Studios announces a new format for its art. . .

Captured Shadows.  

Featuring the Physique Art Photography of New Manhattan Studios.  

The first issue, California Dreaming, is off press on December 1, 2015, and is devoted exclusively to one of the studio's most popular models: Bond Brown.  The issue features uncensored lifestyle and physique art photographs from three sessions conducted in California in 2015.  

• THE ORCHARD
• THE POOL
• THE BEACH

Available by mail in hard copy format and online as a downloadable ebook, Captured Shadows is published three times a year and features the physique art, lifestyle and art nude photos of New Manhattan Studios in magazine format.  

Preview Issue One here

Order Captured Shadows here

Each issue contains three or four photo essays featuring the studio's top models.  The second issue, coming in early 2016, and will feature three models:  Willi, Timothy and Ricardo.

Giovanni is an aspiring New York City model with the requisites of success:  classic matinee idol looks and a long, lean body on which the designers will delight in hanging clothes.  This 18-year-old is just entering the business while continuing his education.  He’s another find of the studio’s lieutenant, Alex, who’s added “talent scout” to a business card that now reads stylist, production assistant and second cameraman. 

Giovanni had his first-ever professional photo shoot in the studio in late summer.  A couple of weeks later he joined us on a trip to western New England when we did some location shooting on a separate assignment with Alex (in his original role as a model).  

I have maintained a second home in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts for over 20 years but I have not shot in the area since spending parts of several months working with eight (mostly local) models on Berkshire Place, published in 2013.  That summer, in search of a private spot of along the Housatonic river at the foot of the hill, I had finally stumbled across something that I had heard about for 20 years but had never seen:  a large concrete dam.  Hidden in a secluded ravine less than a quarter of a mile from my home, it was easily 200 feet across the top with a wall of water cascading 30 feet down to the rocks below.  I was stunned that a structure this big and so close to my weekend home had eluded me for two decades.

I was also amazed to discover such a perfect shooting venue located so conveniently to the house.  With the cascading waters, the pool below the dam was a dramatic backdrop for photos.  And with only an occasional local fishermen, the area was private enough to do the type of work you’ll find in Berkshire Place. 

Giovanni had never been to this corner of New England before, so after Alex’s shoot, the two of us took off to do some sightseeing while my model/assistant had headed upstairs for a nap.  We started off along the river at the foot of the hill and soon enough the cameras came out.  Eventually we found ourselves around the dam, but this late in the summer the cascading waters were but a trickle.  We did capture some shots in the river, but mostly we had set out to do some sightseeing. 

Late in the afternoon we wound up on the grounds of one of the grand old estates that had defined the area as a playground for the wealthy during the Victorian era.   Sprawling across 350 acres atop a hill overlooking town, I have often taken tourists to the grounds of this mansion for the view and a glimpse at the lifestyles of the rich and famous from a century ago. 

The estate, long ago adapted to a new use, had people milling about the lawns and gardens.  But as we were wondering back to the car I noticed that, late in the day, the area around the fountain and rose garden was quiet.  With no one in sight, I posed the model first against some white pillars and then on the edge of the fountain.  Still with no one watching us, I prodded him into the pool and soon his clothes were wet and clinging to his body as he posed next to the fountain.

As we walked back to the car I suggested that he might want to strip out of some of the wet clothes before getting into the car.  Giovanni hesitated and demurred.  I smiled and understood.  At that point the car was surrounded by a gaggle of nuns.  I’d been surprised we’d gotten away with as much as we had on this property.  A model cavorting in the fountain is certainly out of character for this place today.  Nearly 75 years ago the estate had been purchased by the Catholic Church.

This was the first (and quite probably the last) time I had done a photo shoot at a monastery.  

The OrchardThe Orchard, from Bond's Fine Art Prints Gallery The end of October brings crisp nights, falling leaves and the scent of apples.  October's name alone brings to mind thoughts of Halloween and palettes of orange, black, and the warm earth tones of the autumn landscape.

