A late summer day in western New England, it was uncommonly sultry and oppressive.  We were wetting down the model not to make him all "hot and sweaty" for the cameras but rather to cool him off. 

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