Balance & Hold: Steven by Karl Royce

Continuing his goal of celebrating male beauty through art, London artist Karl Royce shares these phenomenal images of model Steven Dicosta. As someone with a weakness for redheads, I had discovered Steven's work on ModelMayhem a few months ago. I was intimately draw to his work. It was not just that incredible hair, Steven has wonderfully warm face and beautiful brown eyes. The London model also has a crazy hot chest and torso and knows to how to use both his face and body in the creation of exceptionally strong imagery.


Karl's focus on celebration certainly applies to this set of images. Many artist work with a model in the creation of a theme or concept, Karl, even when utilizing a concept (the Chair) keeps his focus on his model, bringing out their best and letting them shine. Some of my favorite images of Karl's are his captures of models in front of the plain, yet dramatic black background. Through pose and lighting, Karl always manages to create images that not only high lights, but beautifully exaggerates color and form.


Steven loves shooting artistic images, and I love the artistry of the statuesque poses he created in this series. Through the

poses, flexibility and body movement, Karl captures incredible shots which celebrate and spotlight, Steven's muscle and physique, beautiful skin as well as every freckle and patch of red covering his body. I also love Steven's hand placement and facial expressions. Although totally naked, balancing in positions, many difficult to hold, Steven appears very 'still'. Many of the captures appear to give a nod, paying homage to Rodin's The Thinker and other classic sculptures.


'Steve is the type of model that goes that just that bit little further to try and achieve the artist`s concept. Of Italian decent but he has deep copper hair and the pale alabaster skin associated with his colouring., sprinkled freckles with that just add to his look. A compact but perfectly formed body which maintains with a healthy lifestyle and yoga and he has no attitude is funny and quick witted. A model that I would be happy to book again and again!'