First off, we have our good friend Tye Briggs and his immensely popular Favorite Hunks & Other Things blog to thank for focusing our attention on our ongoing work with one of the studio’s most popular models.  Favorite Hunks is a showcase of talent, featuring the work of both photographers and models.  If you haven’t already been there, be sure to check it out.

When Tye recently asked for a handful of pictures of Bond Brown from what we now refer to as the Orange and Black session, we were happy to comply.  It had been his intention to run one or two “new” shots around Halloween, photos that he had not used when he first featured Bond on Favorite Hunks now exactly one year ago.  Going in search of photos that had not previously been used we found ourselves reviewing not just the edited work from last October’s session, but perusing the folder of unedited raw files as well.

It’s always fun to return to a long-closed folder from an earlier photo session.  With fresh eyes I find new favorites and inevitably I encounter a handful of images, each begging the question, “How did I miss this?"   Almost always I'll find additional pictures that I want to edit and such was the case here.  So today we are happy to add a number of new pictures to Bond's October 2014 Gallery.  Some are being featured on Favorite Hunks this weekend, others can be found only here.

But while we were prepping the new work for Favorite Hunks we decided to speed up the editing of our most recent work with Bond.  Earlier this month we were fortunate to have Bond back in front of our cameras for a quintessentially Fall photo session in an apple orchard in a secluded valley in the hills above Santa Cruz, California.

Bond’s fans will be happy to learn that the apple orchard session is part of a larger project that’s in the works.  We have shot Bond three times this year; twice in California and once in our New York City studios. Following up on last year's popular Bond – Private Portfolio, a 76-page book showcasing Bond as a New York model, Bond – Private Portfolio II will feature our work with Bond in 2015.  This gallery is a sneak preview of the California sessions included in the upcoming book.

And please note, that we have added new work to Bond’s Fine Art Gallery online here; new images both from the Orange and Black session and from the recent session in the apple orchard.  For those that venture that far we’re making a special offer:  a Fall Sale that’s good for the balance of the year.  Order any five images from Bond’s Fine Art Gallery for $15.  You’ll receive 6” x 9” gallery-quality prints on your choice of paper.  Click here for more details.

And be sure to keep watching this space for news on the publication of Bond’s 2015 Private Portfolio.  You can use the “subscribe” button on the bottom left of this page to subscribe to our RSS feed.  We generally do two posts to this blog each month with news from the studio.  Subscribers to the blog will be the first to hear about the publication of the book and receive a pre-publication discount offer as it goes to press.

NEW:  Bond is the Coverboy for Captured Shadows magazine

Click here for All Things Bond at New Manhattan Studios​

​Click here to check out Bondiful Harvest at Favorite Hunks

The book Bond - The Private Portfolio is now available in e-book as well as hardbound and paperback editions.

We took full advantage of having this "Latin Cajun" in town for a couple of weeks and shot him in the studio twice, and on location around the city twice. 

Iggy had never been to New York before and wanted to take in the sites. The shot above was captured in one of our favorite spots to work:  Roosevelt Island, in the center of the East River and easily accessible from our Long Island City facility.  In addition to posing the Cajun in front of a classic NYC skyline, we worked with him in historic Madison Square and on the High Line, the popular new city park built atop an abandoned elevated rail line running through Chelsea and the West Village.

Since returning home we hear he's been busy in the gym and has taken his trim, toned body to new heights.  

Check out Iggy's gallery here.  You'll find folders with almost three dozen images from his several photo sessions and a video presentation that includes even more pictures from his first visit to the Big Apple. 

A very NSFW Iggy is one of three models featured in Captured Shadows #4 which can be previewed in the video below.

You can follow Iggy on Instagram at @ignaccio_echeverri and find all of his work with New Manhattan Studios by clicking here.

Captured Shadows #4

Working in the home and gardens of my close friends and accomplished photographers, Mark Grantham and Mike Tossy, I was privileged to have had the opportunity to meet two recent college graduates who are dance majors and embarking on careers as professional dancers.  Both models had shot with both photographers previously, and Mark was generous enough to provide not just introductions but the space and time to shoot on their property in a private valley in northern California.

While the studio has previously done work with multiple models, little or none of this work has yet been shared publicly on the website.  [Yet.]  This posting, therefore represents something new on the site:  galleries with more than one model and photos of two models together.  It was a natural treatment for the introduction of the work for these two.  Friends as well as classmates, they have danced together many times; posing together was easier.  Clearly they showed that they could do it without practicing.

Both are the embodiment of contemporary California:  one is Mexican-American (Gabe), the other is of Filippino-Chinese-Mexican descent (Frankie).  Both are accomplished dancers; both are striking models and both are loyal good friends.  We hope you enjoy their galleries.

View Frankie’s Gallery here

View Gabe’s Gallery here

Each models' gallery contains both solo and dual shots.  You can find additional images of both models in the studio's Fine Art Gallery. 

And yes, if you look closely at the shot below, you'll see that it was a busy day.  That's Bond, playing pool boy during Frankie and Gabriel's shoot.  Stay tuned to see our 2015 session with one of the studio's most popular models:  Bond.  It was our first shoot with the new Californian.

To round out the "before and after" shots from Alex's anniversary session (posted last week), today we are posting other work done with our model/cameraman this year; work from both planned and impromptu fashion sessions in the New York studio and in California in the late spring.  For the record, let it be noted that some of the images in the New York City studio portion of the gallery were captured by Alex's friend and model, Timothy, who is now also working as a production assistant and second camera man at shoots when Alex is not available (such as when he's in front of the camera).  Indeed, one of the iconic shots of the year so far was captured by Tim on his first time out with a studio camera.
 

The studio makes regular trips to the West Coast to work with models in California and Alex has assisted on many of these sessions since 2012.  On his 2015 trip we indulged his passion for cars.  (“Passion” is probably an understatement when describing Alex’s obsession with cars and racing.  This guy can name the make, model and year of every car on the road.  Seriously.  Every car.) 

With the respected California photographer, Mike Tossy, as our local guide, we poured into a sporty convertible and tooled down the legendary Highway 1, hugging California’s rugged coastline.  Surrounded by mountains tumbling into the sea, Alex was driving on one of the world’s most dramatic roadways.  We stopped to get location shots from Big Sur in the south to Pebble Beach on the Monterey Peninsula. 

As stunning as the scenery is on this road, and as thrilling as it may be to drive as it twists along the sides of jagged cliffs that plunge straight down a thousand feet into the pounding surf, the highlight for Alex came toward the end of the day as we were heading back to Carmel.  Mike directed us onto a winding road leading up into the hills above the ocean.  It was a perfect combination of twists, turns and bucolic California scenery to satisfy Alex’s inner race car driver.  Suddenly, unexpectedly—and certainly unplanned—the road ended at a highway.  And Alex gasped when he saw the sign across the road.  He was in front of the entrance to the famed Laguna Seca Raceway.

Alex was ready to pee in his pants just staring at the sign but assuming it was a private road and closed to the public on non-race days, Alex was reluctant to enter.  It took less than a half minute to convince him to give it a try, to drive through the open gates past vacant guard stations.   

Once inside, Alex was babbling with excitement.  We drove along access roads overlooking the two-and-a-quarter-mile-long race track that twists through the hills with eleven fabled turns and rises and falls of nearly 200 feet.  Alex seemed to know it all.  And although he was seeing it for the first time, he informed us that he knew every turn:  he’d been “racing on this track for years."  Years earlier as a teenager, he bought a race car simulation game for his PC.  Laguna Seca was one of several real world tracks realistically rendered in virtual reality in the game.

We had stopped to take some photos when Alex noticed a security van rapidly approaching us from down the road.  Thinking we were about to get busted we were ready to put away the cameras and climb back into our car.  But as the security officer’s vehicle approached us he didn’t show any signs of slowing down.  As he zipped past us he nodded and waved a welcome to Luguna Seca.  The cameras came back out and Alex was captured on the real world racetrack that he's "known" for years!

Click here to enter Alex's 2015 Gallery.  And you'll find even more images in the 2015 video presentation.

Click here to find All Things Alex at New Manhattan Studios.

And plan to come back soon to see the work with the California models that prompted the trip west.  You can use the button on the bottom left to subscribe to the RSS feed to get updates to the blog as they are posted (about twice a month). 

Alex 2012

In this case we’re talking about the studio’s favorite model, our production assistant and second cameraman, Alex.  

These days at our studio, Alex is much more likely to be found behind the camera than in front of it, but on occasion he’ll step under the lights as we check out new equipment or lighting styles.  These are not full-fledged photo sessions, however, so recently we were happy to celebrate three years of collaboration by scheduling a full-on “anniversary” session with him.  The photo shoot took place precisely three years to the week from the first session with did with him in 2012.  

Alex 2015 Alex took the assignment to heart when we told him we'd like to recreate the poses in which we had shot him years earlier.  Not only was he able to bring into the studio some of the very same clothes that he’d worn at that first session, but he went so far as to track down the song we had used as the music bed for the video presentation we prepared of that photoshoot!  It was playing on the studio’s sound system as he stepped onto the paper dressed in the same blue, white and black outfit that he’d entered the room wearing in April of 2012.  As Yogi Berra would have said, it was déjà vu all over again!

It took a bit of determination, but we had great fun attempting to recreate some of the precise poses we’d captured at that first session and we came close more than once.  

But as close as the images may have matched, one thing was notable.  We had a new-and-improved model in the room.  It's obvious that this model is not getting older, he’s getting better.  And of course, not every shot we got this spring was a replicate of a 2012 photo.  There’s entirely new work here to prove that Alex is sporting a more impressive physique than ever.  In the past couple of years he’s been hitting the gym harder than ever.  And it shows!  

While Alex has rarely been in front of the studio’s cameras in the past couple of years, his modeling career is as active as ever and he remains in demand not only as a swimsuit/fitness model for still and film work, but increasingly as a model for live modeling sessions with artists working in a variety of media.  [Interested parties can write the studio for information about working with Alex or any of our models.]

We’re confident that Alex’s many fans will be happy to see him appearing not just in the background of our behind-the-scenes shots, but once again as the subject of the camera.  And we’re doubly confident that all will appreciate the progress this man has made on his ever-impressive physique.

2012 and 2015.  Click here to see Alex then and now.

And for the eagle-eyed, that’s the model Timothy, standing in as the stylist at his friend's shoot.  And look closely.  Yes, those are the same black and red Calvins on Alex in the two galleries.  With as many pairs of underwear as this underwear model owns, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll wear out any one pair over the course of three years!

[A new blog entry on August 8, 2015 takes you to additional new studio photography featuring Alex.  And at "All Things Alex" you'll find links to all pages on the site that feature this popular model.]

If any of the studio's many models is a class act, surely it is Luca.  A classically-trained ballet dancer who can be found on stages in the U.S. and Europe, Luca splits his time between Milan and New York.  With rehearsals and his performance schedule (and travel back-and-forth between Europe and the States) it has been a challenge to schedule Luca.  Still, New Manhattan Studios has been fortunate to have him in the studio on three separate occasions.

His first appearance before our cameras was in the spring of 2014.  The gallery from his work can be found here.  It was then that we first appreciated the joy of working with an accomplished ballet dancer.  Not only were athletic balletic poses second nature to him, he radiated grace just standing still.

Between our first and second sessions Luca returned to Europe for several months.  But upon arriving back in New York in the fall, we wasted no time in scheduling a second session with him.  In mid-October we captured the series of graceful ballet poses and leaps that you see here. 

At the end of his October session, Luca mentioned that his big brother would be traveling to New York for the Christmas holidays.  He asked if we'd be interested in working with him.  He had us when he described Matteo as the soccer-jock/hunk in the family.  We asked if Matteo would be up for a full-on session with the studio and Luca promised to find out.

Matteo was in for doing a full studio session and weeks later, on his Christmas trip to the States, we managed to find a day when both brothers were free to come into the studio.  Matteo, then a pharmacy student, had never done a professional modeling session and wanted to have his kid brother along.  The one and only day that worked for all parties was the last day of Matteo's holiday in New York.  At the end of Matteo's session we managed to snag an extra hour to bring our work with Luca up-to-date.  Less than 12 hours later Matteo was off to JFK and his return home.

With both brothers now back in Italy, is is possible that this was the last session we will capture of either.  But images from Luca's third session can be found in the new gallery that we are opening with this blog entry.  The astute observer should be able to detect a slight maturation that is evident in some of the pictures.  Luca looks a little less like the boy of 20 that he was when he first arrived at New Manhattan Studios.  But if anything, the elegance and poise that he radiates is more obvious than ever.

If anyone wants to debate whether dancers are athletes, you can compare the physiques of these two brothers.  The soccer-loving jock-brother readily admits that the dancer has the best physique but we'll leave the final call to the viewers.  You can check out Matteo's session here. 

What all will agree on is that the two brothers are both photogenic and striking models.  Our favorite shots from that winter day, however, were some "family pictures" that we took just for the boys.  One is shown above.  A few others were taken that won't be hanging above the family mantle.  Perhaps someday we might find an appropriate place to hang them in a studio publication.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, you can check out a video presentation with some behind-the-scenes shots from Luca's three sessions.  You can click here to find All-Things-Luca at New Manhattan Studios.  And head over to Favorite Hunks to see that major international blog's feature on Luca's work with New Manhattan Studios.

Two bits of news this week.

First, Fine Art Prints from Timothy's latest session are now on sale and select images from his session have been added to the site's permanent Fine Art Gallery.

Second, New Manhattan Studios is announcing its first-ever sale.  For a limited time, we are offering a 20% discount on prints ordered from the studio's Fine Art Gallery.  The sale runs through the end of August and applies to all orders over $25.

Just put the images you want in your shopping cart; choose the paper type and size, and enter the code "SUMMER SALE" in the coupon box at checkout.  A 20% discount will automatically be applied to all orders over $25.

You can choose standard 4x6" prints or enlargements as big as 20" x 30" or any size or combination thereof.  But hurry, the Summer Sale only last 7 weeks.  You must place your order by August 31st. 

Timothy

Tim’s Summer 2013 shoot was featured in Berkshire Place - Rockwell Country, Updated, published in 2013.  Tim was one of eight contemporary “all-American” models shot in settings around Norman Rockwell’s hometown; settings that inspired some of Rockwell's iconic images of 20th century America.  Tim was so well-received by the studio’s fans that we included shots from his city shoot the following spring in our 2014 models portfolio,  Gramercy Square.  Galleries from both earlier shoots can be found by clicking here.  Previews for both books can be found in the New Manhattan Studios Publications page.

This past winter Timothy agreed to come down to New York to work in a couple of fashion shows for a New York menswear retailer.  Tim was one of several New Manhattan Studio models featured in the two shows held at venues in Hell’s Kitchen, the trendy residential neighborhood just west of New York’s theater district.  He arrived in the city in late February, planning to stay for the period between the shows.  But life had other plans for him.  Tim is not the first person to arrive temporarily in New York and not escape.  Tim is now one of our "newest" New Yorkers.  

Between the two shows Tim came into the studio for the photo session that is featured here.  After the second show he was offered a job working for the store that had hosted the shows.  As of this writing, Tim has never returned to New England.  We have been fortunate to have him in front of our cameras again and he has started working as an occasional stylist and production assistant as well as model for the studio.

In off hours, Tim can be found hawking Broadway shows to tourists in Time Square, chasing down theatrical agents, and exploring the city with his new girlfriend.  He has already appeared on a television show and in one of the city’s top comedy clubs.   

You can check out his latest work in his 2015 gallery.  Included are studio shots, location shots, and a brave, bare-chested shoot in a snow storm in Madison Square.  A select collection of Timothy's work is also featured in the studio's Fine Art Gallery. We expect Tim to be working with us off-and-on in 2015, both in front of and behind the cameras.  He's also agreed to work with us on a private portfolio, a collection of his images that will span a two-year period that starts with summer of 2013.  

To complete work on the Private Portfolio project, Tim's diligently working out in the gym, intent on showing notable physical progress from the 21-year-old New Englander to the 23-year-old New Yorker.  If you're one of his many fans, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog (on the lower left corner or this page).  You'll be the first kid on the block to get word when the book is finished.

By the way, that’s Joe, helping out as the stylist on Tim's February session.  A friend of the studio, he’s the manager of the store that's now Tim's day job.  Every aspiring actor has one.

Before leaving town on the first trip, however, one last photo session was scheduled for the studio in New York.  Quite unexpectedly a photographer and friend in Northern California referred a German model to us.  Unfortunately, Michael would be arriving in New York after the studio had been shut down and just days before we were scheduled to depart for the Midwest.

Despite (or maybe because of) the unorthodox and round-about referral, we went out of our way to schedule a straightforward TFP portfolio shoot for the young German, just embarking on a modeling career in Europe.  He would only be in the US for just over a week but fortunately we found time on each of our schedules and the studio was reopened for a single 3-hour session in early May.  

It was worth it.  We have worked with many international models, but Michael is our first German model.  Amusingly, though, this is the third Michael that has earned a gallery on the studio's website and to compound the use of the name, the referring photographer from Paradise, California, is also named Michael.

He turned out to be yet another one of those models whose presence in the studio did not prepare me for how well the camera would capture him.  The man is extremely photogenic.  Moreover, with his tall, lean physique and classic good looks, Michael is tailor-made for runway and fashion work.  

We wish him well on his modeling career and hope that he finds his way back to the studio on what we would like to think will be many subsequent trips to New York.  We hope that he's as pleased with our addition to his portfolio as we are with including him in ours.  Check out Michael's gallery here.

Days later the studio was closed until July but the cameras did not stop clicking.  As mentioned, we had planned a respite for travel and to catch up on several unedited photo sessions hanging over us from the late winter and early spring. However, after four photo sessions in California and yet more sessions to be scheduled in Western New England in the weeks ahead, "respite" is hardly an appropriate term to describe this time.

Keep an eye open for work with two new California models plus a new session with one of the studio's most popular models:  San Francisco's latest New York transplant:  Bond.  To receive updates through the studio's RSS feed, you can subscribe to the blog using the link on the lower left of this page.

While disappointed that we were not able to schedule more work with Sean, we are pleased with what was captured, which included hundreds and hundreds of images.  

Lacking the chance to shoot more, we spent some extra time with his work post-session.  His stunning images presented the opportunity to flex out wings creatively in the editing process. 

Some of the images in Sean's gallery represent our first efforts at compositing.  That's the combining of multiple images.  In some cases it's adding just a "texture."  In other cases it's a  combining second image or an image and a texture. 

We hope that you have as much fun looking at our first foray into compositing as we had crafting the images.  And if we're lucky, perhaps Sean will return to New York someday and he can be persuaded to come back into the studio.

Ricardo first shot with the studio a year and a half ago when he was 22; at the time a newcomer at modeling and a relative newcomer at body-building. Alex's kid brother had expressed an interest in modeling and the older brother served as a mentor and guide. 

What a difference a year makes!  

Now both brothers are accomplished models and Ricardo was one of six models featured in Gramercy Square, the retrospective of the studio's top models of 2014.  

But that's only half the story.  As Ricardo learned the ropes at modeling, Alex was learning a thing or two from the younger brother about body building.  While Alex was serving as Ricardo's mentor in modeling, Ricardo took on the role of Alex's personal trainer.  

The progress that both men have made in the gym is inspiring.  Today we reveal the new-and-improved Ricardo.  Come back later this summer for an update on our trusty studio hand, Alex, whose work in the gym is equally impressive. 

The photos in the newest gallery for Ricardo were taken late last fall.  (No scolding is necessary.  I know how far behind I can fall on my editing chores and this is probably the worst example so far of letting work from a highly successful photo shoot sit unedited on my PC for waaaay to long.)

The difference in Ricardo's physique from January to November of last year are quite noticeable.  You only need to take a quick glance back at his first session to see the remarkable progress this young man has made in the gym in the past year.

And if you enjoy the before and after series that you see here, we have a treat for you.  Ricardo is coming back into the studio this summer for what will be part of a recurring series of photo sessions documenting this young body-builder's progress in the gym (and his maturation as a model).  If all goes as planned, Ricardo is hoping to shoot with us on a regular basis, allowing us to assemble, over time, a retrospective spanning several years.  (Of course, Ricardo:  The Private Portfolio can't be far behind!)

Stay tuned for more.  Ricardo will be back.  If you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to the blog's RSS feed by clicking on the "subscribe" button on the bottom left of this page.  If you're a fan of Ricardo's, you'll be among the first to hear when the next set of images are posted.  And, of course, you'll be the first to hear about Alex's new gallery, too.

Check out All Things Ricardo for a complete listing of all of Ricardo's published work at New Manhattan Studios.

The talented (and the beautiful) are attracted from all over the world to the wealth of opportunities that New York offers as well as the ultimate challenge:  In one industry after another, succeeding in New York is as hard and as sweet as it gets. 

But it doesn’t take long in this city to discover that the competition is both fierce and numerous.  The eager twenty-somethings quickly learn that being the top of your class, the cheerleader or the heart-throb in the Senior Play or even the prettiest girl in town has little currency in a city where thousands of people have the same credentials (and you run into at least a dozen of them in every casting call and job interview). 

No matter how realistic (or un-) their expectations may have been when arriving in the city, almost every model or actor I’ve met in my scores of years in New York has, within a few months, a day job and a Plan B.  And here’s the gritty reality:  probably less than 1% or 2% of the actors, actresses or models in the city at any point in time are supporting themselves in their chosen career.  

For the rest, the “day jobs” pay the bills while dashing from one casting call to another.  Many of the strivers will find work, but rarely frequently enough to support themselves in their chosen craft.  The sad but true reality is that less than one or two in a hundred will break through the clutter to actually earn a consistent and decent living at their craft.  Fewer still become stars on Broadway, land leading roles in film or television or rocket to fame as a superstar on the runways and fashion houses of Seventh Avenue.  Plan B is the fallback career, the direction you head when you are tired of living on a waiter’s tips and start noticing that most of the kids in your agent’s office are a good deal younger than you.

All of which may sound like a dispiriting set-up for Adoniis.  It is not meant to be.  Not at all.  The preface here is an ode to the many talented individuals that I see each month, each week, Adoniis included.  Most of the models that come into the studio are—indeed—working their craft, throwing themselves into the fray of the competition with 110% of their being.  I have nothing but admiration for their grit, determination and spirit.  Again, Adoniis included.

Adoniis (a stage name) is as talented and attractive as any model to walk into the studio.  He’s eager and bright and very determined.  What impressed me the most, I guess, is his rather uncommon mix of day jobs and future plans.  This dancer/model has supported himself with a traditional mix of day jobs while chasing his dreams and, with an eye to the future, is now in an executive training program with a bank.  Oh, he’s not ready to throw in the towel on modeling, but he has a clear goal for what comes next when the jobs start getting fewer and fewer, as inevitably they must and will.  Perhaps he's such a clear-eyed optimist because New York is his hometown.

We found Adoniis through our work this past winter with a chain of menswear stores in the New York and Washington, DC, area.  The studio supplied models for the store’s winter fashion shows and we met Adoniis at the store.  He quickly agreed to do a portfolio session with us and has already been back for additional work.

Our sessions have run the gamut from our standard portfolio work to some experimental work in a more formal tradition employing compositing and some classic props.  Adoniis had fun at the sessions and it shows.  What I hope shows as well is that we had fun, too, and captured some of our best work of the year with this talented and experienced model and his killer physique.  Clearly Adoniis has been modeling for a while now.  He moves with the grace of the dancer that he is and nails his poses with an expertise born of experience in front of the camera.

Click here to see his gallery at New Manhattan Studios.  And check out the additional work that Adoniis did with the studio for our Fine Art Collection.